CityLaw Profile: Frederick Schaffer, Chair of the Campaign Finance Board

In February 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Frederick Schaffer as the Chair of the City’s Campaign Finance Board. The Board, which will be thirty years old next year, is responsible for enforcing New York City’s campaign finance law, monitoring campaign contributions and disclosures, overseeing the public matching funds program and enforcing the rules. Schaffer takes the reigns as the Board heads into the 2017 mayoral campaign.

Schaffer was born and raised in Brooklyn. One … <Read More>


2013 Election Special: Campaign Finance Board Executive Director Amy Loprest

The dramatic suicide of Queens Borough President Donald Manes in 1986 shocked the City. Manes was under investigation in the Parking Violations Bureau ticket collection scandal when he drove a knife through his heart while talking on the phone with his psychiatrist. It was out of this scandal-plagued era that the City’s Campaign Finance Board was born. A joint City-State Commission to combat corruption organized by Mayor Ed Koch and Governor Mario Cuomo recommended public … <Read More>


Mayor De Blasio Addresses Annual Ethics Conference

On Tuesday, May 20, 2014, the Center for New York City Law, at New York Law School hosted the Twentieth Annual Seminar on Ethics in New York City Government.  The seminar was co-sponsored by the Conflicts of Interest Board and financially supported by the Department of Investigation.   The five hour seminar was attended by over 400 participants, including many City government employees who were able to attend for free.


COMMENTARY: CityLaw Breakfasts Return to New York Law School

Here is welcome news. This Fall CityLaw Breakfasts will return to in-person breakfasts at the Events Center at New York Law School. Covid-19 compelled the Law School to go remote and the CityLaw Breakfasts followed into cyberspace. The Law School has in the interim rebuilt the sound and video systems in the large and comfortable Events Center on the second floor of the Law School. We will be back with in-person breakfasts this Fall.


Ranked-Choice Voting: Coming to a Ballot Box Near You

NOTE: This CityLaw article was previously published on CityLand on March 8, 2021 and is being reposted ahead of the NYC Primary election on June 22, 2021. For more information about the election and where to vote visit www.voting.nyc.

Registered voters in the Democratic and Republican parties will, on June 22, 2021, be asked to participate in one of the most important primary elections in New York City’s history—with an entirely new voting system. New … <Read More>


Ranked-Choice Voting: Coming to a Ballot Box Near You

Registered voters in the Democratic and Republican parties will, on June 22, 2021, be asked to participate in one of the most important primary elections in New York City’s history—with an entirely new voting system. New York City’s June primary elections will be the first major test of ranked-choice voting. Rather than voting for one favored candidate to win the party nomination, voters will be asked to rank up to five candidates on the ballot … <Read More>