Eric Adams Campaign Refunds $1 Million to Hundreds of Donors

*Reposted from Gotham Gazette, Written by Samar Khurshid*

In the last two months of the mayoral election, now Mayor-elect Eric Adams refunded more than $1 million to 653 donors, only a few of whom had already contributed the maximum amount to his campaign while others had donated nothing previously.

Between September 28 and November 25, the period covering two campaign finance disclosure filings, donors attempted to give Adams’ campaign more than $1.3 million. But Adams only retained about $298,000. The recent $1 million in refunds accounts for about half of the nearly $2.2 million that Adams’ campaign refunded in total since the campaign began raising funds in 2018.

In past elections, a single donor could give mayoral candidates as much as $5,100, a contribution limit even higher than what was permitted for congressional and presidential candidates. At the same time, the city’s voluntary public matching funds program provided a 6-to-1 match for the first $175 of every qualifying contribution from a city resident.

Campaign finance reformers argued that the high contribution limit encouraged candidates to focus their fundraising on wealthier donors, giving them outsize influence in elections over everyday New Yorkers. In 2018, a Charter Revision Commission created by Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed a ballot question, which was approved in the general election that year, establishing new rules for the 2021 city election cycle. Though the previous rules would remain in place through 2021 and be eliminated for future election cycles, candidates could now opt into a new system that came with a $2,000 individual donation limit for citywide candidates and would match the first $250 of a qualifying contribution at a rate of 8-to-1.

The City Council then expanded the program further by increasing the amount of public funds that could be paid out to candidates, but also made certain pieces retroactive, forcing candidates like Adams into more refunds in order to participate in the new system.

Adams, like almost every mayoral candidate, participated in the new program and adhered to its limits including by returning a large sum of money via contributions that came early in the cycle at the higher limit. So when donors who had already given the maximum sought to donate again after he won the primary, their money was returned.

For full article visit: https://www.gothamgazette.com/city/10958-max-donations-mayor-elect-eric…