Partisan retweets by Assembly task force may have violated ethics laws
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The Deputy Counsel for the state assembly democrats reprimanded Assemblymembers Ron Kim (right) of Queens and Yuh-Line Niou (center) for potentially violating ethics rules. AP Photo/Hans Pennink.
By David Brand
A pair of partisan retweets by the state Assembly’s Asian Pacific American Task Force may have broken New York state ethics laws, according to a letter that legislative counsel sent to the task force’s co-chairs in November 2019.
In the letter obtained by the Eagle, Brian Haak, deputy counsel to the Assembly Democrats, reprimanded Assemblymembers Ron Kim of Queens and Yuh-Line Niou for potentially violating ethics rules after the “official governmental channel of communication” — the APATF Twitter account — retweeted Niou’s plea for campaign contributions and Kim’s appeal for New York City voters to back ranked-choice voting.
“It is impermissible to use the Twitter feed to fundraise for political candidates,” Haak wrote in the letter dated Nov. 6, 2019. “It is also impermissible to use the Twitter feed to advocate for or against a particular ballot measure.”
“Both of these retweets are inappropriate and potentially violations of the law,” he added.
Kim and Niou formed the nonpartisan Asian Pacific American Task Force in May 2017 to advocate for and study issues affecting Asian and Pacific American communities of New York. The task force includes 15 other assemblymembers.
On Oct. 25, 2019, the task force retweeted a message from Niou’s personal Twitter account soliciting campaign contributions and linking to her page on the political donation website ActBlue.com.
Five days later, Oct. 30, 2019, the account retweeted a message by Ron Kim encouraging New York City residents to vote “yes” on a November ballot measure that would establish ranked-choice voting. Kim’s tweet included a Queens Daily Eagle story about a ranked-choice voting rally in Queens.
Haak cited state Public Officers Law and warned the lawmakers that the use of “legislative office and resources to secure or attempt to secure ‘unwarranted privileges or exemptions’ for a legislator or third-party” is prohibited and includes “the use of state resources to fundraise for political campaigns or to campaign for specific candidates or for or against specific ballot measures.”
Haak and the Assembly did not provide comment after being contacted for this story.
Niou did not provide a response to a request for comment, but Kim said the retweets were an honest mistake by a relatively new executive director.
“It was just a minor error by the executive director who just came on the job and wasn’t 100 percent clear of what she could or could not put on social media,” Kim said. “Everything was scrubbed … we rectified the situation.”
APATF Executive Director Kai Zhang said she reversed the retweets as soon as she found out they were not appropriate from the task force’s account.
“It’s very much something I did before I had understanding of the rules,” Zhang said. “It was definitely a mistake on my part, but I had just started my job, and as soon as I found about this, I removed everything.”
UPDATE [6:15 p.m., Sept. 9, 2019] — A spokesperson for the Assembly Speaker’s Office responded to requests for comment after this story was published:
“Often with the addition of new staff and the ever changing landscape of social media reminders of our guidelines are helpful. It appears in this particular instance this was a simple oversight and nothing more,” said spokesperson Michael Whyland.
