Cuomo doesn't play by the rules

From Capital New York:

While spending $34.4 million to win re-election this year, Governor Andrew Cuomo apparently ignored a legal requirement to itemize how the advertising firms he retained spent his campaign cash, according to an analysis of his campaign filings and disclosures of payments to television stations submitted to the Federal Communications Commission.

Cuomo's re-election committee and the New York State Democratic Committee paid $26 million over the past two years to AKPD Message and Media, which made a number of large buys of television ads on the campaign’s behalf. The committees also sent almost $10 million combined to three other outside groups: Mission Control Inc., Buying Time LLC, and Red Horse Strategies LLC.

If the recipient of funds from a committee sends a certain amount to a third party—more than $10,000 in a year for parties and statewide candidates and $5,000 for other committees—the committee needs to disclose the ultimate recipient of its money. For example, if a committee pays an advertising firm $20,000 to purchase commercials with one station, it would need to identify on its financial disclosure report that the station was the recipient of the money.

These requirements are detailed in §6200.8 of the executive regulations, are given two pages in the Board of Elections’ Campaign Finance Handbook and were confirmed by a spokesperson for the board.