More Campaign Funds Abuse by "The Love Gov"?
By GordonTaylor Posted in Democratic Governors | State Politics — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
As David Paterson pays back his campaign for illegal hotel expenditures, new reports of additional campaign funds abuse are surfacing and have begun to raise more eyebrows. It seems his use of a campaign credit card for personal bill paying was fairly widespread.
A new list of items reveals the following expenditures of campaign funds that Paterson may have "inadvertently" used his campaign credit card for when his personal card didn't work.
All of these expenditures were originally reported as "constituent services."
- A Nov. 2, 2002, stay at the Quality Hotel (now Days Inn) on the upper West Side. Aides couldn't find documentation and Paterson says he can't recall the circumstances. He admitted he may have used campaign money to pay for a rendezvous with a woman at the hotel that cost "around $100." The bill - reimbursed this week - was for $103.
- A Jan. 30, 2003, stay at the Quality Hotel. Paterson says he visited New York from Albany with an aide whose name he can't recall. He believes the aide stayed at the hotel. That night he recalls having drinks with former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and his wife at Il Boschetto; the $80.10 restaurant bill shows up on the campaign's American Express bill next to the $149 hotel bill. This week, he reimbursed the campaign for the hotel.
- Several personal charges totaling $2,088.45, all in 2004, including $1,075.90 in clothing at Men's Wearhouse, a $354.85 bar tab at an upper Manhattan restaurant called The Den, $43.30 for "men's apparel" at an unnamed store near Albany, a $128.98 bar tab at Albany's Crowne Plaza hotel and $485.42 for furniture from an Albany store.
In another related matter, Paterson is now back peddling on his earlier story of a $500.00 payment made to former girl friend Lila Kriton. On Wednesday Paterson said the $500.00 was a repayment for attending a political dinner. On Friday, Paterson significantly changed his story and claims it was a fee paid for redoing a campaign data base. (Keeps him out of pass through donation hot water.) The link to the check below clearly shows it was made out for Campaign Wages.
Link to PDF file of check in question.
Paterson's aide have now begun to criticized the press for raising questions about spending of campaign funds to female staffers. Henry Berger has been Paterson's campaign counsel since 2005 and has repeatedly tried to minimize the importance of using a campaign credit card for personal expenses.
Paterson's spokesman, Errol Cockfield, complains that some of these inquiries into Paterson's actions have bordered on being sexist.
of those that were screaming for Giuliani's head after similar allegations.
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Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words...-Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes
who just put campaign funds in his pocket to live on? That's so Alan Keyes.
Georgia's Eugene Talmadge did sort of the same thing. People would make cash contributions and he'd just stick it in his coat pocket.
Paterson must go!
Where are the NY Dems in the state house that were tacitly supporting the impeachment of Spitzaholic?
It seems that the NY Democratic Party has some serious house-cleaning to do.
Now why don't the voters there go crazy like the voters nationwide did in 2006 and start throwing random members of the majority party out of office? If it works for the DNC, it should also work for the NY GOP, no?
Proudly supporting John S. McCain for President (McCain/Romney?)
but so far no takers. It's amazing how they have been side stepping this so far. My friend Rus Thompson at Albany's Insanity and me have been drumming the heck out of this, Rus was even interviewed on a local AM station in Buffalo for 29 minutes, but no serious takers so far.
There's no realism in changing anything. There is no Republican Party in NYC and the City elects 65 of the 150 Assemblymen (nearly a majority itself - btw, of those 65 there is 1 Republican, Lou Tobacco of Staten Island. It also elects 27 of 62 Senators (again, nearly a majority all by itself) - only 3 of those 27 are Republicans and 1 of those 3 is older than dirt. Two of them will have serious challengers this fall.
So you wind up with effective 1 party rule in most seats - half of them won't even have a Republican opponent on the ballot to vote for even if voters wanted to "throw the bums out."
Of greater issue really, is that no reform of New York is possible so long as citizens, candidates, and officeholders, are willing to abide the rules of the Assembly and Senate. If you want to understand the power of the Senate Majority Leader and the Assembly Speaker, go read up on the powers of the US House Speaker around 1900. They have virtually unfettered control over who sits on committees, who chairs them (and with a chair comes extra salary. They have virtual dictatorships over their members - who is they dare dissent, are punished (see the reaction of Speaker Silver against fellow Democrats who tried to oust him and reign in the Speaker's power).
So, there is no hope for New York because electing a legislator is pointless - he is virtually unable to actually represent you because if he tries to do something his floor leader doesn't like he'll suddenly be on some committee that is irrelevant to his constituents (imagine an Upper West Side Manhattan Democrat on the Agriculture Committee), stripped of a chairmanship, hounded out of leadership, and unable to get a bill so much as a hearing. The state would almost be better off having a statewide election for Senate Majority Leader and Assembly Speaker - at least then they'd have to answer to the whole state for what they do.
Real reform in New York must start with the Legislature - to make it a real "body" rather than the instrument of the will of the two leaders. And so no governor can actually institute real reform. I hope, strongly, that the Republicans in the Senate will dump Joe Bruno (a Pataki ally, that's how he got the job to begin with), really reform the chamber and rally around a platform that involves concrete reforms of the "rules of the game." Alas that the NY GOP is even more dysfunctional than the NY Democratic Party. The Democrats have no ethics but the Republicans have no b&*#s.
1. He didn't see what was wrong with his actions at the time.
2. Love is blind.
Tim Schieferecke