NYC CFB Proposes Rules to Allow Candidates to Accept Contributions Via Text Message

Last week, the New York City Campaign Finance Board (NYC CFB) announced that it has proposed rules that will allow candidates to accept contributions via text message.

CFB will hold a public hearing on the proposed rules at 10:00 AM on November 24, at its headquarters in lower Manhattan.

The rules would carry out the provisions of Local Law 116 of 2013, which amended the City’s Administrative Code to permit local candidates to accept contributions via text message, and to make such contributions matchable with public funds if they are otherwise eligible.

The proposed rules:

• 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 notes that “the proposed amendments do not prescribe any method for candidates to use in accepting text message contributions,” but that they “encourage comments about ways to match contributions earlier in the process, including the feasibility of matching payments from a mobile fundraising vendor before delivery of a contributor’s funds to a candidate’s authorized committee.”