NEW YORK — A PAC run by a close ally of Mayor Eric Adams, which raised more than $1 million from people who support him, is making some curious out-of-state expenditures.
Al Cockfield’s Striving for a Better New York says on its website it “seeks to actively support and contribute to candidates for New York State offices who give a voice to the issues that impact the lives of everyday New Yorkers.”
But the PAC has given $1,000 to a candidate for mayor of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, $1,000 to a candidate for county prosecutor in Kansas City, Missouri and $2,500 to a candidate for controller in Houston, Texas.
All told, the committee has donated $15,000 to 11 candidates running far outside New York over the last year and a half, according to the latest campaign finance filings with the state Board of Elections.
The candidates ranged from Memphis mayor to United States Senate. All of them, like Cockfield, are Black.
During that same time, the PAC did not bring in any money. In fact, after an aggressive fundraising start in 2021 it has not raised a dime since March 2022, and has been slowly spending down its haul. It had reported a balance of nearly $215,000 as of last month.
“Generally, I support candidates both in New York and outside of New York,” Cockfield said in a brief phone call. “All politics is local.”
The Queens-based reverend did not respond to a detailed list of questions about how he runs the PAC, and his relationship with Adams.
Five campaign finance experts said Cockfield doesn’t seem to be violating any rules with the contributions. But the surprising donations raise further questions about a PAC that Cockfield has been accused of using as a vehicle to personally benefit himself.
Cockfield is a politically connected pastor who leads two Christian schools and a charter school, and developed affordable housing with his church, God’s Battalion of Prayer. He helped fundraise for Adams’ campaign and scored a key spot on stage on election night. His daughter, Amaris Cockfield, works in the mayor’s press office.
The elder Cockfield is also a “government affairs adviser” at a law firm. He helped a hotel developer reverse stop work orders that the Adams administration placed on her projects, THE CITY, The Guardian and Documented reported.
Cockfield’s PAC was scrutinized by The New York Times in 2022 for its generous payments to Cockfield himself, a $60,000 donation to a charter school he founded and runs, and money spent at trendy hotels and nightclubs.
The state Board of Elections’ Division of Election Law Enforcement opened a case against the PAC in response to the article, but closed it without penalizing him the following year, after Cockfield refunded the charter school donation, and personally reimbursed a $721 charge to Nine Orchard, a boutique hotel in Manhattan.
That was the second time the BOE investigated the PAC. Cockfield returned nearly $100,000 in contributions from anonymous LLCs, and paid a $1,000 fine.
POLITICO first reported on the PAC’s creation.
Cockfield has greatly reduced the PAC’s non-political spending following the second BOE case. He has not reported paying himself his previous $7,173-per-month salary since December 2022. The only sign of high-end taste is a $562 charge to Midtown Manhattan steakhouse STK on March 1 for a “meeting.” No attendees were named.
However some questionable spending has continued.
On June 6, the PAC reported a $5,000 payment to DRX Consulting, which the Times noted in 2022 “was not easily identifiable.” POLITICO, likewise, could find no record of the company online, and Cockfield didn’t respond to a question about the firm.
Cockfield created the PAC after Adams won the mayoral primary in 2021, and raised more than $1.3 million from real estate developers, tech firms and more in the final four months of that year. Adams spoke at an early fundraiser for the PAC, and donors eager to support the next mayor were directed to contribute to it, after Adams' campaign reached its own fundraising limit.
Adams’ campaign fundraiser at the time, Brianna Suggs, joined the PAC as well, but has since left. Her last recorded payment was in January 2023, 10 months before federal authorities raided her home as part of a federal investigation involving Adams’ campaign fundraising. She has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Despite the out-of-state spending, the vast majority of the Striving for a Better New York’s donations have gone to New York candidates — almost all of them Black incumbents, such as Rep. Greg Meeks, Attorney General Tish James and Assemblymembers Brian Cunningham, Stefani Zinerman and Nikki Lucas.
The largest single donation in the last year was $50,000 to Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn’s leadership PAC — which the Brooklyn Democratic county leader got because she asked for it, she told POLITICO.
There are no restrictions on New York PACs giving to out of state candidates, Board of Elections spokesperson Kathleen McGrath told POLITICO. The only rules to consider would be the ones covering the jurisdiction of the candidates receiving the money.
“There's a lot of reasons why an organization would play out of state,” said Darren Rigger, a partner at fundraising firm Dynamic SRG, pointing to New York groups that want to influence which party holds control of Congress. He added that any sort of rules regulating which candidates PACs can give money to would be challenging to legislate, and hard to enforce.
Adams’ team has distanced the mayor from the PAC after he helped fundraise for it.
“I 100 percent do not work with him,” Adams political adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin told POLITICO regarding Cockfield, adding she was “unaware” of the PAC’s spending.
Cockfield said as much to POLITICO in a 2022 interview.
“Is it Eric’s PAC?” he asked. “No. It is Rev. Al Cockfield’s PAC.”
A version of this article first appeared Wednesday in New York Playbook. Subscribe here.
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