Court Ruling Restores Bruce Blakeman’s Campaign Match Funds

ALBANY, NY — Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman had his access to campaign match funds restored Tuesday, after Judge Denise Hartman found that a state campaign finance board had broken its own rules when declaring Blakeman ineligible to receive the funds.

Blakeman filed suit in April after a Mar. 31 decision by New York’s Public Campaign Finance Board declared him ineligible to receive state matching funds for his campaign for governor. In that ruling, the PCFB ruled along party lines that Blakeman had failed to include his running mate Todd Hood on campaign paperwork that required both men’s names to be entered.

Tuesday, Hartman found that the Mar. 31 decision had been "arbitrary and capricious,” and wrote that the board should have given Blakeman and Hood the chance to fix their campaign paperwork before decertifying them.

Both Blakeman and Kathy Hochul's campaigns did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Hartman wrote in her ruling that Blakeman had filed match funding forms for his campaign in December, and that the forms were correct when Blakeman filed them. However, the forms became incomplete after a change of PCFB rules that took effect in January, Hartman wrote. The PCFB, Hartman wrote, never notified Blakeman of the change in regulations or of the fact that his forms had become incomplete.

With that in mind, Hartman vacated the PCFB’s Mar. 31 decision, which had found Blakeman ineligible for match funds. Hartman also ordered that the PFCB give the Blakeman campaign a week to fix any issues with its match fund certifications.