Prop 1: I dug into the surprise opposition group fueled by dark money
I did not expect to stumble upon what I did.
Good afternoon — it’s Thursday and Halloween.
In today’s CapCon:
Dark money has funded a surprise group campaigning against Proposition 1. I dug into it and didn’t expect to find what I did.
Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is being referred to federal prosecutors
What if city workers were exempt from congestion pricing?
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☑️ What I found when digging into the Prop 1 campaigns
You might have read a few days ago about how Richard Uhlein, heir to the Schlitz Brewing fortune, sunk $6.5 million into a group campaigning against Proposition 1.
Proposition 1, as you likely know if you’re a CapCon subscriber, is on the ballot this year and would expand discrimination protections in the state constitution to several different categories. Here’s a free explainer on that if you need it.
Uhlein donated that money to a group called “Vote NO on Prop One.” I knew the group existed but genuinely hadn’t given it a second thought. Campaigns both in support and in opposition are always expected when something’s up for a vote.
But on Monday, I realized I had no idea who had formed the group or who was running it. That led me down a rabbit hole to some information I didn’t expect to find and haven’t published.
The “Vote NO on Prop One” group is a ballot issue committee that wasn’t formed until late September. We’ve known the measure would be on the ballot for more than a year now so this group was coming in under the wire.
Until that group, the opposition had been led by the Coalition to Protect Kids NY, a group that’s claimed the amendment would allow children to direct their own health care without their parents’ knowledge. They’ve been relatively well organized and worked with other opponents across the state for months.
That’s the only group that the support campaign — New Yorkers for Equal Rights — really had to compete with. The coalition wasn’t well-funded and polling in September had shown they weren’t moving the needle.
Seven days after that poll was released, the “Vote NO on Proposition One” group was registered with the state Board of Elections.
But it wasn’t until last Friday that the group’s first financial disclosure was due. Before that, there wasn’t any information on its funders. That disclosure showed the donation from Uhlein along with some relative pocket change from other megadonors.
There also wasn’t any information — anywhere — on who their point person was, if anyone. Their website is difficult to find, even on Google, and doesn’t tell visitors how to contact them. There is no information on who’s involved with the group. (I’ll come back to this.)
So I asked the Board of Elections if there was information on who registered it with the state. A public records request later, I had the group’s registration document.
📄 Here’s where things get weird.
There were only two people listed on the document and neither of them are from New York.
The first is Cabell Hobbs, who’s listed as its treasurer. His address is in Mclean, Va. That’s about 30 minutes outside Washington, D.C. More on him in a second.
The second is Jeremy Bebermeyer, who is the only other person who’s allowed to sign checks for the group, according to the document. His address is in East Lansing, Mich.
I called the phone number listed for him and a woman picked up. She said she didn’t know who he was. I thought it might’ve just been a technical fluke so I asked my colleague, Raga Justin, to call the number from her phone as well. She got the same woman, who did not know Bebermeyer.
Back to Hobbs. I thought it was strange that someone from Virginia would be signing checks for a group in New York advocating against a state ballot initiative so I did a little digging on him.
I found that Hobbs has several dozen ties to Republicans across the country. He’s listed as the treasurer for 85 political action committees active in this year’s elections. I went through them one-by-one. Almost all of those are in support of Republicans, including superstars like Sens. Ted Cruz and Joni Ernst. The others were more issue-focused.
Among those committees were also two in support of Rep. Elise Stefanik and one in support of Rep. Claudia Tenney, both Republicans from New York. Neither of them are likely to lose their seat if past voting patterns hold.
So I called up Hobbs because, for one, the Vote NO on Prop One group had no contact information. But for two … who is this guy?
To my shock, he answered the phone. I told him who I was and asked if I could chat with him about the group. He declined but said he would pass along my outreach to the group.
“Can you tell me who you’re passing it along to?” I asked.
“I can take your information and pass it along,” Hobbs repeated. No dice.
I dug into Hobbs a little more and my ears (eyes?) perked up when I spotted the word “Deposition.” It turns out Hobbs has been the treasurer for political action committees accused of breaking federal election law — like John Bolton PAC, which is run by the former Trump national security advisor of the same name.
Hobbs was that committee’s treasurer when it was accused of unlawfully working with foreign nationals employed by Cambridge Analytica, a consulting firm that was later found to have misused personal data from Facebook.
He was also treasurer of Save Missouri Values, a super PAC that supported Sen. Eric Schmitt’s 2022 campaign. If you don’t know, super PACs are not allowed to communicate or coordinate with the candidate they’re supporting. Hobbs and the PAC were accused of breaking that law.
And he was treasurer of Never Back Down, Inc., a super PAC formed to encourage Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to run for president in this year’s election. When DeSantis declared his candidacy, the PAC said it would work to get him elected.
But a good chunk of the super PAC’s funding came from DeSantis’ state PAC, so Hobbs’ group was accused, again, of breaking that firewall between a super PAC and the candidate they support.
There may be more but I had to pivot back to the Vote NO on Prop One group. My next step was to call McLaughlin & Associates, a media consulting firm in Rockland County that did the $5 million in ad buys the group placed this month.
A quick look at their website will show you that they primarily serve Republican clients, including former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican National Committee, the state Republican Party, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, former Rep. Lee Zeldin, and many more.
I left a message with the receptionist for John McLaughlin, the company’s CEO, but he did not return the call.
Instead, I got a call from someone named Rob Ryan, who said he did communications for the Vote NO on Prop One group. I had not heard of him nor received any press communications from the group so I was confused. But he answered some of my questions.
The person behind the Vote NO on Prop One group is Bobbie Anne Cox, a constitutional law attorney and Republican who has created the opposition group’s legal theories and messaging. I have spoken to her before but was surprised because the website mentions no one.
But that was when I looked at the site on Monday. By the time I went back on Wednesday for a final check, the group had posted a press release that said she was the group’s statewide spokesperson. The press release is not on the homepage. You have to dig a little for it.
I asked Ryan who else was involved and he called it a “loose coalition,” that includes the New York State Catholic Conference. I didn’t recognize anyone else he mentioned. No one in that coalition is anywhere on the website aside from Cox.
Importantly: he said the state Republican Party was not involved with the group.
Read more about this in the story I published today in the Times Union. (Free for CapCon subscribers)
🚗 What if city workers were exempt from congestion pricing?
Democrats are talking behind the scenes on what to do about congestion pricing during next year’s legislative session.
Hochul paused the $15 toll, which is only for the busiest parts of Manhattan. The question now is: what needs to happen for her to un-pause it? The cost of the toll might be part of it.
“At a time when inflation was still on the upward trends and it was wildly expensive to buy groceries and everyday New Yorkers were suffering, I said then and I still agree — $15 is too much,” Hochul said Wednesday.
Democrats in the suburbs of New York City were against the congestion pricing plan because it would mean a new toll for the residents in their districts that drive into the city for work. When Hochul announced her pause, that came up again as a potential area of compromise.
A narrower option has also been floated — an exemption for municipal workers only.
But a new report released Thursday found that would cost $140 million of the annual $1 billion that’s expected to be generated by the toll when it comes online. The report is from the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee — a group created by the Legislature to represent straphangers — and the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit.
The groups also argued that — to meet that $1 billion each year — the cost of the toll would actually have to be higher to account for the cars that would no longer be on the street.
“Suggesting exemptions for municipal workers is piling on the irresponsibility – it would cost all other drivers more and run counter to the goals of the program: improving air quality, reducing congestion and raising funds for vital transit infrastructure investments,” said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the committee.
The report also asserts that municipal workers are not in a bad position to pay the toll. They earn $90,000 on average, which is more than double the median income of the state’s labor force, they said.
You can check out that full analysis here.
⚖️ House coronavirus subcommittee refers Cuomo to prosecutors
Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo testified publicly over the summer about his administration’s handling of nursing home residents during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York.
But before that, he testified before the committee behind closed doors. You might remember that, in the late spring, the Times Union’s Brendan J. Lyons reported that Cuomo said during that testimony that he didn’t know about a controversial directive on nursing home residents in the early days of the pandemic.
The transcript of what he said in that testimony has already been released so we know what he was asked and what he said. The chair of the committee, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, believes the former governor lied about his involvement in the directive.
Read this story on the Times Union’s website.(Free for CapCon subscribers)
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🕥 At the Capitol: Ethics hearing scheduled in Albany
Do you have an opinion about the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government? Well, you’ll soon have an opportunity to air it.
The commission is holding its annual hearing next month. It’s sort of a free-for-all. Comments can be about the commission’s operations or their recently released tentative legislative agenda.
What: COELIG’s annual hearing
When: Friday, Nov. 13 at 1 p.m.
Where: New York City Bar Association, 42 W 44th Street, New York City
Who: Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government
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🎃 Halloween: Are you like me and don’t realize until the morning of Halloween that you’ve failed to buy any candy for trick-or-treaters? This happens to me every year. I never remember to make or buy a costume either. But Halloween is still very fun! I love a good scary movie in the dark.
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