Is it appropriate for a mayor — especially a mayor in a city with
strict gift rules and a public campaign financing program that has
strict campaign contribution limits — to work with an organization
that lobbies the state on behalf of his policies and sponsors ads
and materials that support his views and, especially, celebrate his
successes?
This is the situation in New York City, where Bill de Blasio, in his
first year in office, is being celebrated by an entity called
Campaign for One New York (CONY), which announced yesterday its
expenditures and contributors (in keeping with de Blasio's support
of transparency, it went well beyond the requirement of disclosing
contributors of over $5,000).
I would like to focus on two of the problems with CONY. One is that
it is a way for those seeking special benefits from the city
government to get around campaign finance and gift limitations (and
for the mayor to engage in pay to play). As Dick Dadey, the director
of Citizens Union, is quoted as saying
in
today's New York Daily
News , “It’s a brand-new way of currying favor with the
mayor. It’s legal, but it’s unseemly
.” It is similar to a
favored mayoral charity (see
the
section of my book Local Government Ethics Programs on
pet charities).
Large contributions to CONY were made not only by those who support
pre-K education, which has been CONY's focus so far (and the mayor's,
policywise). They were also made by developers, unions, and taxi
companies.
The second problem is expenditures to celebrate the
realization of the mayor's pre-K policy. This makes CONY less a supporter of the mayor's
policies and more a supporter of the mayor. Combined with the fact
(according to
an
article in today's New York Times ) that the mayor and
his wife have been deeply involved with CONY — half of CONY's
expenditures have been spent on a celebratory television ad
featuring de Blasio's wife — the appearance is of the mayor getting
around laws to create a permanent campaign for his re-election. No
amount of disclosure can cure this appearance.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research, City Ethics
203-230-2548
