Showing posts with label campaign finance scandal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label campaign finance scandal. Show all posts

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Who is politically responsible for obstructing the work of the Moreland Commission ?

PUBLISHED : THURS, 10 APR 2014, 10:26 AM
UPDATED : SUN, 13 APR 2014, 08:03 PM

Andrew Cuomo photo andrew-cuomo-smiles-jpg-alg_zps9d0cdc97.jpg

The culture of corruption up in Albany mirrors the cultures in Washington and New York City, and the lax justice departments at each level of government play politics with justice, except for one man, Preetinder Bharara

Journalist superhero Matt Taibbi was interviewed by Leonard Lopate on WNYC earlier this week during which Mr. Taibbi said that our broken justice system allows "massively destructive fraud by the hyper-wealthy to go unpunished, while it turns poverty itself into a crime." But Mr. Taibbi doesn't even address who politicizes the wide swath of city, state, and federal prosecutors that renders our justice system so broken.

The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Preetinder Bharara, has asked the press to step up their investigation work against a backdrop of Justice Department budget cuts made by the White House and Congress. On the state level, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's most recent state budget stripped valuable resources from state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, leaving him with fewer resources to fight corruption. In another controversial move in the same budget deal that further undercut the state's important prosecutorial work, Gov. Cuomo disbanded the Moreland Commission, a public corruption investigation panel tasked with cleaning up government across New York state. More locally, the corrupt DA in Manhattan, Cy Vance, can't keep running for office without the consent of the Manhattan Democratic Party chair ; same for the other county prosecutors in New York City. That approval acts as a backdoor check on what kind of corruption cases the county DA's can bring, because the DA's have to be mindful not to investigate corrupt political operatives and supporters, who are loyal to the county chairs. Look at how all this corruption happens all over New York City, but nobody ever gets prosecuted by the Manhattan DA's office.

With these conditions undermining our justice system, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, like the hero in "High Noon," is forced to rescue almost single-handedly a town from crooks, who are about to lay siege. Indeed, The New York Times reported that Mr. Bharara is going to take possession of all of the Moreland Commission’s case files, or whatever is left of them. "Staff members of the panel, several said, regularly deleted emails and often communicated with BlackBerry messages not recorded on government servers," the article in The New York Times noted.

Gov. Cuomo’s obstruction of the Moreland Commission's work, some bloggers said, represented politically-motivated machinations to prevent the potential for an embarrassment for the governor during an election year, particularly since the Moreland Commission had subpoenaed records from some of the governor's shady political supporters, such as those in the corrupt real estate industry known for making big money campaign contributions in exchange for zone-busting approvals and huge tax breaks. Examples of how Gov. Cuomo obstructed the investigations of the Moreland Commission included actions by Lawrence Schwartz, the governor’s secretary, and Mylan Denerstein, Gov. Cuomo’s counsel, who each "would routinely call and say, ‘How can you issue a subpoena like this?’ or ‘These people shouldn’t be on it,’" a Moreland Commission member told The New York Times. Further complicating the Moreland Commission's own work was the fact that one of its co-chairs, Bill Fitzpatrick, an upstate district attorney, publicly disavowed the investigation panel's crucial role in busting up public corruption in New York state. Another panel co-chair, Kathleen Rice, a district attorney from Long Island, ditched her responsibilities on the Moreland Commission once she had gained enough fame to run for Congress.

And to make it more painful, the whole focus of the justice system has become deliberately distracted with the failed "broken windows" theory of law enforcement by such discriminatory police commissioners, such as New York City's William Bratton. But who makes these decisions ? It's one thing for Mr. Taibbi to point out that this paradox exists. But where is the community pressure to appropriate political blame for these misplaced priorities ? Who defunds the Justice Department and the state Attorney General's office ? Who disbands the Moreland Commission ? Who appoints irresponsible police commissioners to lead the troubled NYPD ? Which legislative bodies consent to all this ?

What's plainly missing is rolling up political responsibility for these failures to politicians. People have to fully engage/challenge the corrupt political system in order to reform these failures. There is no other way, and, like our hero Sheriff Preet is demonstrating, there is no short cut.

2014-04-01 Moreland Commission - Follow-Up E-Mail Re Pitta Bishop USAO

Letter From U S Attorney Preet Bharara Re Moreland Commission Investigations 2 by katehinds

Letter From U S Attorney Preet Bharara Re Moreland Commission Investigations by katehinds

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Wednesday, April 9, 2014

After gaming NYC campaign finance model, mayor and his allies plan to game the NYS model, too

PUBLISHED : SUN, 09 APR 2014, 09:30 AM
UPDATED : SUN, 11 MAY 2014, 10:00 PM

If we have to depend on the Working Families Party for election and campaign finance reform, we are in big trouble

The $200 million cost of spreading the corrupt New York City campaign finance model to the rest of New York state would form an avalanche of money, and all this money would pick up wild speeds as it hurled straight into the pockets of the corrupt campaign consultants and lobbyists that keep the political system broken and owned by big money donors and special interests. This is not what real reform would look like. Real reform would be banning all private donations, ending the appointment of campaign finance regulators by politicians, and instituting newer, tougher regulations of campaign consultants/lobbyists.

"The WFP, a strong ally of Mayor de Blasio’s and, after a string of victories in last fall’s elections, the most potent player in city politics, believes that winning approval of a public-finance system — which could cost taxpayers $200 million per election cycle — would enhance its quest for higher taxes and more government spending throughout the state."

In it's article, The New York Post lumped the Working Families Party in with "election reformers" and "good government groups." What a joke !

In last year's municipal elections, the most visible Working Families Party political operatives, Scott Levenson and Patrick Gaspard, became the subject of federal complaints over corrupt electioneering activities. These and other corrupt campaign consultants and lobbyists know how to game the system of public matching dollars that once made the New York City model of campaign finance such a darling for government reform activists. However, in the years since its inception, the New York City campaign finance model has shown that it can be exploited by shady lobbyists seeking to make Swiss cheese of city campaign finance regulations. Not only that, but the Working Families Party is said to have many issues with Gov. Andrew Cuomo's neoliberal policies, but the Working Families Party is actually engaging in negotiations to broker a deal to endorse Gov. Cuomo in this year's race reelection race, in spite of Gov. Cuomo's failure to revolutionise campaign finance reform in New York state. It is now possible for candidates to violate caps on political campaign donations by opening several campaign accounts across several jurisdictions and for multiple political campaigns -- all during the same election cycle. Just look at what New York City Councilmeber Melissa Mark-Viverito did in last year's race.

With support from the Working Families Party and operatives loyal to the WFP, Councilmember Mark-Viverito was eligible for four campaign accounts last year: a campaign account, for which there is no transparency, for a Democratic Party District Leader race ; a campaign account for a City Councilmember race that was eligible for public matching dollars in exchange for a spending cap ; a largely unregulated campaign account for a controversial Council speaker race ; and, as icing on the cake, a campaign account for inauguration and transition activities to reward her donors and political operative supporters. Combined, her dependence on a never-ending cycle of corrupt campaign finance spending opens New York City government to the corruptive influence of big money donors, corrupt campaign consultants, and shady special interests and their lobbyists. Add to this the fact that the corrupt political campaign system selects do-nothing officials to nominally oversee campaign finance regulations. In New York City, Rose Gill Hearn oversees the Campaign Finance Board, the city's campaign finance regulatory authority. In her past post as chief of the city's Department of Investigation, Ms. Hearn did nothing in the face of a massive $600 million CityTime fraud by SAIC. If she has no integrity to stop massive corporate fraud, then her corrupt record makes her perfect to keep allowing political operatives and lobbyists to keep gaming the city's campaign finance regulations under the de Blasio administration.

This same model is the vision that the Working Families Party has for the rest of New York state : a campaign finance model that can be gamed and exploited, that leaves elected officials incapable of providing any checks-and-balances on government or corrupt special interests, precisely because all these elected officials are feeding off the nipple of a corrupt campaign finance system that allows big money donors and special interests to set government agenda. It's been reported that the WFP plans to use changes in the state's campaign finance regulations to enact its agenda across the state. But the WFP has shown that what drives its agenda is the source of its campaign donations. In the effort to raise vast amounts of money for state-wide political campaign races, the WFP is going to represent the interests of its donors and the lobbyists, who are paid to conduct these campaign, similar to how the party conducts its business in the city level. How many Bloomberg-era policies have yet to be fully ended or reformed ? If the WFP portrays itself as a reform party, where has it been on the controversial appointment of William Bratton as police commissioner ? What is the WFP going to do to force City Hall to settle the class action lawsuit filed by homeless youths by fully providing the resources to homeless youths so that they can receive shelter, as required by law ? It seems like the WFP isn't interested in reforming some social issues, unless there are big money donors attached to those issues.

In spite of all of his empty rhetoric during last year's campaign season, Mayor Bill de Blasio is still going to allow real estate developers to get their hands of valuable hospital property for zone-busting luxury housing development deals in gentrifying neighborhoods, like what is happening at Long Island College Hospital. Amongst big business special interests, real estate lobbyists and developers have become key mayoral supporters, so it should come as no surprise to see the mayor carry out a city agenda that delivers on the corrupt expectations of real estate developers. On the other end of the political spectrum, you had a Super PAC administrated by Mr. Levenson, the WFP operative and former ACORN spokesman, which spend a million dollars to defeat former Council Speaker Christine Quinn in last year's mayoral race in what some have said was a coordinated act to benefit the mayoral campaign of Bill de Blasio. Further muddling this electioneering controversy is that the NY-CLASS animal rights group and their supporters, trying to enact a noble ban on carriage horses in Central Park, chiefly funded the Super PAC, provided electioneering support to Councilmember Mark-Viverito, and its Super PAC administrator, Mr. Levenson and his lobbying firm, helped to select Councilmember Mark-Viverito as Council speaker, a position from which NY-CLASS would expect Speaker Mark-Viverito to deliver the horse carriage ban.

Once the mayoral race was over, the corruptive role of money in politics cycled out of their Super PAC structures and into 501(c)(4) structures. Witness how the mayor became entangled in a political vendetta against the powerful charter schools executive, Eva Moskowitz. After the mayor took actions to destroy Ms. Moskowitz's charter school corporation, Ms. Moskowitz raised big money donations and launched a powerful multi-million TV attack ad campaign against the mayor. Ms. Moskowitz was so successful that the governor, impressed by her fundraising prowess, came to her rescue ; the mayor, out-raised and out-spent, had to retreat ; and now, the mayor is fighting to resuscitate his damaged popularity poll numbers by mounting his own TV campaign blitz, touting his nominal win in expanding pre-kinder in New York City.

If the mayor needs to keep fluffing his image with political TV commercials, then he's going to have to keep raising more and more special interest money from big money donors. And the Working Families Party, which the mayor co-founded, will undoubtedly keep helping the mayor to keep money in politics, so long as it is to their advantage, meaning that we have very little hope of ending campaign finance corruption in New York. And what can big business interests, like Ms. Moskowitz, learn from these first 100 days of the de Blasio administration ? Keep raising 501(c)(4) political campaign money until it comes time to switch back to Super PAC's, for Ms. Moskowitz has proven herself to be able to challenge Mayor de Blasio in 2017. It's not that her ideology is right, it only comes down to her ability to raise big money donations that can roll over the mayor's political machine in a backdrop of lax campaign regulations and do-nothing regulators. In this vicious cycle, the awareness by the mayor and by his scores of political operatives of Ms. Moskowitz's campaign finance threat frightens the mayor into greater and greater dependence on political campaign donations to fund paid sick day advertising blitz and the pre-kinder commercials. Instead of reforming campaign finance by banning all private donations, along the lines of reforms called for by Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins, the mayor and his team of political operatives are going to double-down on their dependence on big money campaign donors.

QUESTIONING THE NEW YORK CITY CAMPAIGN FINANCE BOARD

With John Liu's lawsuit against New York City over conflicted city campaign finance regulators, this makes three federal referrals of elections violations, forcing Mayor de Blasio to lawyer-up, recruit special inside election counsel.

After a wave of federal complaints that have been lodged over electioneering violations in last year's municipal elections, Mayor Bill de Blasio has hired a special legal advisor specializing in election law.

Since Mayor de Blasio and City Council Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, and/or their political operatives, are entangled in some of these federal complaints, it should come as no surprise that Mayor de Blasio is now maneuvering to use his public office to defend himself against allegations of wrong-doing that took place during the electioneering of last year's municipal elections.

The three federal complaints lodged following last year's municipal elections :

  1. GOP consultant E. O'Brien Murray argued to the State Department that Patrick Gaspard, a former top White House aide with a deep history in Gotham politics, violated the federal Hatch Act by getting involved in Mayor de Blasio's campaign -- and City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito's subsequent election as speaker -- while representing the U.S. in South Africa. (GOP Operative Files Hatch Act Complaint Against U.S. Ambassador Patrick Gaspard * The New York Daily News)
  2. Louis Flores, a local political gadfly who ran a blog and wrote a book criticizing Christine Quinn, has filed a complaint with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s criminal division against Scott Levenson and The Advance Group consulting firm, which came under deep scrutiny during the mayoral campaign. (Federal Complaint Filed Against The Advance Group for Election Work * Politicker)
  3. Former New York City Comptroller and failed mayoral candidate John Liu has filed a federal lawsuit against the city and its Campaign Finance Board. He says the board unfairly crippled his campaign by denying him matching funds in last year's race for mayor. (Ex-NYC mayor hopeful sues Campaign Finance Board * AP/The San Francisco Chronicle)

Lax city campaign finance regulators allowed loopholes and exploitation to corrupt the race for the New York City Council Speaker

A series of editorials by the Editorial Board of The New York Daily News slammed City Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito during the Council speaker race, first for circumventing city campaign finance laws, and then for exploiting loopholes in the state's campaign finance laws.

"Mark-Viverito has opened a campaign account under state regulations. She is apparently accepting contributions and apparently paying different consultants to advance her cause. Who’s giving her money and who’s getting her money will not be disclosed until after the speaker’s contest is settled," the Editorial Board wrote in the second editorial, noting, "At the same time, hopefuls Dan Garodnick of Manhattan and Mark Weprin of Queens are dipping into campaign accounts to give tens of thousands of dollars to fellow councilmembers and party organizations," before concluding, "None of this is acceptable."

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Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Is Council Speaker Mark-Viverito Caught In A Corrupt Pay-to-Play Fix ?

"Lobbysists are brazen. Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito is smug. They make an ugly couple." -- The New York Daily News

Campaigning for selection as the City Council’s speaker, Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito accepted free services from the lobbying firm The Advance Group until she and her lobbying firm faced allegations of possible electioneering corruption. Then she used a controversial second electioneering account to hire a different lobbying firm, Pitta Bishop Del Giorno & Giblin, to further her speakership campaign. Councilmember Mark-Viverito relied on Pitta Bishop during her her speakership campaign, and later to raise money for her inauguration and transition committee. Her lobbying firm "reciprocated" by raising a substantial amount of the money towards her speakership campaign, "as well as most of the $27,000 tab for her bash," the editorial board of The New York Daily News writes in its house opinion piece. In the wake of having ingratiated itself, now Pitta Bishop has "lobbied Mark-Viverito on behalf of four clients," The New York Daily News adds. Because of the blatant conflicts of interest and appearance of pay-to-play politics, the editorial board of The New York Daily News calls on Councilmember Mark-Viverito to either recuse herself from voting on matters involving Pitta Bishop clients or bar Pitta Bishop representatives from her office.

Melissa Mark-Viverito photo melissa_mark-viverito_3_zpscc49b72b.jpg

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Monday, March 24, 2014

Conflicts of Interest, Corruptive Role of Developers, and Shady Donors Mar Post-Election Contributions

From City & State :

FLOWERS SMELL, MONEY DOESN'T

New York City Council members are more careful vetting their campaign donors than those who contribute transition funds.

Corey Johnson photo corey-johnson-fb2_zps43134c23.jpg

New York City Councilman Corey Johnson, who represents Chelsea, the West Village and Hell’s Kitchen, threw himself an elegant inauguration costing upwards of $30,000, including $1,500 on flowers. Rather than sourcing this business to one of his district’s many high-end florists, or to the city’s flower district on 28th Street, Johnson hired his chief of staff’s mother, who owns a flower shop 150 miles away in Norwich, Conn., to provide the floral arrangements for his swearing-in celebration. The councilman also spent $14,000 on food with a caterer based in New Jersey. Johnson’s chief of staff, Jeffrey LeFrancois, did not respond to questions as to why his mother’s business was chosen to supply the Johnson inaugural with its table arrangements.

Are the progressives who now constitute the Council leadership any different from the typical big city machine politician with a wide smile and an open palm ?

According to the city’s Campaign Finance Board’s rules, Transition and Inauguration (TIE) funds are not matched by public funding, so elected officials are free to distribute the money they raise for those purposes largely at their own discretion. As such, TIE funds are a gray area of political financing, not just because they are mostly spent on parties, but also because they do not receive a lot of scrutiny. A candidate taking money from a dubious donor will be criticized by his opponent, but the winner of the election no longer faces campaign opposition, and is freer to accept TIE money from questionable sources.

For example, Johnson was adamant throughout his campaign that he was independent of real estate and development interests, and insisted that his professional life in the hospitality industry was so incidental as to be practically an afterthought. Indeed Johnson took only a small amount of money from the real estate industry in his race for Council. As soon as he was elected, however, he accepted $5,000 in TIE money from the Meilman brothers, who own a large stretch of prime retail property on 14th Street just east of the High Line. Johnson also received $15,000 from the developers and managers of the Dream Hotel in the famed Maritime Building on Ninth Avenue, including the owners of Tao Nightclub.

One of these developers, Punjabi hotelier Sant Chatwal, purchased a decommissioned church on 44th Street and converted it into a luxury hotel called the Chatwal. He neglected to inform the Department of Finance that the building was no longer a house of worship, and thus no longer exempt from property taxes. By the time the city caught up with this omission, the hotel had avoided payment of $2 million.

Johnson also accepted $2,500 from Judith Rubin. Rubin is the wife of Robert Rubin, Clinton’s secretary of the Treasury. Secretary Rubin oversaw the dismantling of regulatory oversight of the financial industry, and urged caution regarding the regulation of credit derivatives. He then became chairman of Citigroup, which had to be bailed out by the U.S. government following the 2008 collapse of the financial industry. Between 1999 and 2009 Rubin received more than $125 million in compensation from Citigroup.

Is there a contradiction inherent in a supposed “progressive” who aggressively touts his family’s labor background partying on the dime of a person who perhaps typifies the “1 percent”? Or is it the case that in a one-party town, being a “Democrat” covers the widest range of sins?

Carlos Menchaca photo CarlosMenchaca-cdd70e14_zpsef9b357b.jpg

Another progressive whose TIE fundraising appears to be incongruous with his politics is Councilman Carlos Menchaca, who, like Johnson, was selected as a freshman by his borough colleagues to be a co-leader of their respective delegations. Menchaca ran as a reformist insurgent against Sara Gonzalez, whom he vilified as a tool of “Manhattan millionaire developers” for receiving support from Jobs for New York, the Real Estate Board’s independent expenditure arm. But soon after taking office, Menchaca accepted $1,500 in TIE funding from Taxpayers for an Affordable New York, which is essentially run and funded by the same major property owners who spearheaded Jobs for New York.

Menchaca also took $1,500 from John Ciafone, a Queens lawyer and property owner who was listed on Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s Worst Slumlord watchlist in 2011. De Blasio returned two large contributions from Ciafone when it was revealed that he was a donor, but Menchaca is apparently untroubled by or unaware of whom he is accepting from.

John Ciafone’s wife is Gina Argento, the CEO of Broadway Stages, a large television and film production studio and sound stage company in Brooklyn and Queens. Argento and her brother Anthony Argento are prolific contributors to political campaigns, and each gave $1,500 to Menchaca’s TIE committee.

Last year the Argentos applied to have a subsidiary company, Luna Lighting, receive a license to operate as a trade waste business, which would allow the company to cart demolition and construction debris from worksites. As the Argentos have ownership interest in many industrial sites that they would like to repurpose for other commercial uses (for example, the Knockdown Center in Maspeth), owning their own demolition hauling company would provide vertical integration to their business. The city’s Business Integrity Commission issued a harsh denial of the Argentos’ application, citing a history of illegal carting by Luna Lighting, and also misrepresentation by Anthony Argento of his arrest record.

Furthermore, Anthony Argento was shown to have over $1 million in federal tax liens against him, as well as his business. As of April 2013 Argento owed the Internal Revenue Service more than $600,000. This information was all published by the city and is a matter of public record. One imagines that Menchaca or his staff must have done some cursory analysis of who was giving him money. Or perhaps the Argentos have papered the city with enough contributions that their questionable business practices do not raise the eyebrows of even the most progressive elected officials.

Debi Rose of Staten Island, one of the Council’s seven deputy leaders, threw herself a $7,000 inaugural party, even though she has already served a full term. It is typical for freshman Council members to have a lavish inauguration, though it is not unheard of for veterans to do so as well: Rose’s fellow progressive Councilwoman Margaret Chin had a five-figure celebratory dinner to commemorate her election to a second term.

Margaret Chin photo Margaret-Chin-AV4A8916_zps4bc2a318.jpg

Rose raised a relatively small amount of TIE money, but she got it from some strange sources. Almost half of her TIE contributions come from four men who appear to work together in a real estate company called Shore to Shore Realty Partners. The business address is listed with the Secretary of State as 15 Page Avenue on Staten Island, which is the location of a 7-Eleven convenience store. No one at the store has any knowledge of Shore to Shore.

In 2011 the CEO of Shore to Shore, Andrew Gonchar, who gave Rose $2,000, was recently barred for life from the securities industry by the Securities Exchange Commission, which noted in its decision that Gonchar actively sought to “gouge” his bond-trading retail customers.

Whether accepting these donations was hypocritical, unwise or justifiable is for the Council members and their constitutents to judge. What is certain, however, is that elected officials exercise far more due diligence vetting whom they take campaign dollars from than from whom they receive Transition and Inauguration funds. The bar is much lower for TIE funds because the election is over, the next campaign is more than three years off and none of the money is eligible for public matching funding anyway, so who really cares? Still, for those paying attention, TIE contributions are an amusing coda to campaign finance season, when elected officials can embrace their unseemly supporters and freely take what they had to deny themselves during the Lenten pre-election period. Which begs the question: Are the progressives who now constitute the Council leadership any different from the typical big city machine politician with a wide smile and an open palm ?

Melissa Mark-Viverito photo melissa_mark-viverito_3_zpscc49b72b.jpg

The Advance Group, which provided unpaid consultants to Melissa Mark-Viverito's speakership campaign, worked for the City Action Coalition PAC, which lists 'traditional marriage' as its platform and supported opponents of gay City Council candidates.
(The New York Daily News)		 Did Scott Levenson sabotage LGBT civil rights attorney Yetta Kurland's political campaign ?
(Scott Levenson : Biggest Loser Of The Week * NYC : News & Analysis)

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Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Cesspool of Political Corruption Will Only Get Worse Until Sheriff Preet Shuts It Down (Updated)

SPECIAL NEWS UPDATE: FRI, 25 APR 2014, 09:50 AM
Scott Levenson NY-CLASS Christine Quinn Bill de Blasio FBI Investigation into Campaign Corruption photo 2014-04-25TheNewYorkDailyNewsFBIReport_zps189d95ac.png

In the past few weeks, FBI agents have been asking questions about the campaign by the animal rights group NY-CLASS to strong arm former Council Speaker Christine Quinn (center) to support a ban on the iconic horse-drawn carriages, two sources familiar with the matter told The New York Daily News. The horse lobbyists in question include Scott Levenson, and they are linked to Mayor Bill de Blasio (inset). (FBI investigating claim that Christine Quinn was threatened by Scott Levenson for refusing to support carriage horse ban during the mayoral race * The New York Daily News)

PUBLISHED : WED, 19 MAR 2014, 09:07 AM
UPDATED : FRI, 25 APR 2014, 05:40 PM

Super PAC's already lead to corruption, regardless whether annual individual contribution cap is kept at $150,000 or is raised.

Campaign finance expert and Georgetown University government professor Clyde Wilcox added the authority of his expertise to a filing made by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in an effort to block a "Republican-backed political action committee to topple the state’s $150,000 annual contribution limit for individuals," The New York Daily News is reporting.

Professor Wilcox warned that many Super PAC's “would be closely linked to individual candidates or to political parties,” inviting quid-pro-quo corruption, The New York Daily News report added.

NYC Is Not For Sale, "a coalition of left-leaning unions, Democratic donors and animal rights groups," according to a report by The New York Daily News, spent $1.1 million broadcasting several TV commercials that were critical of former Council Speaker Christine Quinn in an effort that ultimately boosted Public Advocate Bill de Blasio's mayoral campaign. As if validating Professor Wilcox's fears, in the days leading up to the general election last November, a Republican political activist filed a complaint with city campaign finance regulators, accusing Mr. de Blasio and key supporters of illegally coordinating the activities of the NYC Is Not For Sale Super PAC that spent more than $1 million attacking former Speaker Quinn in the Democratic primary race for mayor, The New York Post reported.

Preet Bharara - The Only Policeman In New York State photo Preet-Bharara-dbpix-henning-tmagArticle-NYTimes_zpsaf6e1719.jpg

As it stands, city and state campaign finance regulators are being pressed by wealthy campaign contributors, big business interests, and corrupt lobbyists to weaken campaign reform laws under the false guise that caps on contributions "unconstitutionally restricts free speech." The only truly impartial and independent authority to enforce regulations is the U.S. Attorney's Office. Pending before those federal prosecutors is a complaint, asking that the Department of Justice determine whether Super PAC's and their lobbyists broke federal laws pertaining to bribery and the illegal coordinating of Super PAC activities with official campaign activities.

2014-03-12 New York Progress and Protection PAC - Declaration of Clyde Wilcox (57)

2014-03-17 New York Progress and Protection PAC - Defs Memo of Law Opposing MSJ (53)

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Thursday, March 13, 2014

Campaign Finance Board Penalizes NYC Is Not For Sale Super PAC For Campaign Violations

Million-Dollar Anti-Quinn Super PAC Fined Pennies On The Dollar

Ushered in by the corruptive Citizens United Supreme Court decision, a Super PAC that helped end former Council Speaker Christine Quinn's mayoral ambitions was fined $7,050 by the Campaign Finance Board Thursday morning for failing to report $70,000 in expenditures, The New York Daily News reported.

Activists had spent years organizing against former Speaker Quinn for allowing the NYPD to institute a protest parade permit, for over-turning term limits, and for doing nothing to save St. Vincent's Hospital, amongst other betrayals. But then last year, the Super PAC, NYC Is Not For Sale, supplanted the long-term reform activists by launching a million-dollar TV commercial campaign against Speaker Quinn when she was ahead in the polls, rendering the long-term activists to nothing more but useful idiots to the Super PAC. With its very visible negative attack ads on TV, NYC Is Not For Sale took public credit for defeating Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign, decidedly handing victory in the mayoral race to former Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. In exchange for having received the benefit and support from the Super PAC, the new mayor helped raise money for at least one of coalition members that organized the Super PAC, and the mayor has repeatedly promised to honor the legislative request of the wealthy donors behind the Super PAC.

The fine levied by the Campaign Finance Board represented a financial penalty of about 10 cents on the dollar for the infraction amounts that the Super PAC failed to declare.

That NYC Is Not For Sale flouted city campaign finance regulations revealed how some of the long-term reform activists, who were initially excited for the Super PAC's help to defeat former Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign, were not fully aware that NYC Is Not For Sale represented trouble.

The Super PAC, NYC Is Not For Sale, supplanted the long-term reform activists by launching a million-dollar TV commercial campaign against Speaker Quinn when she was ahead in the polls, rendering the long-term activists to nothing more but useful idiots to the Super PAC.

Following the Campaign Finance Board's announcement of the fine, reform activists were troubled by the relatively small penalty against the Super PAC. The whole purpose of the activism to defeat former Speaker Quinn was to reform government processes to end corruption and the appearance of corruption. Since the board members of the Campaign Finance Board answer to Mayor Bill de Blasio and the present Council speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, it is not known how independent the Campaign Finance Board can be in reviewing violations of groups that have relationships with the administration. Both the mayor and the Council speaker have close ties to the coalition of left-leaning unions, Democratic donors, and animal rights activists that formed NYC Is Not For Sale. NYC Is Not For Sale was advised, in turn, by the political lobbying firm, The Advance Group, which is headed by Scott Levenson. The Advance Group and Mr. Levenson have close ties to the mayor and to the Council speaker. If city campaign finance regulators only assessed this politically-connected Democratic Super PAC with a nominal financial penalty, then reform activists may not reasonably expect just outcomes in respect of complaints about other controversial electioneering work during last year's municipal elections. For example, many of the campaigns and/or Super PAC's advised or administered by The Advance Group have triggered critical press reports questioning possible financial or ethical improprieties.

Notwithstanding, the Campaign Finance Board denied John Liu any public matching dollars in last year's mayoral race over questions of the integrity of his fundraising. Yet, the Campaign Finance Board allowed Councilmember Mark-Viverito to keep all of her public matching dollars, even though she exceeded the spending cap by opening a second campaign finance account with the state Board of Elections in Albany during the same election cycle to fund her speakership race. Separately, the Progressive Caucus of the City Council employed their own lobbyist, Alison Hirsch, in the Council speaker race. However, the Campaign Finance Board has not indicated whether it is comfortable with allowing undeclared or possibly unpaid electioneering work made at the direction of elected officials that take place during an election cycle that subjected those same election officials to spending caps and other public matching dollars restrictions ?

The regulations for campaign finance do not guarantee that every politician is owed a right to keep raising money for post-election leadership races, like the campaign for Council speaker, during the same election cycle where there were spending caps and other matching public dollar restrictions. Every time that politicians raise money, they create opportunities for the undue influence of wealthy campaign donors and lobbyists to have even great influence over our public officials, always at the expense of the mere voter. By allowing Councilmember Mark-Viverito to exceed the spending cap, the Campaign Finance Board has now opened a backdoor to allow any public official to open up campaign accounts with the state Board of Elections that can be used for electioneering purposes that would effectively allow those public officials to game the public matching dollar system through the Campaign Finance Board and still raise more money through a state Board of Elections account. This is a dangerous precedent that the Campaign Finance Board has set. Compounding the concerns of reform activists, the board members of the Campaign Finance Board are now partly answerable to the Councilmember Mark-Viverito, because she has since become the Council speaker as a direct result of questionable electioneering work that falls under the jurisdiction of the Campaign Finance Board.

Judging by the tiny fraction of a fine levied on NYC Is Not For Sale, the Campaign Finance Board is not sufficiently independent to review complaints of campaign finance violations of parties, such as The Advance Group, Mr. Levenson, the animal rights group NY-CLASS, and others, who have as close, if not closer, ties to each of the mayor and the Council speaker than the coalition of left-leaning unions and Democratic donors that formed NYC Is Not For Sale. Indeed, as the Campaign Finance Board continues with its post-election audit, one of the very campaign accounts it must review belongs to the Council speaker, herself.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2014

John Liu sues New York City for blocking public matching campaign funds

"John Liu's campaign did nothing wrong," says lawyer Richard Emery.

John Liu, the former Comptroller for New York City, filed a federal lawsuit today against the City of New York, alleging that he was "denied the opportunity to compete on an even playing field with the other mayoral candidates, and his reputation was irreparably damaged," The New York Post is reporting, adding, that the Campaign Finance Board's decision to deny Mr. Liu $3.8 million in matching public dollars amounted to a “death sentence” to his mayoral campaign.

Mr. Liu's complaint alleges that the Campaign Finance Board unlawfully “crippled” his bid to become the city’s first Asian-American mayor by citing the court convictions of others, even though Mr. Liu himself was never charged with any wrong-doing.

The investigation into Mr. Liu's campaign finances originated in a report published in 2011 by The New York Times at a time when Mr. Liu was attracting serious attention and support for his expected mayoral campaign in 2013. Many activists have alleged that the editors of The New York Times preferred the mayoral candidacy of former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. After the Campaign Finance Board denied Mr. Liu's public matching funding dollars, former Speaker Quinn received the glowing endorsement of The New York Times' editorial board.

In a further example of the politicization of the Campaign Finance Board, city campaign finance regulators appeared to obsess over Mr. Liu's troubled donations, identified as only 35 out of over 6,300 donations, but city campaign finance regulators did nothing to scrutinize the corruptive influence of super PAC's in the 2013 municipal election.

In a video made last year by The Queens Courier, Mr. Liu described how investigators deceived his campaign workers into accepting tainted donations. Essentially, he was the victim of entrapment.

2014-03-12 John Liu v NYC Campaign Finance Board - USDC-SDNY COMPLAINT (Stamped Copy) by Connaissable

QUESTIONING THE NEW YORK CITY CAMPAIGN FINANCE BOARD

With John Liu's lawsuit against New York City over conflicted city campaign finance regulators, this makes three federal referrals of elections violations, forcing Mayor de Blasio to lawyer-up, recruit special inside election counsel.

After a wave of federal complaints that have been lodged over electioneering violations in last year's municipal elections, Mayor Bill de Blasio has hired a special legal advisor specializing in election law.

Since Mayor de Blasio and City Council Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, and/or their political operatives, are entangled in some of these federal complaints, it should come as no surprise that Mayor de Blasio is now maneuvering to use his public office to defend himself against allegations of wrong-doing that took place during the electioneering of last year's municipal elections.

The three federal complaints lodged following last year's municipal elections :

  1. GOP consultant E. O'Brien Murray argued to the State Department that Patrick Gaspard, a former top White House aide with a deep history in Gotham politics, violated the federal Hatch Act by getting involved in Mayor de Blasio's campaign -- and City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito's subsequent election as speaker -- while representing the U.S. in South Africa. (GOP Operative Files Hatch Act Complaint Against U.S. Ambassador Patrick Gaspard * The New York Daily News)
  2. Louis Flores, a local political gadfly who ran a blog and wrote a book criticizing Christine Quinn, has filed a complaint with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s criminal division against Scott Levenson and The Advance Group consulting firm, which came under deep scrutiny during the mayoral campaign. (Federal Complaint Filed Against The Advance Group for Election Work * Politicker)
  3. Former New York City Comptroller and failed mayoral candidate John Liu has filed a federal lawsuit against the city and its Campaign Finance Board. He says the board unfairly crippled his campaign by denying him matching funds in last year's race for mayor. (Ex-NYC mayor hopeful sues Campaign Finance Board * AP/The San Francisco Chronicle)

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Saturday, March 8, 2014

Scott Levenson, NY-CLASS, Citizens United Super PAC Investigation (Updated)

SPECIAL NEWS UPDATE: FRI, 25 APR 2014, 09:50 AM
Scott Levenson NY-CLASS Christine Quinn Bill de Blasio FBI Investigation into Campaign Corruption photo 2014-04-25TheNewYorkDailyNewsFBIReport_zps189d95ac.png

In the past few weeks, FBI agents have been asking questions about the campaign by the animal rights group NY-CLASS to strong arm former Council Speaker Christine Quinn (center) to support a ban on the iconic horse-drawn carriages, two sources familiar with the matter told The New York Daily News. The horse lobbyists in question include Scott Levenson, and they are linked to Mayor Bill de Blasio (inset). (FBI investigating claim that Christine Quinn was threatened by Scott Levenson for refusing to support carriage horse ban during the mayoral race * The New York Daily News)

PUBLISHED : SAT, 08 MAR 2014, 02:06 AM
UPDATED : FRI, 25 APR 2014, 12:17 PM

The mayor and his Council speaker, who both reject checks-and-balances, oversee city campaign regulators nominally tasked to investigate campaign corruption of groups with close ties to the de Blasio-Mark-Viverito administration.

In an article posted on The Daily Beast, NY1 political reporter Josh Robin reported that "city campaign regulators have begun investigating" Scott Levenson, the lobbyist-advisor to NY-CLASS, the animal rights group that organized Super PAC's to defeat Mayor Bill de Blasio's chief mayoral challenger, former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Information about this investigation was first reported by Michael Powell in The New York Times back in November 2013.

When questions were first brought to the city's Campaign Finance Board about the role of Mr. Levenson and his lobbying firm, The Advance Group, doing unpaid lobbying work in the New York City Council speaker race, city campaign regulators looked the other way as Mr. Levenson provided a valuable gift to Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito to possibly influence her performance as Council speaker in respect of official acts that could benefit The Advance Group and its lobbying clients.

But the board members of the Campaign Finance Board are selected by both the mayor and the Council speaker, thereby preventing it from rendering an independent review of the controversies that surrounding Mr. Levenson, who likes to accept responsibly for each of Mayor de Blasio's primary win and for Ms. Mark-Viverito's selection as Council speaker. As a reward for Mr. Levenson's NY-CLASS's crucial support, the mayor attended a fundraiser for NY-CLASS, which was closed to the press. Meanwhile, Speaker Mark-Viverito, who benefitted from free lobbying work provided to her by The Advance Group, has expressed support for enacting legislation sought by NY-CLASS. This cross-support has all the appearance of a quid pro quo.

An undeniable perception exists that the Campaign Finance Board is a political organ of the occupants of City Hall. As was noted in a comment to The New York Times story, "The real scandal is the Campaign Finance Board, which spent most of its resources tracking down addresses of donors to John Liu rather than paying attention to the big money controlled by the likes of Scott Levenson." This is among the many reasons why the Campaign Finance Board cannot be trusted to lead an investigation into the co-electioneering activities of Mr. Levenson and the NY-CLASS Super PAC's.

If the Campaign Finance Board answers to the mayor and to the Council speaker and if the mayor and the Council speaker have close ties to Mr. Levenson and to NY-CLASS, then can city campaign regulations exert enough independence to fully investigate whether possible coordination of independent political campaign expenditures and free gifts of lobbying services were violations of federal laws that ban, respectively, Super PAC coordination and bribery ?

Separate from violating campaign finance laws, the role of each of Mr. Levenson and the NY-CLASS Super PAC's had damaging effects on the opportunity for reform in a post-Quinn municipal government. Because of the independent campaign expenditures that nearly totaled $2 million, the influence of NY-CLASS perverted the ability of other issue reformers from being taken seriously by the media. Witness how the media accepted the controversial appointment of William Bratton as police commissioner, even though he still supports unconstitutional tactics, such as stop-and-frisk and the broken windows theory of policing, which unfairly targets low-income communities and people of color -- but does nothing to combat the white collar crimes by political operatives or by Wall Street. Further, the NY-CLASS Super PAC's misappropriated the grassroots work by reform activists, including tenants' rights activists like John Fisher, police reform activists, QUILTBAG civil rights activists, and St. Vincent's Hospital activists, who each had separately and collectively spent years organizing to vote the former Council Speaker Quinn out of office. There was even a serialized book, recounting former Council Speaker Quinn's long record of community and political betrayals.

Using the distorting influence of Super PAC money to control media attention, political operatives loyal to Mayor de Blasio, chief amongst them, Mr. Levenson, usurped activists' abilities to continue pressing the new administration to roll out a truly progressive reform agenda, not one that has been noted to be slipshod in its attempts at "reform," like the education advocates pushing for universal pre-kinder only for New York City at the same time when those same education advocates are neglecting to call for an expansion of kindergarten to become a full-day program in its own right for the rest of New York State. While NY-CLASS awaits the enactment of its noble-minded ban on horse drawn carriages, other reform activists are left scratching their heads, wondering what happened at real attempts at government reform, like ending the Council speaker's slush fund, reforming the corrupt ULURP zone-busting approval process that continues to favor large real estate developers, the need to finally allocate all the resources that can provide shelter to the homeless, and pursuing other humane policies that would use the gains of our economy to help the people most in need.

The issue of reforming the process of zone-busting real estate development projects becomes all the more impossible with Mr. Levenson and NY-CLASS, since one of the group's founders is Steve Nislick, a real estate developer, who, in a shady confluence of events, is said to be trying to develop a zone-busting project on land currently used as horse stables for the horse-drawn carriage industry that he is coincidentally trying to outlaw. Add to that the fact that Mayor de Blasio has appeared to be courting large real estate developers and their lobbyists, such as James Capalino.

As Mr. Levenson and NY-CLASS continue to advance the narrative that the sole actions of the NY-CLASS Super PAC's defeated Speaker Quinn and helped to elect Mayor de Blasio, that should help federal prosecutors seal their investigation into coordinated campaign corruption, a karmically-doomed trap that Mr. Levenson and NY-CLASS operatives have documented in a series of press reports that they were too blind to see. But the still larger question for Democrats, who are said to largely favor campaign finance reform, is why do they accept that the Democratic mayor and his Council speaker have yet to call for campaign finance reform to end the corruptive role of lobbyists and big business and special interest money in the election system. As was noted in the comments below, if Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito lack the political will to enact real campaign finance reforms on the municipal level, then they also have the option of pressing on Washington or Albany to enact federal- or state-level reforms. But all voters seem to get is nothing.

The Advance Group, which provided unpaid consultants to Mark-Viverito, worked for the City Action Coalition PAC, which lists 'traditional marriage' as its platform and supported opponents of gay City Council candidates.
(The New York Daily News)		 Did Scott Levenson sabotage LGBT civil rights attorney Yetta Kurland's political campaign ?
(Scott Levenson : Biggest Loser Of The Week * NY Pop Culture & Politics)

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