How To Leash a Watchdog

Rose Gill Hearn, who chairs the Campaign Finance Board, has resigned, effective Dec. 31. So Mayor de Blasio gets to fill the seat — when the board is still in the process of auditing his 2013 campaign, even as his 2017 re-election campaign is gearing up.

Now, the CFB has a lot of power: It shifted the course of the 2013 mayoral race when it shut down public funds for John Liu, de Blasio’s rival for left-wing votes, over problems in Liu’s 2009 run to become city comptroller.

We’ve expressed our worries over the CFB’s independence before: The board’s five members serve staggered five-year terms; the mayor and City Council speaker each appoint two members who must be enrolled in different parties.

But enrollment doesn’t speak to actual loyalties — which means that, over time, the board can be stacked.

And now de Blasio will de facto choose the next board chair in consultation with his ally, Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.

His lone appointment so far is Nancy Zauderer — a registered Working Families Party voter who heads the CUNY faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress.

On Zauderer’s watch, the PSC gave $5,000 to NYC Is Not For Sale — an outfit notable for spending over $1.1 million to de- feat Christine Quinn, de Blasio’s rival during the 2013 primaries. The CFB later fined the group $7,040 for failing to report $70,000 in expenditures.

Going back to 1999, the PSC has given $108,400 to the WFP, which is also closely allied with the mayor.

Also of note: Last July, in a probe of the mayor’s relationship with his pet nonprofit, The Campaign For One NY, the CFB let him skate. But federal and state prosecutors are now on the case.

So: Where is the board headed? Its past chairs, such as Fr. Joseph O’Hare and Fritz Schwarz, Jr. — each with long public careers working on behalf of New Yorkers — were highly regarded as smart and independent.

Bloomberg appointee Gill Hearn had served as his Department of Investigation commissioner — and even before taking that job had “the patina of absolute integrity,” according to veteran political consultant Hank Sheinkopf. After all, she’d been a deputy chief in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District.

In contrast, de Blasio appointed his campaign treasurer Mark Peters to the DOI post. In other words, he prefers “watchdogs” of proven loyalty.

We look forward to seeing what happens next with the city’s campaign-finance watchdog.