In 2021, her campaign received roughly 170 donations from LLCs, ranging from $50 to $5,000, according to her public campaign finance report filed last month. Hochul has received more dark money from LLCs than any other politician in the state. “I don’t think it would have dawned on either one of us that we should have told them that people were required to file these statements of identity in order to make contributions, and that the BOE would somehow think they didn’t have to enforce it.” Cutting Corners
Simon said she was dismayed to learn the law hasn’t been enforced by the Board of Elections. “We wanted to know who’s behind these LLCs,” said Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon (D-Brooklyn), a lead sponsor of the 2019 law. In nine out of 10 cases in 2021, that didn’t happen either, according to records obtained through a public records request by the nonprofit government watchdog Public Accountability Initiative and provided to New York Focus.īoth of these changes were intended to peel back the curtain on the role of corporate money in New York politics, says an author of the reforms. The reform law also requires that LLCs that make political contributions submit a form to the Board of Elections detailing the same information - the names of their owners and each one’s ownership stake in the LLC. Widespread past funneling of massive anonymous donations through multiple companies helped build momentum for reform. The donations count towards an individual’s legal contribution limit for the year, a rule meant to prevent individuals from using LLCs as an end run around per person contribution caps. The 2019 law mandates that candidates for office record the owners of all limited liability companies, or LLCs, that contribute to their campaigns, and attribute the contributions to those owners in proportion to how much of the LLC each one owns. This Thursday, Hochul will host a private fundraiser in New York City with attendance costing as much as $42,500 a head. The disclosure requirements have been breached by both Republican and Democratic candidates, including New York’s most prolific fundraiser in 2021 - Gov. The state Board of Elections has failed to enforce a 2019 law requiring campaigns to disclose the identities of the individuals behind certain corporate donations, while campaigns across the state have flouted the law with impunity, an analysis by New York Focus found.
This article was published in partnership with THE CITY.
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