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Nassau County Executive and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman at a news conference outside of the Capitol on Thursday. He praised the appeals court’s decision to revive his bid for public campaign matching funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
ALBANY\u00a0\u2014 A New York appeals court has ruled that state elections regulators created a bureaucratic trap and faulted the Public Campaign Finance Board for rolling out new gubernatorial ticket rules without updated forms, guidance or training before they denied potentially millions of dollars in matching funds to candidates who subsequently failed to comply with the byzantine rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Calling the state\u2019s handling of the rollout \u201cirrational,\u201d a five-member appellate court in Albany on Thursday\u00a0unanimously revived<\/a> Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman\u2019s bid for public campaign cash and ordered state elections officials to let his campaign cure defects the agency never properly explained.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The swift ruling, which upheld a state Supreme Court justice\u2019s decision, came a day after attorneys for Blakeman, the Public Campaign Finance Board and two minority Republican members of the board had squared off in front of the appellate panel and laid out their arguments.<\/p>\n \u201cI am very grateful that the trial court and the appellate court saw through this scam to keep me and (lieutenant governor candidate) Todd Hodd from getting our public matching funds,\u201d Blakeman said at a news conference outside the state Capitol on Thursday. \u00a0<\/p>\n Blakeman\u2019s lawsuit<\/a> centered on whether he and his running mate for lieutenant governor, Madison County Sheriff Todd Hood, should be excluded from New York\u2019s public campaign financing program because of a paperwork issue that appellate division confirmed was the fault of the campaign finance board, which is an arm of the state Board of Elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n Make the Times Union a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our journalism when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The voluntary program, created in 2020, is intended to reduce the influence of special interests, increase government accountability and encourage broader candidate participation and public engagement in elections. This year is the first election cycle in which the funds are available for candidates for statewide offices.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n A new state law required candidates for governor and lieutenant governor to run as a joint ticket. The Public Campaign Finance Board, which administers the program, created new rules that required the candidates to file a joint certification form to qualify for public matching funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n Blakeman sued the Public Campaign Finance Board after it denied his ticket’s bid for matching funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n In March, the board, where Democrats hold the majority, ruled 4-3 that Blakeman and Hood were ineligible to apply for the public matching funds. The candidates sued, saying the state did a poor job rolling out the program. They said the board did not update the newly created official form or training materials and didn\u2019t warn candidates that paperwork was incomplete or give them a chance to fix it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n