A Wall Street mogul with unclear motivations is gearing up to spend nearly a million dollars boosting candidates for New York City Council next year.
Michael Jenkins, a founder of the major financial firm Jane Street, is a reclusive figure who has made several attempts in the past to influence New York City elections, primarily in the Bronx. This year, he has dumped $950,000 into a political action committee that has so far only announced its intention to support one nonprofit executive turned city council candidate.
The individuals running the PAC appear to have skirted campaign finance laws in their previous political efforts, and they avoided New York Focus’s questions about their political motivations. It’s not clear why Jenkins, who did not respond to a request for comment and lives in Manhattan, according to the address listed on most of his donations, has poured his personal funds into low-profile elections in the Bronx.
The cash is significant for City Council races, since campaigns themselves are barred from spending more than $414,000 per cycle. Independent actors like PACs, on the other hand, can spend unlimited amounts to boost candidates as long as they don’t coordinate with those candidates’ campaigns.
In the 2021 and 2023 New York City elections, only two PACs reached $1 million in spending on City Council races: one funded by a coalition of six labor unions, and another heavily funded by major Republican donors Stephen Ross and Ronald Lauder.
The PAC — Ending Homelessness and Building a Better NYC —
is run by Tomas Ramos and Jason Autar, executives of a Bronx social
services nonprofit that has received significant funding from Jenkins.
Md Tawfique Reja, a political neophyte who served as treasurer for a
Jenkins-funded PAC in 2022, is the PAC’s treasurer.
The $950,000 that the PAC has received so far is greater
than the total sum of all PAC spending on Bronx City Council candidates
in the 2023 or 2021 election cycles.
Ending Homelessness will support Wilfredo Lopez, a
nonprofit lawyer running for City Council in a district that straddles
Manhattan and the Bronx. Lopez also received support from a
Jenkins-funded PAC when he ran unsuccessfully for state Assembly in
2022.
Ramos told New York Focus that the PAC plans to endorse
more candidates and release a policy platform. He didn’t detail the
policy platform, other than to say it’ll be about “safety” and “issues
with methadone clinics.”
Several other things about Ending Homelessness and its operators raised our eyebrows:
1. The PAC’s treasurer is a former waiter and personal trainer with almost no political experience.
Though he’s managing the PAC’s funds and responsible for ensuring its compliance with the complex requirements of New York’s election laws, Md Tawfique Reja isn’t exactly a political veteran. He works for Wakefern, a supermarket company, according to his LinkedIn profile. He mentioned previously working as a personal trainer and waiter during a 2021 podcast appearance, during which he discussed founding of a halal groceries delivery company that today looks to be defunct. Reja declared personal bankruptcy in 2020.
He does have some political experience: In 2022, he served as the treasurer of another Jenkins-funded PAC called Moving NY Forward, which supported Democratic state Assembly candidates — again, mostly in the Bronx. Reja was paid more than $68,000 over six months for the job.
Why he was tapped for the job isn’t clear, but a former employee of the PAC told New York Focus that Reja is a personal friend of Jason Autar, one of the people now running the Ending Homelessness PAC.
New York Focus reached Reja by phone in October and asked him to discuss his political work. He said it wasn’t a good time. Asked when would be a good time, Reja responded, “Never,” and hung up.
He didn’t respond to further contact attempts.
2. Tomas Ramos‘ role may not have been disclosed.
Reja was the only individual listed as having run Moving NY Forward in state filings from 2022. But two individuals told New York Focus that Ramos, from the social services nonprofit, was directly involved with the PAC’s operations, as well.
State law requires individuals who exert “operational control” over a PAC to disclose their identities to the Board of Elections, so there’s transparency around who’s directing the flow of cash. Ramos told New York Focus he was not involved with the PAC’s operations.
But Wilfredo Lopez, who ran for state Assembly in 2022 with support from Moving NY Forward, said Ramos told him that he had been involved with running the PAC when they met following the 2022 election, and also expressed interest in supporting another Lopez run for office.
“I was like, ‘That’s freaking awesome, I appreciate the help,’” Lopez told New York Focus.
An individual who was paid by the PAC in 2022 and requested anonymity to prevent professional reprisal also said that “it really was Tomas and Jason that were making the decisions.”
3. This wasn’t the only way Moving NY Forward skirted campaign finance law.
In
another apparent legal misstep, Moving NY Forward failed to list how
much it paid each of its employees, as required by law. Instead, its
public filings contain nine payments totaling nearly $400,000 with the
memo line “campaign worker salaries.”
That money was paid to “Keypad Studios LLC,” a company with
no public presence that was created in April 2022, just two months
before the checks started going out.
The payments were sent to a house in Flushing — Reja’s personal residence, as listed in his bankruptcy filing.
4. Jenkins has repeatedly tried to influence Bronx politics — and it’s not clear why.
The Ending Homelessness PAC is Jenkins’s latest attempt to sway Bronx elections.
He’s directly given tens of thousands to Bronx-based candidates for congress, state legislature and city council since 2020, including about $5,000 each to state Senators Luis Sepúlveda and Nathalia Fernandez and state Assembly candidates Emmanuel Martinez and Jonathan Soto.
Jenkins and other Jane Street bigwigs contributed $30,800 towards Tomas Ramos’s bid in 2020 for a South Bronx congressional seat, which is currently held by Rep. Ritchie Torres.
Ramos got less than 3 percent of the vote in that election.
After Jenkins bankrolled Moving NY Forward with $1.5 million in 2022, the PAC spent over $800,000 on behalf of state Assembly candidate Emmanuel Martinez, who got fewer than 1,000 votes and placed third in his race. Assemblymember George Alvarez, who beat Martinez, spent slightly over $150,000 and got more than twice as many votes.
Jenkins has also been a big supporter of Ramos’ nonprofit work. He contributed $1 million in 2020 to the Bronx-based Oyate Group, which Ramos founded and runs. The organization has mounted vaccine drives and offers youth programming in the borough, among other activities.
What accounts for Jenkins’ interest in Bronx politics and charity work?
Ramos said that Jenkins is “a wealthy donor who cares about a better life for our community” who also supports Ramos’ nonprofit and political efforts because he is a personal friend.
“I have a background in finance. I know a lot of people from Jane Street, JP Morgan Chase, you name it,” Ramos said, explaining that, before the 2008 financial crisis, he worked for now-defunct financial services company Wachovia.
Asked for further details, Ramos forwarded a news clip about an Oyate Group event meant to boost small businesses in the South Bronx.
“You should report on this,” he said. “Take care.”