The flaw in the matching funds law

Queens Eagle 

After taking in more than $134,000 in public matching funds, Moumita Ahmed received about 15 percent of the vote and finished a distant second in a February special election for Council District 24. Earlier this month, she received another $52,569 in taxpayer cash as she runs in the June primary. 

In the process, Ahmed’s campaign has emerged as something of an avatar for opposition to the city’s current public matching funds system, which has so far poured $26,657,242 into candidates’ campaign accounts, with primary day still two months away.

“We really need to reevaluate the prudence of spending public funds at these rates for what I believe are vanity projects,” said political strategist Patrick Jenkins.

Jenkins specifically questioned candidates who receive matching funds and spend a significant amount of money on out-of-state consultants. Ahmed, for example, paid a South Carolina-based consulting firm more than $95,000 leading up to the special.

“There should be some kinds of procurement rules,” Jenkins said.

This year’s council candidates are eligible for matching funds if they receive 75 contributions of between $10 and $1,000 from people who live in the districts they hope to represent. The first $175 of those qualifying contributions are eligible for an eight-to-one match, meaning a $10 contribution from a would-be constituent is worth $90. 

The program is intended to incentivize small-dollar contributions from everyday New Yorkers, rather than the wealthy or influential special interests.

But critics say some candidates are exploiting the program to raise their own profiles in quixotic quests for public office.

“For $52,569 this city can pay for a voucher to house a family of four for two years, Instead it’s doling out matching funds to candidates who get more Twitter likes then votes and claim there’s a conspiracy to stop them,” tweeted Jay Martin, executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program after Ahmed shared news about her latest matching funds haul.

NY Post 

Candidate Shaun Donovan’s long-shot bid to replace Mayor Bill de Blasio next year got a financial shot in the arm Thursday when the Campaign Finance Board voted to award nearly $1.5 million in public matching funds after receiving sworn statements that a super PAC bankrolled by his dad was not coordinating with his campaign.

Last week, the CFB withheld matching funds to Donovan after saying it was investigating the relationship between the campaign and an independent group seeking to boost the former Bloomberg and Obama insider’s flagging bid for City Hall.

Campaigns are barred from coordinating with outside groups.

Donovan’s father, Michael Donovan, donated $2 million to the pro-Donovan New Start NYC Super Pac.

Donovan served as housing director to former Mayor Mike Bloomberg and later served in the Obama Administration, first as housing secretary and then as budget director.

The CFB said Thursday it had received sworn affidavits from both Shaun and Michael Donovan assuring that there was no coordination between the campaign and the independent expenditure group, which is nearly entirely bankrolled by the candidate’s dad to aid his campaign.

“After reviewing additional information, including statements from Shaun and Michael Donovan, the Board voted to approve a public funds payment to the New Yorkers for Donovan campaign today. The campaign will be subject to an ongoing, post-election audit, just like all campaigns in this election,”. said CFB chairman Frederick Schaffer.

 This is total chaos. It's asinine that this money is being used during a pandemic.

Shaun Donavan's campaign gets another million dollar allowance from his daddy

 

NY Post

 Daddy Ad-warbucks!

An independent group seeking to boost former Bloomberg and Obama insider Shaun Donovan’s flagging bid to become the next mayor of New York City has gotten $2 million so far from the candidate’s father, filings with the state Board of Elections show.

His father, Michael Donovan, made his most recent $1 million donation on March 30, according to the records. It comes roughly a month after he gave the independent group his first $1 million, on Feb. 23.

The committee, known as New Start NYC, has received just four contributions so far — and donations from Donovan’s father account for all but $30,000 of the money it has raised so far.

Donovan served as President Obama’s budget director and as a top official to then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, working as the commissioner overseeing the Department of Housing and Preservation. 

 However, his campaign — centered on those technocratic credentials — has struggled to gain traction with polls repeatedly showing him stuck in the second tier of candidates and usually inside of the margin of error.

 Pathetic.

 

Shaun Donavan needs his daddy to make him mayor

 

 New York Times

With New York City’s mayoral primary a little more than three months away and a deadline to qualify for the city’s generous matching-funds program having just passed, pleas for donations have been in overdrive in recent days.

But in the background, another spigot of money has quietly opened for two Democratic mayoral candidates who are trailing in early polls: Raymond J. McGuire and Shaun Donovan.

An independent expenditure committee for Mr. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, has garnered more than $3 million since Feb. 1, with more than 70 donations from business magnates, including Kenneth Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot; the art world philanthropist Agnes Gund; and the real estate developer Aby J. Rosen.

A new super PAC for Mr. Donovan, a former cabinet member in the Obama administration, in contrast, has drawn $1.02 million from just two donors — the primary benefactor being his father, Michael Donovan, an executive in the ad tech industry who donated $1 million.

In an interview, Mr. Donovan, the candidate’s father, said he was trying to “level the playing field,” particularly since some candidates began raising money before they even declared they were running for mayor.

“I can’t give very much to Shaun directly, and seeing the amount of money McGuire had raised and all these other people, I felt he needed enough to go out and compete and get the message across,” Mr. Donovan said.

 Impunity City

In other words, Shaun Donavon, a man who recently turned 55 years old and worked for Mayor Mike Bloomberg and President Obama, saw his current predicament in the mayor’s race and said:

“DADDY I WANNA BE MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY RIGHT NOW!!!!” 

“GIMME A MILLION DOLLAAAARRRSSS!!!”

It’s not even worth going into why he’s running and why he’ll be a shit mayor just like the current shit mayor who’s been stinking up city hall for 7.3 years, but to summarize Shaunny will not to do a thing to improve the housing crisis and the continuing demolition by neglect of public housing in the five boroughs considering they never improved in his time running city housing in New York and Housing and Urban Development in the White House.