NYC CFB Approves Donations Via Text Message, Fines IE Group for Illegal Coordination

Earlier today, the New York City Campaign Finance Board (CFB) announced that it has adopted

final rules for text message contributions in City elections, and assessed penalties on an independent spender for violations of the city’s rules that prevent coordination between outside spenders and candidates.

CFB adopted rules for text message contributions which:

• provide that matching public funds will not be provided for text message until after the contribution is paid via the contributor’s phone bill and delivered by a mobile fundraising vendor to a candidate’s committee;
• establish record keeping requirements for text message contributions; and
• require contributors of text message contributions to certify that he or she is the registered user of the phone and that the contribution will be made from his or her personal funds.

CFB also fined animal rights group NYCLASS $26,054 — $16,054 for illegally coordinating independent expenditures on behalf of two 2013 City Council candidates, and an additional $10,000 for misrepresenting those expenditures as independent. The two candidates in question were fined by CFB in May for accepting and failing to report an over-the-limit contribution from a prohibited source.

Read news coverage of the NYCLASS penalties in the New York Observer and the New York Times.