Testimony of Amanda Melillo, First Deputy Executive Director, to the New York City Council Governmental Operations, State, and Federal Legislation Committee
09/22/2026
New York City Council
Governmental Operations, State, and Federal Legislation Committee
September 22, 2026
Good morning, Chair Brewer and members of the Committee on Governmental Operations, State & Federal Legislation. I am Amanda Melillo, First Deputy Executive Director of the New York City Campaign Finance Board (CFB). Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
The CFB is a nonpartisan, independent City agency committed to strengthening our local democracy. We combat the influence of big money in politics by amplifying the power of small-dollar contributions from everyday New Yorkers through our matching funds program, which serves as a model nationwide. Through our NYC Votes initiative, we engage directly with voters and provide access to the information and resources they need to vote.
One way we do this is by partnering with social media influencers to share public service announcements about voting. This approach is especially effective at reaching people who aren’t normally tuned into government and politics. In 2021, the CFB began working with influencers through our advertising vendor and in 2023 we brought the work of identifying, researching, and selecting influencers in-house to our social media team. Over this time, we have built a trusted messenger program that partners with voices who can reach younger voters in ways traditional government outreach often does not.
This strategic engagement is driven by our City Charter mandate to prioritize communities – both demographic and geographic – that are underrepresented in the electoral process. These priority audiences include younger voters under age 30, voters who primarily speak a language other than English, voters with disabilities, and voters who have been impacted by the criminal legal system. We also focus outreach on neighborhoods in the South Bronx, South Brooklyn, Northern Queens, and Central Queens that have lower voter turnout and a higher concentration of these priority audiences. Our work with influencers reflects the CFB’s broader commitment to reaching and engaging these audiences and communities.
We take our position as a nonpartisan agency seriously. The CFB uses clear criteria to select influencers based on their audience. Each must be a New York City resident with a majority audience in the five boroughs, and we prioritize influencers who can reach our priority audiences. Our internal nonpartisanship policy requires that all contracts include a nonpartisanship clause and an agreement not to endorse or oppose candidates, starting from the date they begin working with the CFB until 90 days after the general election. These guardrails enable the agency to avoid working with influencers who have expressed opinions on candidates, or taken positions on political parties, ballot proposals, or contentious partisan issues.
In 2025, the CFB worked with 29 influencers over the election cycle who generated over 70 posts across Instagram and Tiktok, at a total cost of $626,365. Compensation varies based on the campaign’s strategic priority, the influencer’s audience size and reach, and production complexity and creativity. These posts produced more than 6 million views and over 500,000 engagements, with an average engagement rate of about 5%, well above the 1-3% industry average. Every like, comment, and share signals a viewer engaging with a civic message and amplifies that content to be more visible to others.
The effect was even stronger for non-English content. Influencer videos in Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, and Bengali, created in-language by voices based in the communities we aim to reach, outperformed English-language posts, generating over 2.3 million views and more than 4,000 visits to our NYC Votes website. These are audiences that have historically lacked civic education and election messaging in their own language. Our ability to engage through trusted messenger influencers in-language allows us to get them information they need to be informed voters.
Turning to the bills before the Committee today, I want to note that the CFB has had only one week to review the proposed four pieces of legislation. Our feedback at this stage is preliminary and we look forward to providing more detailed comments and suggested edits to the Council after conducting more detailed analysis of the impact on CFB operations. However, from initial review, several of these bills raise serious concerns and, as currently drafted, would have unintended negative consequences for the agency’s work.
The first bill I will discuss is T2026-2553, introduced by Council Member Wong, which would codify “paid for by” disclaimer requirements on online and digital campaign expenditures. CFB Rule 6-06 has required these disclaimers on all campaign advertising since the 2017 election cycle and was expanded in 2024 to cover additional communication types, including paid influencer content. Such expenditures are already disclosed and documented like any other campaign advertising spending. Rule 14-04 similarly requires disclaimers on covered communications by independent spenders in visual, video, or audio formats. This legislation appears to duplicate the existing disclaimer requirements without changing the current obligations of campaigns, and we do not believe changes to the Charter are necessary.
T2026-2555, introduced by Council Member Carr, would prohibit candidates for office from appearing in certain digital or online government-funded public communications, during the 90 days preceding an election. The CFB already enforces the existing part of this law which prohibits using governmental resources for mass mailings during this period. This bill would simply broaden the scope of communication types covered under this law. We have no substantive feedback at this time and have no formal position on this bill.
T2026-1440, sponsored by Council Member Carr, would require public servants to report spending on public communications paid for with government resources. As drafted, the reporting obligation falls on the individual public servant who authorizes the use of government funds, which could unnecessarily disperse responsibility across an agency, and lead to duplicative or missed reports. We believe agency-level reporting through existing advertising spending reporting would better achieve this goal while consolidating reporting obligations. Given these concerns, the CFB does not support the bill as currently drafted, but we welcome further discussion with the Council to share our perspective as an agency that funds public communications.
Lastly, T2026-2554, introduced by Council Member Feliz, would require government agencies to disclose their partnerships on certain third-party public communications. As currently drafted, the bill raises fundamental concerns that prevent the CFB from supporting it. Designating the CFB as an enforcing agency is misaligned with our existing role and Charter mandate; the CFB does not investigate or regulate other City agencies. The proposed shared enforcement structure with the Conflicts of Interest Board compounds this problem. Dividing responsibility between two agencies would create unnecessary complexity in rulemaking, enforcement procedures, and administration, potentially producing inconsistent standards and undermining effective enforcement. Without significant changes to the proposed enforcement structure, the CFB cannot support this legislation.
In conclusion, we strongly believe the CFB’s influencer program is an effective tool for reaching voters whom traditional outreach methods do not effectively engage, backed by strong safeguards to protect the agency’s nonpartisanship. The CFB also approaches this issue as the regulator responsible for advising campaigns on their disclosure obligations and enforcing their misuse, and we are committed to providing clear guidance that reflects our existing disclosure requirements.
The agency is prepared to share its operational and regulatory expertise as the Council considers these issues. We remain committed to strengthening our local democracy and we look forward to working together to ensure New Yorkers receive transparent information about political content, no matter how the content reaches them.