The Independent View: Court Allows Unlimited Donations to PACs in NYC Mayoral Race

The New York Progress and Protection PAC supporting Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota can now receive donations that exceed the $150,000 limit under New York State law.

A three-judge panel today overturned a lower court’s decision preventing the PAC from receiving contributions that exceed the state’s maximum. As a result, the political action committee can now make unlimited independent expenditures in the mayoral race. By law, PACs can’t coordinate with candidates.

The ruling may improve Lhota’s efforts to close his gap in the polls behind Democratic rival Bill de Blasio, but it’s still a lot of ground to cover in less than two weeks.

“You know, I have nothing to do with that case,” Lhota said. “I have made it a point not to talk about independent expenditures. It’s a violation of law for me to even coordinate with them or do anything with them.”

Previously, Lhota has defended the rights of political action committees to receive unlimited donations, calling it a First Amendment issue.

The panel grounded its ruling on precedent set by the controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which protected donations to PACs as political speech.

“The hardship faced by NYPPP and its donors from the denial of relief is significant,” wrote one of the judges in today’s decision. “Every sum that a donor is forbidden to contribute to NYPPP because of this statute reduces constitutionally protected political speech.”

The panel also threw out the argument laid out in the original decision that the PAC had created an “artificial urgency” in waiting 41 days before the Nov. 5 election day to bring it’s lawsuit. Instead, the appellate judges concluded it’s beyond the court’s power to decide if political speech is pressing or not.

Thanks to new rules put in place for this election, these contributions will be visible to the public. Independent expenditures exceeding state limits must be disclosed to the board within 24 hours of being received by campaigns during the last two weeks of the election.