With time running out before next month’s election, the purse strings of Joe Lhota’s long-shot mayoral campaign remain in limbo — at the mercy of a federal judge.
Following a hotly contested hearing on Tuesday in which both sides gave arguments, Manhattan federal Judge Paul Crotty gave no indication as to when he’ll rule on an injunction request by a political action committee backing Lhota’s campaign and seeking to strike down the state’s $150,000 campaign limit.
The group claims it has multiple donors willing to shell out megabucks to boost Lhota.
“Obviously time is of the essence,” said Mike Carvin, a lawyer for New York Progress for Protection PAC, which claims in a lawsuit that the cap violates a 2010 US Supreme Court decision barring states from limiting contributions to independent political action committees. “In New York City, we need a lot of money to penetrate the airwaves and get the pro-Lhota message out.”
Following the hearing, he also said he’s confident the judge will rule in his group’s favor because Crotty “needs to support the Supreme Court decision.”
The state Board of Elections, listed as a defendant in the case, insists the annual cap on individual donors applies to PACs and candidates alike.
Democratic state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Democratic mayoral candidate Bill De Blasio have sided with the Board of Elections in the fight.
Richard Dearing, a lawyer for Schneiderman argued that the PAC should’ve filed its lawsuit sooner than Sept. 24 — and that granting an 11-hour injunction so close to the election will create chaos by possibly confusing other candidates in other races.
However, Carvin claimed the PAC had to wait until after last month’s primary because it didn’t know Lhota would win, adding it believed he was an underdog to beat supermarket billionaire John Catsimatidis who “doesn’t need any money.”