Democrats Deny Bruce Blakeman Access To Public Campaign Funds

ALBANY, New York — Democrats have officially kicked GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman out of the state’s new public campaign financing system.

The move stands to deny the Nassau County executive up to $7 million in public money designed to supplement his small donors, potentially dealing a crippling financial blow to his underdog campaign.

Ultimately, the issue is likely to be decided by the judicial branch though, with Blakeman almost certain to file a lawsuit challenging the denial. The Long Island Republican is running to challenge incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul in this year's election.

The Public Campaign Finance Board consists of four Democrats and three Republicans. Members voted along party lines.

Democrats justified the action by citing a rule they authored in December that says gubernatorial candidates and their running mates must apply jointly to enroll in the public financing system. Blakeman received a letter saying he was certified, and the board never published the required form for joint certification. But since the board hadn’t received anything signed by lieutenant governor hopeful Todd Hood, Democrats argued, they needed to decertify the entire ticket.

“Todd Hood has never filed anything to participate in the program,” Democratic commissioner Henry Berger said. “And I believe he’s an essential part of the gubernatorial candidate … The lieutenant governor is not yet participating in the program, has made no effort to participate in the program.”

But to Republicans, the vote reeked of political gamesmanship.

“This is an abomination of trying to do bureaucratic nonsense to try to eliminate candidates from an election,” GOP commissioner Brian Kolb said. “It defeats the whole purpose of the public campaign finance board.”

Republican commissioner Tony Casale said the goal of getting running mates to sign a form “is to ensure he’s covered under any enforcement actions, which is understandable.”

“But it was purely a bureaucratic snafu,” Casale said. He noted the board never made any effort to notify candidates of the new requirement: “We did know and they didn’t know, and we didn’t tell them.”

Blakeman is widely expected to be the Republican nominee for governor. The most recent Siena University poll released today showed him trailing Hochul by 13 points, but that's down from a 26-point lead for the incumbent in January.

Blakeman’s campaign attacked Hochul in its response to being denied public financing.

“With the race tightening and her poll numbers sagging, it’s no surprise Kathy Hochul’s handpicked appointee would vote to take away funds from Bruce Blakeman’s campaign,” it said in a statement.

The board removed five additional gubernatorial candidates from the program, including Libertarian and GOP hopeful Larry Sharpe.

Despite the plans to boot candidates like him, Sharpe said last week he still hadn’t heard anything from the board indicating there might be a problem: “So far, I’m all good,” he said. “I am in the program.”

There’s now only one gubernatorial candidate left in the public financing program. But that candidate — Skiboky Stora, who was convicted earlier this month of assaulting strangers and antisemitic, anti-female, and anti-white hate crimes — is not considered a serious contender to make the ballot.

Hochul declined to participate in the voluntary program.

“We’re not popping any champagne corks here,” Democratic commissioner Barbara Lifton said.

“I would rather have had this go smoothly, have the filings done properly and be able to say yes. I do believe in making the program inclusionary, having people use it,” Lifton said. “But push comes to shove, every candidate knows forms have to be filed, they have to be filed on time.”

The form Blakeman was required to fill out still had not been created as of the time of the vote. Democrats have said lieutenant governor candidates should have simply applied for the program themselves — even though they're not eligible to participate — and they would have had their filings merged.