AG Holds Hearing on Regulations to Require Disclosure of Dark Money

On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman held a second public hearing on his proposed regulations to address what he calls “dark money” – political spending by non-profit, tax exempt organizations. (Read my prior post on the topic here.)

As Jimmy Vielkind reports in the Times Union, two Democratic state senators – Joe Addabbo of Queens and George Latimer of Westchester – who were the targeted by a little-known Virginia-based group Common Sense Principles in the 2012 elections, both offered support for Schneiderman’s proposal to mandate disclosure relating to such expenditures.

Jimmy also reports that Common Sense Principles reported its election-related spending – just not to the state’s Board of Elections, as one would expect.  They instead reported their spending to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE), which oversees lobbying in the state.  The group, a 501(c)(4) whose principals and donors are unknown, spent some $950,000 on direct mail and Internet advertising since last August, according to their JCOPE filing.

The Attorney General’s Office will be holding two more hearings on the proposed regulations — Feb. 20 in Buffalo and Feb. 27 in Mineola.