Mayor Eric Adams is suing the city Campaign Finance Board for “arbitrarily, capriciously, and unconstitutionally” denying his re-election campaign nearly $5 million in matching taxpayer funds.
The board has “shown a deplorable and anti-democratic bias” by continuing to bar Adams from cashing in on the city’s generous 8-to-1 public matching funds program — even after the federal corruption case against the mayor was dropped this spring, the suit claims.
“[The board’s] conduct is unconstitutional and the height of arbitrary and capricious governmental action,” the filing states. “The CFB’s funding denial must be annulled, and the agency must be held to account for its pernicious conduct.”
Despite the dismissal of his case, the board has continued to deny Adams the funds, citing its belief that Hizzoner’s 2021 campaign “violated the law.” In its latest refusal earlier this month — barring Adams from getting roughly $4.7 million in matching funds — the board also cited his campaign’s failure to produce requested documents related to suspected illegal donations.
The mayor, in the lawsuit filed in Brooklyn federal court on Friday, is seeking to unlock the matching funds, claiming the board is trying to “assassinate the character of the Adams Campaign and its members.”
The filing comes a month after a federal judge slapped down an earlier attempt by the campaign to turn on the taxpayer-funded spigot for Adams.
But that judge ruled the board could not deny Adams matching funds “based solely on unproven allegations and biased intentions,” referring to his since-dismissed indictment.
The new suit cites that ruling, arguing the board “arrogantly ignored” a judicial “warning.”
The campaign has maintained that it has complied with all requests for documents, but messages between the board and Adams’ camp show a number of outstanding requests for communications and records from both bids for mayor.
The Campaign Finance Board did not respond to a request for comment.
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