Campaign Finance Board Finds Insufficient Evidence De Blasio Nonprofit Benefited Campaign

The New York City Campaign Finance Board said Wednesday it had not found sufficient evidence Mayor Bill de Blasio's nonprofit broke campaign finance rules. The Board, however, called on the City Council to adopt legislation surrounding the legality of nonprofits accepting large donations.

The board found that because Campaign for One New York (CONY) raised its funds before 2014, the timing didn't fit the idea that CONY was directly associated with de Blasio's 2017 re-election campaign. It decided that in general, money spent by a nonprofit that is aligned with a politician will be considered election-related only if it is spent after Jan. 1 of an election year.

Want more New York City news? Sign up for Patch’s free daily newsletter and breaking news alerts.

The Board used the issue of CONY to underscore the problem of nonprofits raising a substantial amount of money for elected officials.

"The fundraising conducted by the Campaign for One New York plainly raises serious policy and perception issues and illuminates the ways in which the jurisdiction of the Act is limited," the board said in a statement Wednesday. "More than 95 percent of the funds it received would have been prohibited under the laws that apply to candidates for office — including contributions from corporations, limited liability companies, and people doing business with the city. Most contributions exceeded the limit applicable to candidates, and at least a dozen were as large as $100,000."

The Board called on the City Council to pass a legislation to "close this loophole and amend the law to more closely regulate fundraising by elected officials and their agents for non-profit organizations, especially 5-01(c)(4) entities." That included limits on donations, public transparency and audits. It will continue monitoring whether the transactions of CONY end up benefiting de Blasio's 2017 campaign, it said.

In February, a good government group called Common Cause lodged a formal complaint against CONY, asking for an investigation into whether de Blasio had circumvented campaign laws.

The New York Times reported in April that the Manhattan District Attorney's office was investigating CONY. The Manhattan DA's office declined to comment after the Board meeting Wednesday.

Image by The Office of Public Advocate for the City of New York/Wikimedia Commons/CC by 2.0