CFB PAC Investigation of the 2013 Election

Unions Protecting Their PACs? Attack CFB Head Rose Gil Hearn

The Daily News writes that in disqualifying Jon Liu from receiving taxpayer subsidies for his mayoral campaign, the Campaign Finance Board distorted election results for no valid reason, and Liu’s court fight will surely get him fairer treatment from a federal judge:

Campaign Finance Board leadership questioned(AMNY) On Dec. 30, 2013, the day before he left office, Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- who in three elections opted out of any limits and set spending records -- appointed his departing investigation commissioner, Rose Gill Hearn, to a five-year term as the board's chairwoman. Two weeks earlier, Bloomberg, in a speech, decried a "labor-electoral complex that has traditionally stymied reform." Hearn, meanwhile, works for the ex-mayor's Bloomberg Associates. This has union-allied activists privately expressing concern that the board of three mayoral and two City Council appointees may follow an agenda specifically targeting labor. Last week, John Liu, the ex-city comptroller, and lawyer Richard Emery sued Hearn, the board and the city in federal court. While running for mayor last year, Liu saw a campaign aide convicted, along with a former campaign contributor, on criminal charges related to a "straw donor" scheme to fund his campaign.

Consultant Firm Pushes Back Against Effort To Reveal Common Sense Super PAC Donors(YNN)

The Moreland Commission on Public Corruption last year sent a subpoena to the firm Strategic Advantage International, a vendor for the group Common Sense Principles, in order to gain more information on who funded the group’s efforts during the 2012 campaign cycle on behalf of Senate Republicans.* A national progressive “super PAC” pushing for a Senate vote on public campaign financing warns that if the GOP resists, it will run ads in GOP Leader Dean Skelos’ Nassau backyard.

Bloomberg, in Final Mayoral Days, Appoints New Head of Campaign Finance Board(NYT) Rose Gill Hearn, the commissioner of the Department of Investigation throughout Mr. Bloomberg’s mayoralty, will lead the Campaign Finance Board for a five-year term, through the end of 2018. 

 

Anti-Quinn PAC Fined, What About The Advance Investigation?

Anti-Quinn Group Fined $7,050 by City's Campaign Finance Board(NYDN)The independently-financed group that helped end former Council Speaker Christine Quinn's mayoral ambitions was fined $7,050 by the Campaign Finance Board Thursday morning for failing to report $70,000 in expenditures.
Most of the unreported expenses paid by NYC Is Not For Sale 2013 were towards phone-banking during the summer. Another $5,000 that the group spent, but failed to report as required, went to a newspaper ad.

NYP Says CFB Should Not Control Outcome of Elections

Liu-dicrous precedent(NYP Ed)  As for John Liu, we’d never want him as New York’s mayor. But we’d rather that decision be left entirely to the voters instead of leaving it to some unelected board to make a life-and-death decision about his funding.