ALBANY, N.Y. (Map, News) - A study conducted by good-government groups says dozens of corporations with business before the Legislature may have exceeded the legal limit in 2007 on how much they can legally contribute to candidates.

The campaign filings released Thursday identify more than 100 companies that appear to have donated more than the $5,000 limit, which applies to a corporation's total contributions to all candidates.

Good government groups say part of the problem in New York is that the election law has a number of loopholes, meaning many of these companies may not have acted illegally. Over-limit contributions break the law only if they're done "knowingly or willingly," and if the company, group or organization is actually a corporation - a fact that was difficult to determine through the state filings.

That means companies that are a "limited liability company" instead of a corporation, or corporations that didn't know they weren't allowed to donate $5,000 per candidate instead of $5,000 aggregate each year, could avoid getting in trouble.

In one example, Riccelli Enterprises Inc. spent $11,600 in 2007 on campaign contributions, according to the study. The trucking company, which hauls bulk commodities and waste, was also identified as one that had overspent in 2006.

Multiple calls to Riccelli Enterprises were not immediately returned Thursday and it was unclear if the company knowingly donated more than the limit.

The good government groups also blame the Board of Elections for a lack of oversight.

"We're coming close to completing the 2006 (campaign filings) and I know we're under way on the 2007. There was a bit of an issue, in 2005 they changed the law," board spokesman Robert Brehm said.

The legal change created more work for the board by including filings from local governments, so instead of tracking only about 1,700 files in a year, the board now deals with about 10,000 files, Brehm said.

In many cases information is entered incorrectly, Brehm said. He pointed out that the board was able to eliminate the majority of the potentially illegal filings from 2005 - ultimately referring only 14 companies to district attorneys. The board did not know if any of those cases have been prosecuted.

"There are instances of treasurer error, and clearly the campaign finance unit is actively reviewing these documents," Brehm said. "They are looking at corporations that have made over contributions, they have hired three individuals to work as auditors to do this kind of work."

The groups releasing the report argue that the data has been computerized for the Board of Elections and they have the tools to distinguish companies that broke the law from those that legally contributed more through various loopholes.

"In politics, unless someone enforces the law aggressively, people will do what they feel like they want to do," said Blair Horner, a spokesman for the New York Public Interest Research Group. "At the state Board of Elections, they're not aggressively enforcing that."

The report was jointly released by NYPIRG, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause New York and the Citizens Union of the City of New York.

The groups argue the state's weak campaign finance law should be updated to either say corporations can't donate to politicians except through political action committees - to match federal law - or close the loophole that allows multiple subsidiaries of the same company to make contributions counted separately from each other.

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On the Net: http://www.elections.state.ny.us/Contributions.html