For all her vows of a “new era of transparency,” Gov. Kathy Hochul’s dark-money shenanigans are positively Cuomo-esque.
A refresher: Running for gov in 2010, Andrew Cuomo promised to end a New York legal loophole that lets dark money — unregulated, anonymous donations — pour into campaigns via limited-liability corporations (or LLCs) by setting a sky-high cap on giving such donations, letting their owners stay anonymous and not counting those donations toward the limit on personal contributions from the owners.
He didn’t end it, instead becoming one of the loophole’s biggest beneficiaries and taking in at least $6.2 million via LLCs from 2010 to 2014.
And now Hochul’s campaign has hoovered up a record $22 million (another Cuomo-esque figure) so far, with some 170 donations in 2021 coming from LLCs, according to reporting from New York Focus.
One new wrinkle: a 2019 law saying any LLC cash must now be attributed to its owners. So, if John Smith owns half of Amalgamated Realty LLC, and Amalgamated gives $1,000 to Hochul’s campaign, it counts as a $500 contribution from Smith.
Yet Hochul is by and large not filing the records the law demands. The dark money she’s received, more than any other New York candidate, is just that: dark.
The vast majority of LLC donations to her campaign — around 130 — lack the required attribution or even a mention of the LLC owners’ names. More than 140 such donations came from LLCs that themselves haven’t disclosed ownership to the Board of Elections.
This violates both the letter and the spirit of the 2019 law, which only has its intended effect if the reporting rules are followed. And Hochul’s not following them.
She’s not alone in this. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Senate Minority Leader Robert Oort, and gov candidate Jumaane Williams have all tiptoed around the reporting rules.
But with Hochul, history is repeating itself: A governor comes in promising to shake up the cozy, corrupt traditions of Albany and ends up embracing them. Except she’s actively skirting a law; Cuomo was just a hypocrite.
The gov should hand over her receipts, stat. If she can’t follow this law (her other Democratic challenger, Tom Suozzi, has largely followed it), she shouldn’t be running the state.
New York doesn’t need another governor mired in scandal.