Unusual $60K Contribution to Local Primary Campaign Raises Questions
The Westchester County Democratic Committee (WCDC) has contributed $60,000 to the primary mayoral campaign of current New Rochelle City Council Member Yadira Ramos-Herbert. The contribution, dated May 18, was listed in the public financial disclosure document submitted by the Ramos-Herbert campaign on May 26.
WCDC has not made any public disclosures about its financial activities since July 2022 although several reports have been required since then. The most recent data available shows only three campaign contributions over $2000 from WCDC since 2017, including $25,000 to the general election campaign of George Latimer for Westchester County Executive in October 2017, and two contributions totaling $50,099 to the losing primary campaign of Anthony Scarpino for Westchester County District Attorney in June 2020.
There appears to be no recent precedent for large contributions from WCDC to intra-party primary campaigns in local municipalities.
WCDC Chair Suzanne Berger has not yet responded to reporters’ questions about the source of these funds, the missing financial reports, or the reasons for this highly unusual contribution in a local campaign between Democrats.
Suzanne has been telling people that a county committee is generally required to file only in January and July. But in an election cycle in which a county committee or “constituted” committee supports a candidate, it must file the same 3 times that candidates do, starting with 32-day prior to a primary, which in this instance the due date was 5/26/23, which now makes it 11 days late (as well as the late January 2023 filing). Possibly, no one currently at the County Committee remembered, or ever knew, this rule since the Committee so rarely. dispenses funds to candidates. Go to page 21 of the NYS BOE Campaign Finance Handbook and look at the “Note” just above the final paragraph of that page: https://www.elections.ny.gov/NYSBOE/download/finance/CampaignFinanceHandbook.pdf
Regardless whether this is legal or the new normal in politics, it looks really bad. Republicans may not care about where money comes from when it benefits them and in fact thrive on money of unknown origin, Democrats care about this. Especially given that rumors point to big developers giving the money and that a center of contention in this council and mayoral race is how developers are building without oversight, this is a big liability to the Democratic Party and to Yadira Ramos-Herbert.