Secretive Spending Group Boosting Adrienne Adams Reveals Donors
After THE CITY found DoorDash funded ads promoting the Council speaker for mayor, Competent New York disclosed its sources of funds — including the union for CUNY faculty.
The outside spending group backing Council Speaker Adrienne Adams for mayor sent the city Campaign Finance Board its roster of funders after THE CITY revealed DoorDash had funneled $150,000 into ads while lobbying the Council against regulations on the delivery app industry.
Meanwhile questions remain about how Competent New York, established by the municipal union District Council 37, came to work with the tech platform as it seeks to head off a Council bill that would provide paid sick leave for delivery cyclists and drivers.
Campaign Finance Board records posted since THE CITY’s article was published Monday show a total of $530,000 in contributions from three sources: Local Economies Forward, which is a spending group wholly funded by DoorDash; AFSCME Working Families Fund, affiliated with DC 37’s parent union; and PSC PAC, the political spending group for the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY faculty union.
Neither union has responded to questions from THE CITY about how they came to team up with DoorDash on the spending effort or how the company aligns with their priorities. The two unions, which jointly represent more than 100,000 city workers and City University faculty and staff, both endorsed Adams at the top of their ranked slate. The newly filed records show that AFSCME provided $365,000 while PSC gave $15,000.
Both union donations are recorded as coming in on June 16 — more than a week after Competent’s radio and internet ads boosting Adams began running on June 7, with the committee reporting $286,800 in advertising to the Campaign Finance Board.
State Board of Election records show that consultant Red Horse Strategies reported lending $286,000 on June 7 to Competent New York. The $150,000 from Local Economies Forward came in by wire transfer four days later.
“Local Economies Forward has clearly and transparently disclosed all spending in this cycle, and we're proud to publicly support candidates and campaigns that have real plans to make New York City a better place to live,” said John Horton, DoorDash’s head of North American public policy.
The ads disclosed AFSCME Working Families Fund as their sole donor, even though city law requires that political promotions disclose the top three donors to independent expenditure groups. Competent New York has asserted that AFSCME was the only known donor at the time the ads first ran.
The internet ads have since been updated to show Local Economies Forward in addition to AFSCME as a funder, but do not mention PSC PAC.
Red Horse founding partner Doug Forand did not respond to a request for comment about the loan or the identification to voters of AFSCME as the ads’ sole funder.
Campaign finance rules permit independent spending groups to donate to other independent spending groups. Still, spending coming from the political committee and not the corporation is a significant choice in the view of Susan Lerner, executive director of the good government group Common Cause New York.
“If DoorDash thought that having their name on the communications would be positive, they wouldn't go to such lengths to try and hide it,” she said.
AFSCME has also reported spending through another independent expenditure group, Labor Strong, a coalition of labor unions backing six City Council candidates.
The DoorDash cash comes as the City Council defends labor protections for delivery workers and considers a bill to expand paid sick leave to gig workers for DoorDash and other apps.
Uber and DoorDash are spending heavily to sway next month’s Democratic primary. DoorDash’s $150,000 donation to Competent New York comes after the company’s $1 million donation to Cuomo’s Fix The City PAC in May.
At a rally Wednesday with the delivery worker group Los Deliveristas Unidos, which was protesting app platforms’ practice of locking out workers in response to a city minimum wage law, city comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander accused the tech giants of “trying to buy New York City government in order to cheat the very workers who make them money.”
Lander, who sponsored the bill that required independent expenditure groups to disclose the top three donors in their ads, reacted with alarm when asked about DoorDash’s hidden-from-voters involvement in the pro-Adams group.
“This just speaks to what it looks like when a corporation tries to buy democracy,” he said.
Candidates are forbidden from coordinating with outside spending groups, which under the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision are permitted to spend unlimited sums. Adams has declined to comment on Competent New York and there is no evidence her campaign has had any contact with the group that’s spending on her behalf.
Ligia Guallpa, executive director of the Worker’s Justice Project, the parent organization of Los Deliveristas Unidos, said she believes app-based companies are trying to influence city lawmakers to align with their interests — rolling back workplace protections fought for and approved by the City Council.
“We’re deeply concerned to see the City Council Speaker take money from multi-billion-dollar corporations that exploit workers and make app delivery one of the deadliest jobs in the city,” said Guallpa.
