CFB

Mathieu Eugene won the first election for the City Council's 40th District, but in the fund-raising for the rematch this April, he's trailing. Here are the contributions each candidate raised so far, according to the city's Campaign Finance Board:

$5,250-Mathieu Eugene $6,603-Harry Schiffman $1.073-Marie Gina Faustin $0- Wellington Sharpe

Also worth noting is the fact that Schiffman is participating in the matching funds program and Eugene isn't.

So far, Eugene spent $1,600, more than anybody so far. The money went towards paying rent at his campaign headquarters, and to Una Clarke, a consultant whose advice he's apparently taking with a grain of salt.

UPDATE: Wellington Sharpe raised $17,777 according to updated figures from the CFB. -- Azi Paybarah

As if the City Council race in Brooklyn wasn't interesting enough.

As a reader points out to me, there's a newcomer to the race for the City Council seat in Brooklyn's 40th District, which remains vacant after an initial special election because the winner, Mathieu Eugene, was unable to prove that he met residency requirements to take office.

The new candidate, Marie Gina Faustin, just filed paperwork with the city's Campaign Finance Board showing the campaign's contact info in...Cambria Heights, Queens. There's no phone number and messages left at the City's Board of Elections (where addresses for voters and candidates are listed) were not immediately returned.

More information should come out tomorrow when candidates file petitions to qualify for the ballot.

Aslo, there's this:

According to CFB's database, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes made a personal contribution -- his first ever -- to a candidate in that earlier race: Mathieu Eugene.

-- Azi Paybarah

With much less chatter and attention than some other citywide elected officials, Queens Councilman John Liu has raised $1,002,771 for an undetermined race, according to recent figures filed with the city's Campaign Finance Board.

Liu seems to have capitalized to spectacular effect on his status as the first Asian-American elected to the council, drawing heavily from Asian-American New Yorkers for his total.

Other notable filings include Councilman David Weprin's $817,136 for the city comptroller's race, Councilman Eric Gioia's $726,618 for an undisclosed race, and Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum's $163,965.

UPDATE: The CFB updated some paperwork which puts Weprin's contributions now at $978,011.

-- Azi Paybarah

Someone who read the 186-page indictment [pdf] of Brian McLaughlin points out that at least two City Council candidates benefited from one of McLaughlin's schemes:

McLaughlin described a plan to use $2,000 from the SLA account to compensate J Division members who would make $250 contributions, in the names of their wives, to the political campaigns of two candidates who were running for election to the New York City Council.

A spokeswoman for the City's Campaign Finance Board, Kate Schachern, emailed to say, "The CFB does not comment on criminal investigations."

Also, don't spend too much time fretting about the staffers McLaughlin fired and replaced with union buddies in exchange for a cut of their salary. Both are still employed.

Farouk Samaroo—who got a raise two days before McLaughlin fired him—worked on Shirley Huntley's successful state senate campaign. The other, Jeffrey Gotlieb, is now working with City Councilman Joseph Addabbo, chairman of the Labor Committee.

—Azi Paybarah

People who care about campaign finance law, one way or the other, should keep an eye about City Councilwoman Annabel Palma's case against the Campaign Finance Board.

Palma, a former staffer for Local 1199, won a Bronx Council seat. Her campaign drew a huge wave of 1199 members and staffers, as volunteers, to the Bronx on election day. If you were there, the (in layman's, not legal terms) central role of 1199 was undeniable.

Now the city Campaign Finance Board has recommended more than $100,000 in fines against Palma (though it as not yet, as I mistakenly reported this week, levied the fine) for illegally coordinating her campaign with the union.

This CFB filing has a long list of her alleged sins, charging that her use of 1199 as both a vendor and a supporter violates the rules; that she and 1199 coordinated on specific pieces of literature and used the same photograph; and that contributions from "affiliated" SEIU unions to her campaign violated 1199's limit.

Palma, meanwhile, is not only denying the charges. She's also objecting to the role of Board lawyers as investigators, snooping in her campaign office on election day.  read more »

Most important, she's challenging the constitutionality of the Board's attempt to regulate "coordination" and its judgement that unions are "affiliated." Arguing that the rules are unconstitutionally vague, she sued the board in state court, and got an order to show cause.

A Board spokeswoman, Andrea Lynn, said they're confident they're right on the law. In any case, it'll be an important test on one hand of the Board's power and leeway, and on the other of the union's ability to continue to seize certain local elections.

Mike is doing his best to remove the feeding tube, as it were, from Tom Ognibene's campaign for Mayor, which has struggled to gain traction despite the dissatisfaction on the Mayor's right.

Today, the chairman of the Manhattan Republican Party, James Ortenzio, sent a letter to the city's Campaign Finance Board asking that Ognibene be disqualified from the CFB-backed debate in Harlem because he doesn't meet one of the technical requirements for qualifying, showing up with at least 5% support in a poll of at least 1,000 voters.

Ognibene's name hasn't been included in a poll of that sample size, and he has shown up at 1% and 2% in smaller polls.

"Please note that the absence of a qualifying poll for Mr. Ognibene is due to the fact that his public support is insignificant," Ortenzio writes. "Indeed, in a September 27, 2005 Marist poll which surveyed 721 registered voters, of which 381 were likely voters, Mr. Ognibene only polled at 2% and 1%, respectively. If one subtracts the margins of error (4% and 5% respectively) as required under the MOU, it would result in negative levels of support."  read more »

Hard to believe the CFB will back down on this one, but it does allow the Bloomberg campaign to, again, raise the spectacle of Freddy alone on stage. It's also a demonstration of how the resource-rich Bloomberg campaign is able to fight for every inch of ground on all fronts.

The Politicker is told that the Campaign Finance Board today will consider a recommendation from staff that a substantial portion of Gifford Miller's campaign spending be counted toward his overall spending cap, rather than exempted as a "petitioning" expense.

The CFB's ruling could take one of several forms. If Miller has already overspent for the primary, it could mean no more public money for his campaign. If it's a lesser offence, it could still knock him off the air in this last, crucial week.  read more »

In any case, it's become obvious that Miller's gamble that he could play fast and loose with campaign finance rules has been devastating. The move cost him the Times endorsement, and now it may cripple his campaign in the home stretch.

Still, two of Miller's appointees sit on the Campaign Finance Board, and the new Chairman, Fritz Schwartz, has been a bit easier on candidates than his predecessor. So Miller can still hold out hope of scraping by with a slap on the wrist.

That, at least, is what the Campaign Finance Board says: "July 8, 2005— The Campaign Finance Board (CFB) determined yesterday that a run-off election in the Democratic Party mayoral primary election can be 'reasonably anticipated,' the legal standard established by the Campaign Finance Board that permits candidates to begin fundraising for a run-off election. "  read more »