When he ran for office four years ago, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo pledged to close a loophole in the state’s campaign finance regulations allowing corporations and individuals to pour unlimited amounts of money into politics.
Instead, he’s become the loophole’s biggest beneficiary.
New York State forbids corporations from giving more than $5,000 a year to candidates and political committees. But limited liability companies—businesses that share attributes of corporations and partnerships—are allowed to give up to $60,800 to a statewide candidate per election cycle and up to $150,000 a year to candidates and committees overall. What’s more, corporations and individuals can set up an unlimited number of LLCs through which to donate, making the caps effectively meaningless.Cuomo took contributions from LLCs while running for governor in 2010, but said at the time that he was only accepting them so that he could get elected and change the law. He has twice proposed legislation that would eliminate the LLC exception, most recently in his budget proposal in January, but it hasn’t been enacted. He told reporters Wednesday that there was little chance any campaign finance reforms would pass before the legislative session ends next week.
Cuomo has accepted more than $6.2 million from LLCs in the three and a half years since he took office, according to a ProPublica analysis of state campaign finance filings. That’s more than double the amount his two predecessors, Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson, took in during their combined four years in office. The contributions make up a sizeable chunk of the $33 million Cuomo has reported raising for his re-election campaign. (The data reflects contributions reported through mid-January, when candidates last filed disclosure reports.)