The Westchester Fair Campaign Practices Committee, the non-partisan campaign watchdog group founded by the League of Women Voters in 1991, issued a ruling this week which found Assemblyman Kevin Byrne’s opponent engaged in unfair campaign practices. The Committee determined her actions were “unfair” in response to complaints from the incumbent’s campaign.
The Byrne campaign complained that candidate Stephanie Keegan shared and promoted an image on social media they claimed gave “a false and misleading impression the Assemblyman refused to condemn a racist attack” which occurred in Carmel earlier this year. They further complained that by promoting an image featuring Assemblyman Byrne next to an image of a truck with a “F* Black Lives” sign affixed to it, again created “the false and misleading impression that the Assemblyman is somehow associated with racist behavior.”
Assemblyman Byrne said, “I thank the members of the Westchester Fair Campaign Practices Committee for their professionalism and for hearing our complaints. The incident in question was a disgusting display of hate and ignorance and universal condemnation of acts like this are a given. I understand our opponent is a first-time candidate, but this type of political attack only fans the flames of hate and should not be tolerated by anyone- regardless of political affiliation. I do appreciate that it appears she has since taken her post down from Facebook, even though it remains on Twitter.
“It is my sincere hope that other political candidates and political leaders can learn from this and avoid engaging in this type of discourse. Despite our political differences, I believe we can all agree that threats and ugliness are never the answer. Again, I thank the Committee for their findings,” said Byrne.
In its first “unfair” finding, the Committee confirmed and agreed that Byrne condemned the Carmel incident on multiple occasions and stated in its findings that “the word ‘refused’ implies that there was a request to condemn that Mr. Byrne rejected. There was no evidence that Mr. Byrne ‘refused’ to condemn a racist incident in his district.”
The ruling elaborated that “the juxtaposition of Mr. Byrne’s picture next to a truck with the words “F* Black Lives” violates the following principle: ‘The candidate will not use or condone any campaign material… that misleads the public.’ There was no evidence provided that Mr. Byrne was in any way associated with the truck pictured” in the second finding of unfair campaign practices against Ms. Keegan.
Byrne and Keegan are running for the Assembly in the 94th District, which includes the Northern Westchester Towns of Yorktown and Somers.
For more information on The Westchester County Fair Campaign Practices Committee visit www.faircampaignpractices.org.
