The New York State Senate minority on Monday pushed for legislative action on a bill that would close the loophole that allows limited liability companies to donate as if they were individual entities and not tentacles of larger business concerns, thereby multiplying the force of deep-pocketed political donors’ dollars.
Sen. Daniel Squadron’s bill, backed in the Assembly by Brian Kavanagh, would treat LLCs like corporations or other joint-stock entities for the purposes of campaign limits. “The reality is that it seems like almost every day new allegations of corruption and abuse of the public trust are leveled at state government,” said Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, “and yet today once again the Senate Republicans continue to refuse to take significant action.”
She was backed by a crowd of her fellow lawmakers and good-government advocates, including several who made the scene last week when the state Board of Elections deadlocked on a proposal to revisit its 1996 ruling that created the loophole. “The idea that you should have unlimited sums of money with anonymous sources flooding the political system is something that no one is willing to defend in the light of day,” said Squadron, who used one of his three motions for committee consideration to move the bill along. ” This is a problem that shouldn’t exist with a solution that we all understand that’s being blocked in a partisan effort to allow unlimited shadowy political contribution to pervert our entire political process in state government.”
Roughly an hour after the Democrats’ press conference, the Elections Committee met and approved the bill, moving it to Corporations for further consideration. Sen. Leroy Comrie, the ranking Democrat on the committee, was the only committee member of his conference present, though his colleagues Martin Dilan and Liz Krueger voted ahead of time.
In a sign of the vibrancy of the current legislative committee system, it was the first time the committee had met this session. In the corridor outside, Squadron explained that Senate rules, “Ready to go down a deep rabbit hole?”, required that the second committee consider the bill within its next two meetings. “Any attempt to undermine that would be clear that this was a way to quietly kill transparency and avoid accountability for it,” Squadron said.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo included LLC loophole closure in his executive budget proposal, but did not make it one of his five must-have ethics fixes in the final fiscal plan. The governor’s campaign is the state’s most successful recipient of LLC dollars.
“The governor supports and will continue to fight for closing the LLC loophole,” said his spokesman Rich Azzoopardi. “Today’s passage of legislation out the Senate Elections Committee that would accomplish this goal is a positive development and one that we hope ends with an actual vote and passage from the full Senate.”
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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