Did Cuomo’s ‘Message for Voters’ Violate Campaign Finance Rules?

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is testing the limits of New York City campaign finance rules that prohibit candidates from coordinating political strategy and spending with the super PACs supporting them.

At issue is a practice commonly known as red-boxing, in which candidates post strategic information in a public, if obscure, location where big money groups supporting them can see it. Doing so allows the two sides to get around rules prohibiting them from directly communicating.

Mr. Cuomo appears to have done just that when he launched an innocuous-looking page on his campaign website in late April. While it was labeled a “message for voters,” the page reads much more like detailed spending instructions for Fix the City, a super PAC created to raise and spend huge sums on his behalf, or other groups.

The almost 600-word message cites recent polling data and includes pre-edited video clips of Mr. Cuomo that could be dropped into ads. It also lists four steps that will be “critical for success,” including an ad telling Jewish voters about Mr. Cuomo’s record on antisemitism, door-to-door canvassing in Black and Latino neighborhoods and the need for “less traditional” media to reach to voters between 40 and 55.

Some of the points appear almost exactly in Fix the City’s most recent ad, which began airing on broadcast television on Saturday, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

While the practice remains legal on the federal level, New York City quietly adopted rules late last year taking direct aim at red-boxing — a term that refers to the frequent use of red-bordered boxes to highlight the instructions.

The matter is potentially serious for Mr. Cuomo, the Democratic front-runner for mayor. If found to have violated the rules, he could face stiff penalties and potentially lose out on millions of dollars in public matching funds.

It was not immediately clear, though, if the city is scrutinizing Mr. Cuomo’s tactics. Under its rules, the mere publication of a red box is not enough to constitute a violation; the city would also have to show that a super PAC acted on the candidate’s directions.

The New York City Campaign Finance Board, the body responsible for enforcement, blasted out a warning on Monday reminding all city campaigns about the new rules, according to a copy of the email obtained by The New York Times. It came several days after Politico first reported on the existence of Mr. Cuomo’s apparent red box.

“Red-boxing is the publication by campaigns of strategic information or other data to communicate with outside parties that make election-related expenditures,” the board wrote. “If the CFB determines that expenditures made by outside parties utilized red-boxed information, both the campaign and spender would be subject to penalties.”

A spokesman for the board declined to comment.

Martin Connor, a lawyer for Mr. Cuomo, said in an interview that a representative of the board told him the Monday email was not directed at Mr. Cuomo and that if the board had an issue with the campaign, it would reach out directly.

Mr. Connor asserted that the super PAC, also known as an independent expenditure, had not reported spending money on any activity that could be connected to the web page in question.

“There is no evidence whatsoever that any independent expenditure ever acted on it,” he said. “Therefore there is no violation.”

Liz Benjamin, a spokeswoman for Fix the City, did not directly address its spending plan. But in a statement, she stressed that the super PAC was independent and “operates within the rules and takes its obligations seriously.”

But there is, at the least, meaningful overlap between Mr. Cuomo’s messaging and that of Fix the City. The group, which is being run by a longtime Cuomo loyalist who was once his right-hand man, has already raised more than $6 million from real estate developers and other wealthy interests to support Mr. Cuomo’s mayoral ambitions.

The super PAC has already spent about $2.5 million on television and digital advertising to support Mr. Cuomo.

After the board’s Monday email, one of Mr. Cuomo’s opponents for mayor, State Senator Zellnor Myrie, wrote to the Campaign Finance Board to formally request an investigation into potential coordination.

“These kinds of coordination practices between campaigns and outside spending groups provide an illegal unfair advantage to coordinating campaigns by evading the program’s expenditure limits, in-kind contribution limits and corporate contribution restrictions,” Maya Handa, Mr. Myrie’s campaign manager, wrote in a letter to the board.

The letter cited two ads by Fix the City, including the one broadcast Saturday, that closely mirror Mr. Cuomo’s campaign message and information in his red box.

Mr. Cuomo’s red box, for instance, stresses in boldfaced type that “in this time of crisis for N.Y.C., Andrew Cuomo is the only proven leader in this race with a real record of results who can get things done.”

It also prioritizes a push to highlight his plan for “500,000 new affordable housing units over the next 10 years, universal 3-K in every neighborhood and 5,000 new police officers patrolling the subways and high-crime areas.”

The super PAC’s ad from last weekend picks up many of those points, although in a slightly different order.

“Getting things done, that’s Cuomo,” the narrator says as the ad opens. He proceeds to tick through Mr. Cuomo’s priorities: “5,000 more cops. Cut red tape for affordable housing and build 500,000 new units. Universal 3-K in every neighborhood.”

“Cuomo’s the right guy at the right time,” the ad concludes.

In a separate matter, the campaign finance board denied Mr. Cuomo millions of dollars in matching funds last month because the paperwork submitted by his campaign was incomplete. He could still be awarded the funds.