The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee is sending out a fundraising appeal to voters this afternoon after The New York Times story detailed the Virgina-based PAC’s spending in three battleground races in Monroe, Westchester and Queens.

“For several months now, a mysterious organization based in Northern Virginia and affiliated with the Swift Boat Veterans has been spending large undisclosed sums of money on races here in Queens, Westchester and Rochester,” writes DSCC Chairman Mike Gianaris. “The Senate GOP disavows any knowledge of what’s going on but today’s New York Times raises serious questions about those claims. It’s no surprise they’ve repeatedly blocked Governor Cuomo’s efforts to enact meaningful campaign finance reform.

I did a story on the group, known as Common Sense Principles, a few weeks back. This is not the first election cycle the group has gotten involved in, and Senate Republicans insist they have no conntection to the organization, though the Times noted today it does have financial ties to several GOP lawmakers.

Democrats, of course, benefit from the support of the New York State United Teachers Union’s VOTE COPE PAC, whose TV ad doesn’t make it entirely clear it’s from the labor group.

Still, the Common Sense Principles ad is quite clever, even if the website mispells the Thomas Paine’s surname.

The group is careful to not say who recipients of its mailers should vote, they just heavily imply that Democratic candidates are corrupt. That term of art allows them to thread the needle through a rather large loophole in recently adopted Board of Elections guidelines that do not require disclosure of financial information from such independent expenditure groups as long as they do not explicitly state who voters should support.

Update: Senate GOP spokesman Scott Reif responds.

“Senator Gianaris knows that New Yorkers everywhere are rejecting Senate Democrat candidates who have vowed to overturn Governor Cuomo’s property tax cap, spend more than taxpayers can afford and roll back the progress we’ve made in turning this state around.  This new and desperate line of attack is a sign that Senator Gianaris realizes he’s about to preside over an electoral disaster.”

 

Dscc Oct17 Mailing

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