NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A5916
SPONSOR: Kavanagh (MS) TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the election law, in relation to
contributions from limited liability companies
PURPOSE: To attribute campaign contributions of limited liability
companies (LLCs) to the individual members of the LLC in the same manner
that partnership contributions are attributed to individual partners in
current law.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 1 of the bill would amend Subdivision 2 of section 14-120 of the
election law as added by chapter 79 of the laws of 1992 to treat poli-
tical contributions from LLCs in the same manner as contributions from
partnerships.
Section 2 of the bill specifies the effective date.
JUSTIFICATION:
It is widely believed that our campaign finance laws need substantial
changes to ensure the integrity of elections in our state. This bill
does not address the broad range of issues that might be addressed in a
comprehensive reform package. However, this bill would close one enor-
mous loophole in the current system. Under current law, as interpreted
by the judiciary, each LLC is considered a separate contributor and may
make the maximum allowable contribution. Since a single individual or a
small group of individuals often control multiple LLCs-in some cases a
very large number of such LLCs-the treatment of these LLCs as separate
contributors effectively allows one or more individuals to make a virtu-
ally unlimited amount of campaign contributions.
This bill would correct this by simply attributing contributions from
LLCs to the members of the LLC in the same way the law currently attri-
butes contributions from partnerships to the individual partners.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: 2010: A07069 (Kavanagh) - Election Law
2009: A07069 (Kavanagh) - Election Law
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: None.
EFFECTIVE DATE: This act shall take effect immediately.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
5916
2011-2012 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
March 2, 2011
___________
Introduced by M. of A. KAVANAGH, BARRON, CAMARA, CASTRO, COLTON, LANC-
MAN, REILLY, STEVENSON -- Multi-Sponsored by -- M. of A. CAHILL, GOTT-
FRIED -- read once and referred to the Committee on Election Law
AN ACT to amend the election law, in relation to contributions from
limited liability companies
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivision 2 of section 14-120 of the election law, as
2 added by chapter 79 of the laws of 1992, is amended to read as follows:
3 2. Notwithstanding subdivision one of this section, a partnership, as
4 defined in section ten of the partnership law, or a limited liability
5 company, as defined in section one hundred two of the limited liability
6 company law, may be considered a separate entity for the purposes of
7 this section, and as such may make contributions in the name of said
8 partnership or limited liability company without attributing such
9 contributions to the individual members of the partnership or limited
10 liability company provided that any such contribution made by a partner-
11 ship or limited liability company to a candidate or to a political
12 committee, shall not exceed[,] twenty-five hundred dollars. In the event
13 that such partnership or limited liability company contribution to any
14 such candidate or political committee exceeds twenty-five hundred
15 dollars, the aggregate amount of such contribution shall be attributed
16 to each partner or limited liability company member whose share of the
17 contribution exceeds ninety-nine dollars.
18 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD00058-01-1
