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Board Members
The nonpartisan Campaign Finance Board oversees the work of the agency, makes public funds and penalty determinations, issues advisory opinions, and adopts rules.
The Board consists of five members, each of whom is appointed to five-year terms. The mayor and Speaker of the City Council each appoint two members who may not be enrolled in the same political party, respectively. The Chairperson of the Board is chosen by the mayor in consultation with the Speaker.
Frederick P. Schaffer
Chair
Frederick P. Schaffer is Chair of the New York City Campaign Finance Board. From 2000 through 2016, Mr. Schaffer served as General Counsel and Senior Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs of The City University of New York, the largest urban public university system in the country. In that position, he was responsible for providing legal counsel to the Board of Trustees, the Chancellor and the University on a wide range of issues and supervising a legal department of 20 lawyers. Mr. Schaffer also served as General Counsel of the CUNY Construction Fund, a public authority that finances capital construction at the University and as adjunct professor of law at the CUNY School of Law, where he taught courses in State and Local Government Law and First Amendment Law. In 2011 Mr. Schaffer was the recipient of one of the Awards for Excellence in Public Service from the New York State Bar Association.
Previously, Mr. Schaffer was a litigation partner in the law firm of Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, where he specialized in commercial and securities litigation and employment law. Earlier in his career, Mr. Schaffer served as Counsel to Mayor Koch, Chief of Litigation in the Office of the Corporation Counsel of the City of New York and Assistant U.S. Attorney in Manhattan. He also was an Associate Professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Mr. Schaffer has served as Chairman of the Legal Aid Society and is currently a Director of Citizens Union Foundation and co-chair of Citizens Union’s Policy Committee. He has been active in the New York City Bar Association as a member of the Task Force on the Constitutional Convention, the Executive Committee, the Nominating Committee, and the Committee on Government Ethics and as chair of the Committee on Education and the Law.
Mr. Schaffer received his B.A. degree summa cum laude from Harvard College and his J.D. degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Francis L. Van Dusen, Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Mr. Schaffer was appointed by Mayor de Blasio on March 1, 2017 to serve the remainder of a five-year term as chair ending on November 30, 2018. He was reappointed by Mayor de Blasio for a full five-year term, and reappointed again by Mayor Eric Adams on February 28, 2024 to another five-year term ending on November 30, 2028.
Gregory T. Camp
Board Member
Gregory T. Camp is Managing Director of Newfield Capital Inc., a private investment firm in New York. He serves as board member of Citizens Union Foundation, as member of the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on Capital Punishment, and as finance committee member and former board member / treasurer of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta.
Mr. Camp was an Assistant District Attorney in New York County for seven years, working in both the trial division and the labor racketeering and construction industry strike force. In the latter role, he investigated and prosecuted a wide range of organized crime, including extortion and bribery.
He subsequently served as Deputy Director of Criminal Justice for the State of New York, leading a statewide program promoting the prosecution of tax fraud. He has run for public office twice—for the state Assembly in 2007 and New York County District Attorney in 2009.
Mr. Camp graduated magna cum laude from Yale College and holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a JD from Yale Law School. He was born and raised in New York City, where he is now raising his three children.
He was appointed by City Council Speaker Mark-Viverito on March 28, 2017 to serve the remainder of a 5-year term expiring on November 30, 2021. He was reappointed by City Council Speaker Adrienne E. Adams on February 28, 2022. His term will expire on November 30, 2026.
Richard J. Davis
Board Member
Richard J. Davis founded his own law firm, Richard J. Davis Attorney at Law. He was a partner in the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP for 30 years and has previously served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Enforcement and Operations (1977–1981). Prior to that, he served as an Assistant Watergate Special Prosecutor and an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York. Among other activities, he has served as Chairman of the Board of Citizens Union (2004–2008), Chair Emeritus of the Board of the Randall’s Island Sports Foundation (1995–present), Chairman of the Mayor’s Commission to Combat Police Corruption (1996–2002), was a member of the Task Force on Police-Community Relations (1997–1998), and has served on the Board of the Legal Aid Society since 2000, where he is currently Chairman.
Mr. Davis graduated from the University of Rochester and the Columbia University School of Law.
He was appointed to the Board by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn on June 29, 2009, reappointed by City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito on December 1, 2014, and reappointed again by City Council Speaker Corey Johnson on December 1, 2019. His term will expire on November 30, 2024.
Lawrence Moskowitz
Board Member
Larry Moskowitz marched in his first picket line in 1964, demanding federal intervention to protect and find three civil rights workers killed in Philadelphia Mississippi. This inspired his passion for labor and social justice movements. Most recently, Moskowitz served as Social Justice Director of the Workers Circle, an American Jewish nonprofit that promotes social and economic justice, Jewish community, and education. In 2014, he served as Labor Union Coordinator of the People’s Climate March, where he organized the participation of over 80 labor organizations. Moskowitz was the founding staff member of the Working Families Party and held various roles for over 15 years, most recently as National Labor Director of the Party National Expansion Project. He was involved in numerous statewide campaigns, including the $15 Minimum Wage and the Green Light Bill, which allows all New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status, the opportunity to earn a driver’s license. He was appointed to the Board by Mayor Bill de Blasio on April 23, 2021, to serve the remainder of a five-year term that will expire on November 30, 2025.
Dawn Smalls
Board Member
Dawn Smalls is a strategic advisor and multidisciplinary leader with experience across law, government, politics, and philanthropy. In her private practice, Smalls has fought for undocumented immigrants, victims of financial crime, and voters facing intimidation. Her knowledge, at the intersection of law and politics, comes from serving, first, in the Clinton administration as assistant to the White House chief of staff and as a liaison on policy and budget issues for the District of Columbia, and then in the Obama administration as the chief regulatory officer at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as well as HHS’ liaison to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget.
During the 2008 election cycle, Smalls served as a regional political director for the Hillary Clinton for America presidential campaign, covering six states during the primary, after which she joined then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama’s campaign for the general election as New York political director.
As a commissioner of the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics, Smalls provided oversight to the state agency tasked with ensuring that state elected officials and lobbyists comply with the state’s ethics and lobbying laws and regulations.
Previously, Smalls served as the secretary of the New York City Bar’s ethics committee. Smalls also worked for the Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation — two of the largest philanthropies in the world — managing approximately $40 million of grants that promoted and increased civic engagement, political reform, and grassroots activism.
Smalls is a graduate of Boston University and Stanford Law School. She was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams on March 29, 2023 to serve a five-year term that will expire on November 30, 2027.