Relates to contributions made by a limited liability company

The current party or constituted committee contribution limit is $109,600, since increases in the limit are tied to periodic increases based on changes in the consumer price index. As such, this change alone would result in an immediate decrease of $94,600 for contributions made to party or constituted committees.

Section two of the bill amends section 14-120 of the Election Law by adding a new subdivision (3). This new subdivision requires all contributions made by an LLC be attributed to each individual member in proportion to the member's ownership interest in the company. Such contributions would count toward the member's individual contribution limit based on his or her proportional ownership.

The section further requires any LLC that makes contributions to disclose, on an annual basis, to the State Board of Elections, the identity of all direct and indirect owners and membership interests, as well as proportional ownership in the LLC.

Section three of the bill amends Election Law section 14-102 to require that political committees affirmatively list, for each contribution received from an LLC: (1) the identity of all direct and indirect owners and; (2) The amount of the contribution, as attributed to each member based on the percentage of his or her ownership interest in the LLC.

Justification

This bill addresses some of the core criticisms made over and over again about New York's lax campaign finance laws. Specifically, the bill drastically reduces the amount of money that can be solicited or contributed to constituted or political campaign committees by over 75%. The bill also sets a hard limit for these specific types of contributions rather than allowing for periodic increases over time as is currently allowed.

The bill also seeks to provide additional disclosure of who is specifically behind contributions made by LLC's. Under current law, only the name of an LLC need be disclosed on campaign filings, oftentimes making it nearly impossible to trace who, or what interest, is specifically behind the contribution. This bill seeks to shed sunlight on this loophole by requiring disclosure of the name of the LLC and each member's ownership interest. This information would then have to be affirmatively disclosed on routine campaign finance filings by candidate and political committees, as well as, annually by each LLC participating in the political process. The bill also apportions contributions made by an LLC to each individual member based on his or her proportional ownership. This amendment to the law would thereby apply uniform receipt limits to those individuals who contribute either through an LLC or individually.

Prior legislative history

This is a new bill.

Fiscal implications

None to the state.

Effective date

This act shall take effect immediately.