During its regularly scheduled meeting, the Board voted to close a complaint against the 2009 mayoral campaign of Michael R. Bloomberg. The complaint concerned payments made by the candidate to the New York State Independence Party (IP).
The Board issued a Final Determination (2012-1) on the matter, which reads, in part:
Pursuant to a complaint received on December 1, 2011 and its own prior inquiry into the matter, the New York City Campaign Finance Board must consider whether the Michael R. Bloomberg 2009 mayoral campaign committed a violation of the Campaign Finance Act or Board Rules by failing to disclose Bloomberg’s $1.2 million payments to the Independence Party of New York State on October 30, 2009 and November 2, 2009.
Disclosure of money raised and spent in City elections is central to the Board’s mandate. The record established during the 2011 criminal trial of John Haggerty, Jr., a Campaign volunteer, makes clear that the Campaign moved deliberately to avoid pre-election public disclosure of the IP payments, in spite of the Board’s clear statement in CFB Final Board Determination No. 2009-1 (pdf) (Oct. 21, 2009) that “political contributions made by Bloomberg with his personal funds to political committees . . . are presumptively campaign expenditures in furtherance of his campaign.”
However, FBD 2009-1 also provides that the Board shall not find violations or assess penalties against candidates who fail to disclose personal contributions to political committees during the 2009 election cycle. Accordingly, while the Campaign’s actions contravened the spirit of disclosure underlying the Act and Board Rules, the Board can find no violation.
The payments in question were made to the Independence Party’s “housekeeping” account. In its Determination, the Board called upon New York State legislators to close the “housekeeping committee” loophole, which provides candidates, corporations, and wealthy individuals with the “freedom under New York State Election Law to make and conceal such payments in the first place.” The Board concluded:
Because they are not, as a matter of law, permitted to support or oppose specific candidates, housekeeping committees are exempt from filing disclosure reports timed to elections, and need only file periodic reports twice per year. In the matter before the Board, it was not until the IP disclosed the payments on January 15, 2010, some ten weeks after polls had closed, that voters were finally afforded a complete financial picture of the 2009 mayoral election.
The full text of the Final Board Determination, which was approved by a vote of 3-1, is available online.
Further details about Board actions from today’s meeting will be provided shortly.