In one of his first major policy announcements, mayoral hopeful Scott Stringer is promising he would seek to ban city political candidates from accepting donations from lobbyists and city government contractors — a restriction he argues would restore public trust amid a series of corruption scandals rocking City Hall.
Stringer, an ex-city comptroller who himself has taken plenty of donations from lobbyists and contractors over the decades, acknowledged in an interview this week that such a ban would make it harder for candidates to finance their campaigns. In each city election cycle, lobbyists and contractors pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaign coffers of various political hopefuls.
A Daily News review of Stringer’s filings show he has himself accepted donations to his 2025 and 2021 mayoral campaigns from employees of some of the city’s largest lobbying firms, including Capalino, Greenberg Traurig and Pitta, Bishop & Del Giorno.
Asked about those contributions, he said: “I have respect for contractors and lobbyists and they work hard on their craft, but it just take a few bad apples to bring down our government, and when you think about corruption, it isn’t just a failure of governance, it is a betrayal of people…It’s time for us collectively to own up to the fact that City Hall should be leading on these reforms.”
Stringer floated similar proposals during his failed 2021 mayoral run.
But he noted his new plan, shared with The News ahead of its release, takes it a step further by, among other things, proposing to ban corporations with 1% or more foreign ownership stake from participating in local election spending via independent expenditures, commonly known as “Super PACs.” The plan also contains proposals for tightening restrictions on interactions between lobbyists and city officials.
Stringer said his proposals are needed in the wake of Mayor Adams’ indictment, which alleges he accepted bribes and illegal donations to his 2021 and 2025 campaigns, mostly from Turkish government operatives, in exchange for political favors. A long list of top Adams advisers have resigned in recent months after being ensnared in their own federal corruption investigations, some of which are scrutinizing kickbacks on city government contracts.
“Who could have imagined that the mayor would be under indictment?” said Stringer, who’s among more than a dozen Democrats running against Adams in June’s mayoral primary. “I came of age during the municipal scandals of the 80s, and we finally need to put the hammer down.”
Adams, who has pleaded not guilty and is expected to stand trial in April, didn’t return a request for comment via his campaign lawyer on Stringer’s plan. Adams has defended fundraising and maintaining ties in the city’s Turkish community, saying it’s among local ethnic groups that have historically been overlooked.
Under current laws, registered lobbyists and top executives of companies with municipal contracts are required to register in the city’s Doing Business database. If you’re in that database, you can only give a max of $400 to campaigns of candidates for mayor and other citywide offices.
Under Stringer’s plan, donations from lobbyists and city contractor executives would be outlawed outright. In addition, he said he would tighten the restrictions so that any employee of a city contractor, not just top executives, would be covered by the ban.
Stringer, whose 2021 mayoral campaign was upended by accusations of sexual impropriety he has denied, said he would use both executive power and City Council legislation to enact his proposed restrictions.
Beyond the donation ban, Stringer’s plan says he would prohibit contractors and lobbyists from giving money to candidates for one year after their business with the city concludes to prevent “thank you donations.”
The plan would also ban city contractors and lobbyists from “bundling,” a technique by which individuals collect political donations from others without contributing themselves.
Furthermore, the plan proposes to ban contractors and lobbyists from operating or donating to independent expenditures.
Outside the campaign finance universe, the plan floats barring agencies from hiring individuals who have lobbied them in the past year and forbid former city employees from lobbying their ex-agencies for two years after departing public service.
According to Stringer’s plan, any violations of the proposed rules should result in “strict penalties,” including contractors being permanently banned from city business and lobbyists losing their licenses.
“I think we have allowed this system to pollute public policy,” Stringer said, “and it’s time to end the practice.”
