The Campaign for One New York has received six-figure donations, including $350,000 from the American Federation of Teachers and $100,000 from Two Trees Management, a developer that does business with the city. The mayor’s groups, by contrast, operate as nonprofits, while supporting his political goals, and are free to raise unlimited amounts from corporations and individuals. New York City’s campaign finance laws strictly limit donations to candidates by individuals doing business with the city and ban donations from corporations. While the boards must consider complaints, they are not required to respond to the letter or issue rulings. In a five-page letter sent on Monday, the government watchdog group, Common Cause New York, requested that the city’s Campaign Finance Board and its Conflicts of Interest Board look into the mayor’s actions and those of the groups, which, Common Cause asserts, run afoul of broadly worded sections of the city charter and of campaign finance law, “as well as the spirit” of those regulations. The most prominent of the groups is Campaign for One New York, which has hired the mayor’s top outside political consultants and, as a nonprofit, has raised money for his political agenda outside the city’s limits on campaign donations. They have since advocated for his policies, beginning with the push for universal prekindergarten and, now, the battle over rezoning and affordable housing.
The move is the latest salvo in two years of public complaints by good government advocates over the groups, run by close allies of the mayor, that grew out of Mr. A government watchdog group filed a formal complaint with New York City officials on Monday against Mayor Bill de Blasio and the outside political groups tied to him, requesting an investigation into whether their fund-raising and spending violated the law.
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