Republican New York Rep. Andrew Garbarino accused of campaign finance violations

Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) is being accused of violating federal campaign finance rules during his successful 2020 campaign against Democratic former Babylon Town Council member Jackie Gordon, just as he faces a competitive 2022 rematch against Gordon to hold on to New York’s 2nd Congressional District.

Garrett Petersen, a constituent and the deputy chair of the Islip Town Democratic Committee, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Aug. 31 alleging Garbarino, who served in the New York Legislature from 2013 to 2020, improperly donated $800 from his state campaign account to his federal congressional account.

Both Babylon and Islip, on the south shore of Long Island in Suffolk County, are in Garbarino’s district.

Petersen also accused Garbarino of failing to disclose “in-kind” contributions — donations of goods and services — to his campaign from his state campaign.

“Around three months after he became a U.S. House candidate, on March 2, 2020, Garbarino’s State Committee contributed $800 to his Federal Committee,” the complaint says. “In addition, from May 2020 to September 2020, during the time in which Garbarino was campaigning for federal office, his state campaign made over $10,000 in disbursements for campaign expenses. As noted above, during this period, Garbarino was not running for state office.”

Because state and federal campaign finance laws are widely different, state campaign committees are generally not permitted to spend money on or donate to federal candidates.

According to the Federal Election Commission’s site, there are some exceptions for this, if the state committee’s funds “come from permissible sources.” Those would typically include small-dollar contributions from individuals and federal campaign committees, but not donations from corporations.

The complaint alleges Garbarino’s state committee accepted donations from corporations and a state-level political committee, rendering it unable to donate to federal candidates. These contributions totaled $3,550 between January and August 2020, after Garbarino announced his candidacy for Congress in December 2019.

The claim notes that there is “no evidence” that Garbarino’s state committee kept records of which donations could legally be used for federal campaign spending, or that it had received enough “permissible” money to cover those expenses.

A spokesperson for Garbarino did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story.

In an email, Petersen told the American Independent Foundation he and other Islip Democrats have been trying to make everyone on both sides of the aisle “play by the rules.”

“Our local committee helped challenge a Dem who’d cheated on his petitions back during primary season, and if we’re going to make sure our team is playing by the rules, then certainly we’re going to make the other team [play] by them too,” he said.

Petersen said he doesn’t know why Garbarino accepted the donations from his state committee: “The obvious easy answer is he was trying to cheat but it’s certainly possible they just were playing fast and loose with the rules and his accounts and thought nobody would look deep and it’d pass scrutiny — and nobody did for a while, after all, so the point was valid.”

“The rules exist for a reason and we all have to play by them,” Petersen concluded. “Citizens United made it comically easy to raise stupid sums of money for political races so the fact they resorted to this sort of thing honestly bothers me on a lot of levels.”

The FEC has not yet acted on the complaint. With three Democratic and three Republican commissioners, the agency typically deadlocks on campaign finance matters and seldom enforces the law.

Garbarino ran in 2020 promising to “drain the swamp and shake up Washington.” He won that race over Gordon, 52.9%-46%.

This time, Garbarino’s campaign site makes no mention of draining the swamp, but does claim that he wants to “restore law and order.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.