View All Blogs DailyPolitics-635x102 Team de Blasio used county committees after split with Cuomo

Here is the lead item from my "Albany Insider" column from Monday's editions:
Mayor de Blasio and his operatives made the decision—now under investigation—to heavily use upstate county party committees to raise money in 2014 for Senate Democrats only after they feared the governor was not prepared to spend what he promised, sources on all sides of the matter said.
Cuomo in May 2014 agreed to back a Democratic takeover the Senate as part of a deal de Blasio helped broker to secure the governor the Working Families Party nomination for his reelection effort.
Initially the idea was that Cuomo, de Blasio, the Senate Dems , and a number of powerful labor unions would coordinate to raise money for the Senate effort and decide together how to spend the money through the state Democratic party that the governor controls and other committees.
But as time went on, disagreements arose on where the money should go and trust on all sides broke down, according to those interviewed by the News in 2014 and over the past few weeks.
Believing Cuomo wanted the Republicans to remain in control of the chamber, de Blasio and the Senate Dems feared the governor would just “sit on the money” raised through the state party, sources said.

Marcus Santos/New York Daily News

Gov Andrew Cuomo

Meanwhile, Team de Blasio wanted control over how the money it raised was spent. So instead of having donations go directly to the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, which they also didn't trust, de Blasio's people decided to mainly funnel money through several upstate county committees, the insiders said.
An individual Senate candidate was allowed to raise no more than $10,300 per donor. But a county committee could raise more than $103,000 and then transfer unlimited amounts to candidates. The one caveat is that by law money given to a county committees could not be earmarked for a specific candidate.
While Cuomo and the state party continued to spend some on the Senate Dems, they were not part of the effort using the county committees, sources from all camps said.
Now De Blasio and his allies are under investigation into whether their operation evaded state election law, which they vehemently deny.