Latest news with #CFB
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Longshot NYC mayoral candidate Michael Blake gets $2 million in matching funds on eve of primary
NEW YORK — Mayoral candidate Michael Blake has secured $2 million in public matching funds approved by the city's Campaign Finance Board — a significant but belated cash infusion for the longshot campaign. With just five days left in the primary race, the new cash influx likely comes too late for Blake, a former Bronx assemblyman, to mount a competitive campaign or significantly raise his profile. But Blake said the new funds mean his 'name will resonate across the city over the final five days' and mentioned get out the vote efforts and field operations targeting undecided voters. He declined to give specifics. 'We have days to close the deal,' Blake told the Daily News. 'Now we can make it clear to voters — you still have a choice. Especially to Black and brown voters, Michael Blake is a choice for you.' The decision comes after the Democrat sued the CFB for its refusal to allow him to participate in the second and final mayoral debate last week. The board in late May ruled that Blake would not be participating in the debate because he hadn't met the fundraising threshold to qualify for it, and a Manhattan Supreme Court justice backed up their decision. Blake's campaign argued in their suit that he had, in fact, met that threshold, and that the CFB's system errors mistakenly made it seem that he hadn't. The candidate garnered some attention with a lively performance at the first debate at the start of June, and climbed onto some endorsement slates after State Sen. Jessica Ramos, another mayoral candidate all but removed herself from consideration when she endorsed Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He also cross-endorsed Zohran Mamdani earlier this week as part of a broader attempt to block Cuomo from the mayoralty. Blake received 2% of the vote in a recent Marist poll.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Longshot NYC mayoral candidate Michael Blake gets $2m in matching funds on eve of primary
Mayoral candidate Michael Blake has secured $2 million in public matching funds approved by the city's Campaign Finance Board — a significant but belated cash infusion for the longshot campaign. With just five days left in the primary race, the new cash influx infusion likely comes too late for Blake, a former Bronx assemblyman, to mount a competitive campaign or significantly raise his profile. The decision comes after the Democrat sued the CFB for its refusal to allow him to participate in the second and final mayoral debate last week. The board in late May ruled that Blake would not be participating in the debate because he hadn't met the fundraising threshold to qualify for it, and a Manhattan Supreme Court justice backed up their decision. Blake's campaign argued in their suit that he had, in fact, met that threshold, and that the CFB's system errors mistakenly made it seem that he hadn't. The candidate garnered some attention with a lively performance at the first debate at the start of June, and climbed onto some endorsement slates after State Sen. Jessica Ramos, another mayoral candidate all but removed herself from consideration when she endorsed Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He also cross-endorsed Zohran Mamdani earlier this week as part of a braoder attempt to block Cuomo from the mayoralty. Blake received 2% of the vote in a recent Marist poll. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
New York Post
09-06-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Long-shot NYC mayoral candidate sues to get onto final debate stage, claims donors ‘illegally' rejected
Mayoral long-shot candidate Michael Blake is suing the city's powerful campaign finance agency in a last-ditch bid to be allowed onto the Democratic primary debate stage later this week. Blake — arguably the breakout star of last week's first debate — claims the Campaign Finance Board nixed hundreds of valid donations that would have made him eligible for the forum hosted by Spectrum on Thursday night. 'The CFB has acted arbitrarily, capriciously, illegally, and unconstitutionally in doing so,' claims Blake's Manhattan Supreme Court suit. The CFB's 'antiquated' database wrongly rejected nearly 200 donations to Blake's campaign, including one by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, according to the lawsuit, filed Sunday. The contributions would have made Blake eligible for the city's generous eight-to-one public matching funds program, a threshold for entry into the second and final debate, the suit states. 5 Michael Blake is suing after he said he was 'illegally' booted from the second debate. Pool/ABACA/Shutterstock The former Bronx Assemblyman, during last Wednesday's NBC 4 New York-Politico debate, referenced the fact that he'd been barred from participating in the next forum when asked about his biggest political regret. 'The campaign finance board did not want to meet with us, they said go to court and that's what we are doing,' Blake, an associate pastor at a South Bronx church and former Obama White House aide, told The Post on Monday. 'It is the CFB who made the error and they still have time to fix it. All we are asking for is we deserve to be on the stage Thursday night, we deserve to get matching funds.' The Blake donors were 'arbitrarily' disqualified due to address verification issues, including Williams — himself a candidate currently participating in the CFB matching funds program, the suit alleges. Williams' $250 donation was rejected in the audit 'solely because his apartment was not included,' a field not required by the Campaign Finance Law, the suit claims. 5 Blake, considered a 'breakout' star at last week's debate, says the Campaign Finance Board messed up, and he has actually met the threshold to be on stage at the second and final mayoral debate. AP 5 Public Advocate Jumaane Williams's $250 donation to Blake was nixed by the CFB because it claimed he entered 'a non-residental address.' Stephen Yang 'This audit arbitrarily preliminarily disqualified numerous contributions,' the suit reads, adding that the 'vast majority of such failures are due to the inflexibility of CFB's database fields.' 'The sole reason given by the CFB in denying Michael Blake participation is their conclusory and inaccurate contention that the Blake Campaign did not meet their eligibility threshold based upon matchable dollars raised to date,' the suit claims. 5 'It's surreal,' Blake told The Post on Monday. 'The egregiousness of these errors and the ramifications. Christopher Sadowski Blake, who is polling at 1.5%, is asking for a judge to force the CFB to include him in the debate. The board is required to host primary debates for citywide office elections, under the Campaign Finance Act, but is given broad discretion over who will be on the dais. Candidates either need to raise and spend nearly $2.4 million or pull in more than $250,000 in public matching funds to participate in the second debate. The threshold for the first debate was lower, with only $200,000 needed to be raised and spent to get on Blake sent in his May 19 contribution disclosure, the board at first seemed primed to give out matching funds, even asking for updated bank information. 5 Michael Blake was a former Obama aide and Bronx Assemblyman. James Messerschmidt But the CFB later sent the 'audit letter' claiming he was 78 donors short and included two conflicting contribution dollar totals, according to the suit. The suit also says the CFB was using an arbitrary deadline for when the contribution threshold could be met. 'They are just making up a rule,' Blake said. 'It's surreal. The egregiousness of these errors and the ramifications.'
New York Post
02-06-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Campaign Finance Board's voter-guide fiasco errors are no laughing matter
A near-$7 million bungle by the city Campaign Finance Board is fresh sign that an outfit with huge power over city elections is in dire need of overhaul — if not elimination. The CFB's voter-outreach arm, NYC Votes, last month spent $6.85 million of taxpayer money mailing 3.5 million 'voter information' guides that were riddled with huge errors, from listing Mayor Eric Adams and four other non-candidates as on the ballot in the Democratic primary to falsely 'informing' the public about a Republican primary that doesn't exist. It also left out two entire City Council races. 'It's an interesting error from a system that demands absolute perfection from candidates, where a one letter typo can cost a campaign tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees or even removal from the ballot entirely,' fumed Corinne Fisher to PoliticoNY; she's one of the candidates the guide falsely lists as on the ballot. NYC Votes also managed to advertise the wrong date for the primary during at least four games at CitiField, Gothamist discovered. Maybe they think Mets fans shouldn't vote? Or maybe the CFB should adopt a slogan from Casey Stengel's verdict on the Amazins: 'Can't anybody here play this game?' The board says it'll mail out new guides with the correct info to all 3 million potential Democratic primary voters; we guess it won't worry about Republicans who rely on its bad info and head to the polls for a fictional race. All this would be easier to laugh at if the Campaign Finance Board didn't have such vast and unaccountable power over city campaigns. On Friday, it airily slammed the Andrew Cuomo campaign with a $675,000 penalty because it disapproves of the Cuomo website, following a $622,000 fine two weeks before over the same issue — namely, how an independent pro-Cuomo superPAC can use the site to figure out his chief issues. And of course the board has summarily refused to allow the mayor any matching funds at all, crippling his re-election campaign over federal charges that have now been permanently deep-sixed. Reminder: Back 2013, the CFB all but anointed Bill de Blasio the next mayor by denying funds to his most-similar competitor, John Liu. And in 2001, it imperiously declared that there would be no additional campaigning in the primary elections after they had to be rescheduled when the planes hit the towers on the original Primary Day — a completely arbitrary decision that was conceivably key to Mike Bloomberg's victory that November. If you're keeping score, that's two mayors out of the last three who arguably won thanks to this elected board whose decisions can at best be contested in court cases that won't be settled until long after any given Election Day — and it has already played a huge role in this year's contest, too. Yet it can't even produce a reliable voters' guide: Surely, the Charter Reform Commission should be at least looking at some proposal to oversee or eliminate the CFB and the entire corrupt 'public campaign finance' system? For the record: Primary Day is June 24, even for Mets fans.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NYC Campaign Finance Board withholds $1.3 million in matching funds from Cuomo, awards Adrienne Adams $2 million
NEW YORK — New York City's Campaign Finance Board dealt a blow to mayoral frontrunner Andrew Cuomo on Friday, withholding $1.3 million in matching funds from him — but gave a big lifeline to his opponent Adrienne Adams, clearing her for $2.4 million in critical public cash as the Democratic mayoral primary election looms weeks away. Adams, the City Council's speaker and a moderate Democrat with appeal among Black, outer-borough voters, is seen as having the potential to chip away at some of Cuomo's base, especially as her standing in the polls has increased lately. The infusion of matching funds, her first this election cycle, allows her to start spending heavily on things like campaign ads in the final weeks before the June 24 primary. 'With these funds, the campaign anticipates an aggressive, on-the-ground and over-the-airwaves blitz in the final stretch as momentum continues to build for Adrienne's effective leadership,' Adrienne Adams campaign spokeswoman Lupe Topp-Medina said. After voting to award the speaker $2.4 million in matching funds, the board members revealed they will withhold another $675,419 in public cash from Cuomo due to their suspicion that his campaign improperly coordinated with Fix the City, a super PAC boosting his run, on a television ad it aired earlier this month. That comes on top of more than $620,000 it earlier this month denied Cuomo for the same reason, meaning he's now being deprived of nearly $1.3 million in public money. 'The board continued an investigation into this matter, and based on the findings of this investigations thus far, continues to find reason that the expenditure was not independent,' board member Richard Davis said of the ad. Still, the CFB also voted to approve a fresh infusion of $1.76 million for Cuomo's campaign. The $1.3 million he's being denied corresponds to how much money Fix the City spent on the ad found to be the product of improper coordination between the campaign and the PAC. Earlier this month, the board gave Cuomo another $1.5 million in matching cash, meaning he has now raked in more than $3 million on top of the $3.9 million he has raised in private cash. That puts him close to the $7.9 million spending cap on the primary. The board's decision to give Speaker Adams matching funds could not have come at a more critical time for her campaign. While Adams' 11th hour mayoral bid has gained some momentum, with endorsements from Attorney General Leticia James and powerful municipal workers union DC37, she was denied matching funds at the board meeting earlier this month for not yet reaching the threshold, making it difficult to get the campaign fully up and running. Whether or not the speaker received matching funds was a key question heading into Friday's board meeting. If she didn't qualify Friday, she would not have gotten another shot until June 20, just four days before the primary. The paperwork she submitted in the previous filing period to the CFB was riddled with errors, with about 70% of the claims the speaker submitted rejected as 'invalid' because of paperwork snafus. Her team said this week they were confident she'd receive the money after raising nearly $400,000 in the latest fundraising period. Without the matching funds, Adams has so far been unable to significantly ramp up her campaign with TV ads. Spokespeople for Cuomo did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The matching funds program is designed to put more weight on local campaign contributions by giving an 8-to-1 match for donations of up to $250 from city residents. Mayor Eric Adams sued the CFB on Tuesday for repeatedly denying him matching funds for his re-election bid in part because of concerns about his federal corruption indictment on campaign finance fraud charges. Adams, who has dropped out of the Democratic primary and is instead seeking reelection as an independent in November's general election, said in the suit those denials are in part the reason he's not running in the Democratic primary.
