It should be a simple question to answer.
Either Mayor Bloomberg violated the law or he didn’t by shipping $1.2 million to the state Independence Party in 2009 without quickly disclosing it.
But with more than two years to ponder the issue, the Campaign Finance Board has yet to issue a decision.
The facts in the widely publicized case aren’t in dispute.
Days before what turned out to be a surprisingly tight election, Bloomberg sent two $600,000 donations to the Independence Party for what was supposed to be a poll-watching operation overseen by veteran Republican operative John Haggerty.
It turned out that Haggerty had other uses for at least $750,000 of the money, namely buying his late father’s house in Forest Hills, Queens. A jury called that a crime, so Haggerty’s new home will be in a state prison cell.
The verdict was welcomed by the mayor, who testified that he would never have made such a large contribution without assurances that the poll-watching operation was for real.
“It was payment for services,” Bloomberg declared from the witness stand.
The mayor also said that all of the party’s candidates would be covered by poll watchers being paid with his money.
The distinction hardly matters to most voters.
But it’s critical to the CFB. Under a regulation adopted in 2005, candidates have to file with the CFB when they spend any sum that benefits their own candidacy.
Bloomberg waited until after the election to report his contribution, which turned up in the Independence Party’s January 2010 filing.
It’s ludicrous to think the mayor would have allocated more than $1 million for an Election Day operation if he weren’t the main — and perhaps sole — beneficiary. The shady gang that runs the state Independence Party had — and has — no need for poll watchers. Virtually all of the party’s candidates are cross-endorsements.
There are enough fine points in the untested regulation that Bloomberg’s talented lawyers might find a loophole that gets him off the hook.
The CFB — with three of its five members appointed by the mayor — won’t say when it will issue its findings or why it’s taking so long.
Previous members of the CFB haven’t been afraid to call ’em as they see ’em. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani was hit with a $243,490 fine in 1997 and former Mayor David Dinkins got slammed with a $320,000 penalty in 1993. Dinkins got even by not reappointing the CFB chairman, Father Joseph O’Hare.
CFB spokesman Eric Friedman said it has issued 145 audits from the 2009 campaign and “is working hard to complete those that remain.”
In Bloomberg’s case, there’s nothing to audit because he didn’t accept any taxpayer matching funds. The CFB just needs to answer one question: Did he or didn’t he violate the disclosure rules?