Today, the New York Board of Elections referred possible 2012 campaign finance violations involving three campaign committees and 20 corporate donors to prosecutors.
Their identities will be made public after the entities have been notified, likely in about three weeks, according to Board Co-Chair Douglas Kellner.
The three campaign committees referred for potential prosecution all allegedly received too much in contributions and the corporations cited allegedly gave more than the $5,000 limit.
Kellner said the slate referred to the DA made an improvement over past referrals by culling out charges that were outside the two-year statute of limitations for such violations. The board’s criticism of what was characterized as DAs’ failure to take up its referrals prompted a scathing response from Albany County DA David Soares.
But the real issue is the two-year statute of limitations. The current statue begins after the election. But the board's department that does the review, only 4 members, has to wait until all the campaigns file the end-of-campaign reports that can take 6 months or longer.
So many possible violators get a pass because their notice comes after the two year limitation statue.
The statue needs to be changed to begin after the filing period.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us 
No comments:
Post a Comment