ProPublica has an important report that echoes many of the concerns on the Perdido Street School blog. Mainly, the report deals with the self-serving exploitation of fund-raising loopholes that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo engages in.

Cuomo Has Raised Millions Through Loophole He Pledged to Close

The governor has called for closing a gap in the state’s campaign finance laws,
but he’s taken far more through the loophole than his predecessors, much of it
from real estate developers.

by Theodoric Meyer
ProPublica, June 13, 2014

The consensus candidate of 2010

When he ran for office four years ago, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo pledged to close a loophole in the state's campaign finance regulations allowing corporations and individuals to pour unlimited amounts of money into politics.

Instead, he's become the loophole's biggest beneficiary.

New York State forbids corporations from giving more than $5,000 a year to candidates and political committees. But limited liability companies—businesses that share attributes of corporations and partnerships—are allowed to give up to $60,800 to a statewide candidate per election cycle and up to $150,000 a year to candidates and committees overall. What's more, corporations and individuals can set up an unlimited number of LLCs through which to donate, making the caps effectively meaningless.

Cuomo took contributions from LLCs while running for governor in 2010, but said at the time that he was only accepting them so that he could get elected and change the law. He has twice proposed legislation that would eliminate the LLC exception, most recently in his budget proposal in January, but it hasn't been enacted. He told reporters Wednesdaythat there was little chance any campaign finance reforms would pass before the legislative session ends next week.

Cuomo has accepted more than $6.2 million from LLCs in the three and a half years since he took office, according to a ProPublica analysis of state campaign finance filings. That's more than double the amount his two predecessors, Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson, took in during their combined four years in office. The contributions make up a sizeable chunk of the $33 million Cuomo has reported raising for his re-election campaign. (The data reflects contributions reported through mid-January, when candidates last filed disclosure reports.)

In a statement, Cuomo spokesman Matthew Wing offered this to explain the apparent contradiction: "The Cuomo campaign is following existing campaign finance laws, while the Governor is leading the charge to reform them, including closing the loophole for LLCs."

That's of little consolation to campaign finance watchdogs concerned that those who have—or are seeking to have—business with New York are continuing to use this wrinkle in the state's contribution rules to exert their influence. Much of the money coming to Cuomo through LLCs appears to be from real estate developers, with cable companies and liquor distributors among those also providing healthy cash infusions.

"This is a gaping hole," said Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union, a New York good-government group. Getting rid of it is "an easy fix that would turn the spigot down a bit of the flow of money from big contributors."

Follow this link  for the rest of Theodoric Mayer's story at ProPublica.