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As Saturday's elections draw closer, the race for Austin mayor has taken a controversial turn -- with accusations that one of the candidates has broken campaign finance laws.

At issue is whether Brewster McCracken has broken campaign finance laws by collecting more money in out-of-town donations than allowed. McCracken says his additional $8,000 in out-of-town donations is in anticipation of a runoff election. His opponents make this analogy -- you don't break the glass of a fire alarm in anticipation of a fire, you break the glass in case of fire. In short, you don't get to collect runoff funds until there's a runoff.

Television ads for McCracken focus on making Austin stronger -- but Monday -- two of his opponents were focusing on McCracken making himself financially stronger than campaign laws allow.

"No one is above the law," said Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Austin mayoral candidate.

"This is an unprecedented and eyebrow raising interpretation of the city charter to say the least," said Mark Nathan, a consultant for the Lee Leffingwell mayoral campaign.

Both the Leffingwell and Strayhorn camps say McCracken has broken a campaign finance law by taking in more than $33,000s from out-of-town donors before the general election. McCracken's camp contends the extra money will only be used in the event of a runoff election.

"There's two entirely different elections. You have the election right now that we're in and the laws are very clear of what you can and cannot do. He wrote the law," Strayhorn said.

McCracken did not go on camera to rebut the allegations, but his director of communication, Colin Rowan did issue this statement: "This is a classic last minute political stunt by desperate campaigns. Leffingwell and Strayhorn are now sharing the same dirty politics playbook."

"If the McCracken campaign doesn't want to talk about campaign finance violations they shouldn't commit them," Nathan said.

Leffingwell spent part of his afternoon filing a complaint against McCracken in municipal court. He also rebutted the McCracken camps dismissal the complaint is a campaign stunt.

"It has nothing to do with whether you're ahead or behind it has to do with following the law," said Leffingwell.

"The worst political stunt of all is to not tell the people of Austin the truth," Strayhorn said.

The Leffingwell and Strayhorn camps say McCracken has surpassed the $33,000 general election limit by some $8,000. Fifty of those out-of-town donations came after the general election limit was reached.

If the municipal court finds him in violation -- each donation could cost McCracken $500, totaling more than $24,000 in fines.