State Senate Candidate Pays Himself for Campaign Compliance

The New York Observer has an interesting article about Munir Avery, a candidate for State Senate from Queens who ran in the recent Democratic primary against incumbent Democrat Malcolm Smith and eventual winner Leroy Comrie. (Mr. Avery finished a distant third in the race, gaining 11.8% of the vote.)

According to its campaign filings, his campaign committee (‘Munir Avery for the People’) paid his own law firm (the Law Office of Munir Avery) over $40,000 dollars in fees for “legal compliance.”

The consensus is that this isn’t illegal, but that it raises some questions that the new Enforcement Counsel at the state Board of Elections should look into – such as whether any actual work was done.

That’s really good work to get, especially for someone who bills himself as an “Estates attorney.” Speaking from my own experience – both as a campaign volunteer and a private attorney who provides Election Law compliance services — $40,000 seems to be an outsized fee for compliance services.