Group Files Lawsuit Challenging ‘LLC Loophole’

The New York Times reports that an “eclectic group of liberal and conservative interests and individuals filed suit” have filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Albany against the state’s Board of Elections that seeks to overturn the Board’s 1996 advisory opinion relating to political donations by limited liability companies (LLCs). The lead plaintiff is the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School. Other plaintiffs include current State Senators Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan), Dan Squadron (D-Manhattan), Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh (D-Manhattan), former State Senator John Dunne (R-Nassau County), and political scientist Gerald Benjamin.

Read the Brennan Center’s press release here.

Back in April, the Brennan Center wrote to the SBOE and urged the commissioners to change the way in which the SBOE treats limited liability companies (LLCs) under the state’s campaign finance laws. Their push includes a guest editorial in the Daily News. (For more background on this, read my prior blog post on the topic here.)

The lawsuit asks the court to “invalidate the [state Board of Election’s] April 2015 Decision not to rescind the Board’s 1996 Opinion and order the Board to issue a new opinion or regulation consistent with the text and spirit of the Election and LLC Laws.”

This strikes me as something of a “heavy lift” – courts generally do not order Executive Branch entities to render (or reverse) a particular decision unless they have a very strong legal basis to do so. However, the lawsuit will likely keep up the political pressure on the issue.

Read additional coverage from the Daily News, the State of Politics blog, and Capitol Confidential.