Fair Campaign Practices Committee Key Piece of W’chester Electoral Process

It’s in the great American tradition that political campaigns can get heated, and that’s fine.

In Westchester County, there is a committee of 15 people who make sure that the rhetoric in the campaigns is in line with facts.

The Westchester County Fair Campaign Practices Committee is where political candidates and their campaigns go for redress when there are falsehoods, exaggerations or misrepresentations about their positions, personal history or anything else that might be a target in a contentious race.

It’s not that the nonpartisan committee has any authority to impose sanctions. Their authority comes in providing findings within a day or two of a hearing after a candidate or campaign files a complaint. But for that to have impact, people need to know that the committee exists and what it does.

Committee Coordinator Jennifer Mebes Flagg and Joy Rosenzweig, a member and the committee’s media coordinator, said awareness among the public, candidates and political parties in Westchester is a key element regarding effectiveness.

“We would like them to be more engaged and more aware of what we’re doing,” Rosenzweig said.

Once a complaint is filed, Flagg explained that it will be sent to each committee member to review before a hearing is held. The candidate who is being accused of an unfair campaign practice is notified and a hearing is scheduled where both parties and/or a representative for them can make their case.

After the hearing, where each side gets 10 minutes to present their argument, the committee meets to discuss whether the complaint has merit and the members seek to reach consensus so there can be a finding. All findings include the committee’s explanation and are posted on its website, www.faircampaignpractices.org.

If there is no consensus reached – it may take a day or two to determine a finding – the committee will not issue one.

Despite the more recent fraught political atmosphere, candidates and political parties have been accepting of how the committee has operated for its 33-year history, Flagg said. Typically, the candidate who receives a finding in their favor will publicize it while the other side will likely ignore it.

Filings can focus not only on the written word through campaign literature and ads, but through the manipulation of images, altering quotes and photographs, personal attacks, accusing an opponent of doing something when they are just one vote on a board and misusing statistics, among other transgressions.

Longtime committee member Lee Kinnally said there has been buy-in from the county’s political committees because one of their candidates may have finding in their favor one day but against another the next. (Each party has a representative to the committee who participates in the discussions regarding complaints but they do not vote.)

“So there’s a legitimacy here that has been earned and respected by the participants because they want the process,” Kinnally said. “They may be unhappy with that conclusion but they understand the process is a good one. It’s beneficial to the electoral process.”

“I think the strength of our committee relies on the support we get from the political parties,” said Flagg, who says the committee works with the political parties.

But to stay nonpartisan, there needs to be good representation across all areas, she added.

“The committee strives to be very diversified, and we actually currently have a nominating committee that is actively seeking members to help us be more diversified, and diversified means not just politically, it means by age, by geography, ethnicity,” Flagg said.

In the past 15 years through 2023, there have been 539 findings issued by the committee, nearly two-thirds of which (65 percent) have been deemed to be unfair. Both major parties avail themselves of the committee almost equally.

Local races have accounted for nearly 53 percent of the filings, with 24 percent in county races and 22 percent in state races. There was also a complaint generated by the 2010 U.S. Senate race in New York.

In 2024, there are new challenges for the Fair Campaign Practices Committee since 1991 when Milton Hoffman, part of the Westchester-Rockland Gannett newspaper chain (now The Journal News), advocated in an editorial for there to be an independent body to be the arbiter for these types of disputes. The committee was established by the League of Women Voters, although it operates separately from that organization.

To date, it is considered a unique committee, at least in New York State.

For much of its existence, the committee relied on local media to get the word out about its findings, Flagg said. With the diminution of local coverage and pressures related to media time and manpower, the findings have not been covered as consistently, she said.

Social media and the internet have also impacted the political discourse. Candidates are responsible for posts on official campaign and social media feeds or on their own accounts but are not held responsible on private citizens’ posts.

Flagg said over the past two years there has been a reduction in complaints that have been filed.

“But it’s also been the fact that there aren’t as many contested races, and when you have that, we’ve had more primary complaints, more primary than general (election),” Kinnally said. “Even when there is a contest, one of the candidates may be so new, there’s no direction in a campaign and it’s a foregone conclusion.”

As of Oct. 10, there had not been one complaint filed from any candidate in Westchester County for the general election, the committee reported. While the complaints have often increased the later it gets in a campaign, it is unusual that there has not been a single complaint with about three weeks before Election Day.

The committee’s website also contains various voter education resources and toolkits for candidates in addition to posting findings generated by complaints.

“We do want people to be aware of us and share our findings,” Rosenzweig said.