Outside super Pacs and State Races

Whether you are for or against an issue or candidate, should an out-of-state super Pac be allowed to spend their money in your state, for or against the issue or candidate? The Supreme Court says YES. I might be for many of the issues and candidates supported by a super Pac, but I am against their influence. So lets look at one and their influence.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg formed a super PAC to spend between $10 and $15 million on elections in 2012 in order to help moderate candidates and aid ballot referendums supporting gay marriage.

Bloomberg said in a statement that the candidates who will benefit from his super PAC will be moderates who support gun control and the market-driven education reform that Bloomberg has championed during his time as mayor.

According to The New York Times, Bloomberg's super PAC supported candidates including former Maine Gov. Angus King, who ran as an independent for Maine's open Senate seat and won; Democrat Gloria Negrete McLeod, the challenger to incumbent Democratic Rep. Joe Baca in California and won; and Republican Rep. Bob Dold in Illinois.

The effort is lead by New York City Deputy Mayor for Government Affairs and Communication Howard Wolfson, who is also the former spokesman for Hillary Clinton.

The super PAC effort is the biggest national push by Bloomberg, who is winding down his third term as mayor and will not seek reelection to a fourth term.

In 2013, Mayor Bloomberg scored a political knockout when he helped chase a pro-gun Democrat out of a special congressional election in Illinois.

Illinois state Sen. Toi Hutchinson abandoned her campaign yesterday, two days after Bloomberg’s political committee unleashed attack ads over her past opposition to tough gun restrictions. She cited the gun issue in her concession and threw her support behind Bloomberg’s candidate, former Democratic state Rep. Robin Kelly.

Bloomberg’s Independence USA political action committee has spent $1.4 million in the election to succeed former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. It is poised to spend up to $2 million for the Feb. 26 Democratic primary, more than any of the 17 candidates have raised.

The winner of the primary is almost guaranteed to take the seat in the overwhelmingly Democratic district.

Bloomberg also set his sights on another candidate in the race, Debbie Halvorson, a one-time congresswoman with an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. She had been in the lead until Bloomberg began bombarding the air waves.

Please let me know how you feel about super Pac money.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Political Consultant Haggerty Conviction Uphold

A New York state appellate panel today unanimously upheld the money laundering and larceny convictions of disgraced political consultant John Haggerty, ordering that he begin serving his original sentence of at least one and one-third years.

A surrender date has yet to be set for Haggerty, who has remained at liberty pending today's appellate decision.

Haggerty was convicted back in October, 2011, of stealing $750,000 in campaign cash from Mayor Bloomberg.

In upholding Haggerty's conviction, the appellate judges found that the jury's verdict was based on legally sufficient evidence.

"The indictment, the proof at trial, the prosecutor's summation and the court's instructions were all based on the theory that defendant Haggerty stole money from Mayor Bloomberg by making false representations that the money that the Mayor transferred to the Independence Party would be used for an extensive ballot security operation costing about $1.1 million," the judges said in their written decision.

"Although the Mayor could not have controlled how the Independence Party used that money, the theft was committed when Haggerty used false representations to cause the Mayor to transfer the money to the Party," they wrote.

"While Haggerty also deceived the Independence Party in to believing that it was paying a vendor for ballot security services when it transferred the money to Haggerty's shell corporation, the Mayor remained the true victim of Haggerty's deception," they wrote.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Mayor Bloomberg Abandons Push for NYC Nonpartisan Elections

At a news conference Thursday, New York City Mayor Bloomberg made clear that he doesn’t plan to seek another public referendum on nonpartisan elections before he leaves office at the end of next year. The proposal failed to win majority support from city voters in 2003 and was last considered, and rejected, by the Charter Revision Commission in 2010.

The mayor spent more than $7 million of his personal fortune in 2003 while attempting to convince the electorate, but 70% of voters opposed the measure. Bloomberg on Thursday recalled how he failed to get support from the major newspaper editorial boards. “I don’t remember getting the support of any good-government group, any party of anybody,” the mayor said. “It’s like crying in the wind.”

Even as he gives up, for now, on one of his signature issues, Bloomberg said Thursday that he wished the status quo would change. “It’s fair to say that because the city is so overwhelmingly one party, the primary in that party will be essentially the election,” he said. Everybody else, members of other parties, voters who don’t participate in primaries, unaffiliated voters, “will be disenfranchised,” Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg, who has switched partisan affiliations twice while in public life, sought to replace party primaries with an open system. Under the proposal rejected by voters in 2003, primaries would have been open to all voters and all candidates, regardless of party membership. The two top vote-getters, even if both belonged to the same party, would compete in a general election.

This method is similar to California's Top-Two that was used for the first time in the 2012 primaries.

A possible new effort in New York City could ask the courts to not fund party primaries. If parties are private entities, why are some tax payers' funding it when they can not take part in the process?










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Bloomberg Starts Independence USA PAC

New York City Mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, is plunging into the 2012 campaign in its final weeks, creating his own “super PAC” to direct millions of dollars in donations to elect candidates from both parties who he believes will focus on problem solving.

Mr. Bloomberg, a registered independent, expects to spend from $10 million to $15 million of his money in highly competitive Congressional, State and local races. The money would be used to pay for advertising on behalf of Republican and Democratic candidates who support three of his biggest policy initiatives: legalizing same-sex marriage, enacting tougher gun laws, and overhauling schools.

Among those Mr. Bloomberg will support are former Gov. Angus King, an independent running for the United States Senate in Maine; State Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod, who is challenging a fellow Democrat, Representative Joe Baca of California, who the mayor believes has been weak on gun-control; and Representative Bob Dold, a Republican from Illinois who has backed gun-control measures.

The mayor’s super PAC, Independence USA PAC, will be registered with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday. The overwhelming bulk of his money will be given through that PAC, though he may also use existing 527s, to make some donations. Mr. Bloomberg will disclose all of his spending at the end of the election cycle.

Mr. Bloomberg has tapped Howard Wolfson, a deputy mayor and a veteran of Congressional and Presidential campaigns, to oversee the organization’s activities, like determining where to spend money and tailoring the themes of television advertisements. Mr. Wolfson will take a leave from City Hall to run the committee between now and Election Day.

The move reflects an eagerness from Mr. Bloomberg, who is term limited, to help elect more centrist candidates, who are willing to compromise and grapple with what he sees as grave problems confronting the country.

In addition to the state and federal candidates, Mr. Bloomberg will use his organization to support state legislative and local school board candidates who support his education goals, including more rigorous evaluation for teachers and stricter standards for tenure.

Mr. Bloomberg’s political advisers have already identified local candidates he will likely support in California, Colorado and Louisiana. Mr. Bloomberg is also likely to back ballot initiatives in Maine and Washington that seek to legalize same-sex marriage.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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NY Mayor, BOE at Odds Over Rescheduling NYS Primary Date

Mayor Michael Bloomberg denounced on Monday a proposal to move the city primary from September to June next year, while city Board of Elections officials said it will be impossible to pull off a primary and a likely run-off election the way the calendar currently stands.

New York State and City Elections officials want to change 2013's political calendar by moving the state and city primary from September to June. Officials at the New York City Board of Elections say they will not have enough time to process the votes cast in the city's September primary and prepare for a likely run-off election two weeks later.

"I think it would be a terrible idea," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday.

"It just really seems like an impossibility to get all that done in 15 days," said BOE official Raphael Savino.

Albany lawmakers would have to sign off on any such move. And if approved, it would dramatically reshape the political season for the 2013 races, including the fight for New York City Hall.

"We understand that this isn't as sexy as marriage equality or the budget and everything else. But it is important and it affects the 4.6 million voters that we have in New York City," said BOE Commissioner J.C. Polanco.

Bloomberg said an earlier primary date would be bad for democracy.

"I think the later it is, the more chance candidates have to enter the race, the more chance there is for candidates to build support, raise money, explain to the public what they would do if they were elected," said the mayor.

The primary issue was raised at a Monday City Council hearing on a package of elections bills. Supporters said the legislation is designed to engage more voters and improve the city's elections system.

"Nothing in our democracy is more important than securing the right to vote," said Brooklyn Councilman Brad Lander.

With the MOVE Act and the UOCAVA (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act), military and overseas voters had to be mailed their absentee ballot in time for them to be returned and counted. A Federal Judge had to force New York to change their Federal Primary date from September to June. But the state did not move the state and local primary date.

So it is a surprise that the mayor would put politics over the rights of voters to have their vote counted. It is interesting that the Supreme Court saw the problem in Ohio that would have created two classes of voters by allowing military personal and their family to vote early but not the rest of the state's voters.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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2013 NYC Races and Super PACs

The growing prospects that Super PACs may enter the 2013 New York City races has enormous implications for the framework of the city’s politics, beginning with the fact that the timeline for the race has now been completely shaken up.

Under the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, Super PACs may collect unlimited donations for use in political campaigns as long as they do not coordinate their efforts with the candidates they are supporting.

This undermines the New York City’s campaign finance system, which uses taxpayers’ money to match small contributions, usually with a 6-1 ratio, while imposing strict limits on how much donors can give and caps on how much a candidate can spend.

Donations by businesses doing business with the city are even more stringently regulated, although labor unions aren’t similarly hamstrung. This means more well known politicians have an enormous advantage, as long as they can raise the maximum, which serious candidates do.

The only way for an outsider to challenge the system was the Bloomberg method, which calls for a wealthy individual spending as much as they need from their own resources on advertising to overcome the entrenched political establishment. Now, it is possible for someone who is not a billionaire or even a millionaire to run and raise some money within the city financing system and be backed by a Super PAC funded by a relatively few individuals. It wouldn’t take the $100 million plus that Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent last time; a more manageable $50 million would make such a canddiate viable.

It isn’t clear that the business leaders who could fund such a PAC are ready to commit such large sums. Nor is it clear who the candidates will be. But a Super PAC means a campaign could be launched as late as a next spring if the worry level rises and an alternative emerges to any existing candidates.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Independnet Political Leader Goes Onstage

Jacqueline Salit, the president of Independent Voting, long a player in New York City and National Politics, is currently playing on a different stage, at the Castillo Theatre on 42nd Street, where she's appearing as Founding Father James Madison in a revival of Fred Newman and Annie Roboff's political musical, Sally and Tom (The American Way).

Running at the Castillo Theatre for six weeks from February 17 through March 25, Sally and Tom (The American Way) examines the 30-year relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings, a relationship that produced five children and embodies the wrenching conflict between democracy and slavery,and its legacy of racism that continues to shape America to this day.

In this polarizing presidential election year, with the meaning of "the American way" itself being hotly contested, Salit makes her acting debut in a play that examines the extreme power struggles and ugly campaigning that shaped our nation's course in the early years of the Republic. In an ironic twist, Salit, a political independent who is outspoken against party control of American politics, plays the author of the Constitution, a man who deeply opposed political parties but ultimately founded one.

Salit has a 30-year history in independent and insurgent politics. She managed Mayor Michael Bloomberg's three successful campaigns on the Independence Party line and was a key strategist in the effort to bring non-partisan election reform to New York City. Her book, Independents Rising, published by Palgrave Macmillan, will be in stores in August. "This is a totally new experience," Salit says of her role as a Founding Father. "I've performed as 'myself' at political gatherings and on TV. But it's very different to be playing someone else -- a man, at that -- who lived over 200 years ago. In this production, Madison is both a man of his time and can look back at his -- and the country's -- inhuman compromises. Performing the part hits me very hard every time we do the show." Salit shares the role with veteran actor and director David Nackman. [Salit will perform the role on the following dates: Feb. 17, 18, 19, 24, 26, March 2, 3, 9.]

Under the direction of Gabrielle L. Kurlander, the play is performed on three stages in its own surreal "history museum." The audience is seated throughout the performance space and among the exhibits, and is encouraged to interact with the conflicted history of our nation.

In addition to Salit and Nackman, the cast for Sally and Tom (The American Way) features Ava Jenkins and Adam Kemmerer in the title roles, as well as Sean Patrick Gibbons and Brian D. Hills. Musical direction is by David Belmont with Michael Walsh, choreography by Lonné Moretton; sets by Joseph Spirito and costumes by Emilie Charlotte Knoerzer.


The Castillo Theatre (Dan Friedman, artistic director, Diane Stiles, managing director) is located at 543 West 42nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. February 17 through March 25. Tickets are $35 for adults, $10 for students and seniors. Group rates are available.

Tickets can be purchased through the Castillo Box Office at 212-941-1234 or use the above link to order online.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Mayor Bloomberg's Stolen Money in Deal

The Queens political operative, John Haggerty, convicted of stealing from Mayor Michael Bloomberg has agreed to return $750,000 to the mayor as a judge prepares to sentence him on Monday.

As part of a deal with prosecutors, the state Independence Party, the third-largest political party in New York, has also agreed to return $150,000 in funds that a jury concluded were stolen from Mr. Bloomberg in the lead-up to his 2009 re-election. The party was not charged with a crime in the case.

The agreement with prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.'s office comes as state district Judge Ronald Zweibel plans Monday to sentence Mr. Haggerty on two felony convictions, grand larceny in the second degree and money laundering in the second degree.

Mr. Haggerty, 42 years old, faces up to 15 years in prison. Prosecutors are recommending a sentence of between four and 12 years, Mr. Haggerty's attorney, Dennis Vacco, confirmed Sunday.

The deal with prosecutors on the return of $900,000 of Mr. Bloomberg's money is part of a civil proceeding and is technically separate from the criminal case. The two agreements, one with Mr. Haggerty and the other with the Independence Party, were signed Friday by Supreme Court Judge Martin Shulman, according to papers reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

According to the deal, Mr. Haggerty and his firm, Special Election Operations LLC, agreed to pay the district attorney's office $750,000 from the sale of Mr. Haggerty's home. Mr. Haggerty has six months to sell the house, which is valued at roughly $1.6 million, and upon closing, the money is to be placed in an escrow account by the district attorney's office. The money is to be held in escrow until an appellate court upholds the convictions in the case. Prosecutors would then send the money to the mayor. Mr. Haggerty would be entitled to the money back if an appellate court overturned the decision and he was ultimately acquitted.

As for the Independence Party, which is listed in court papers as a non-criminal defendant, officials were required to place $200,000 in escrow in February as part of a temporary restraining order. The party successfully negotiated a deal with prosecutors in which $150,000 would be returned to the mayor and $50,000 would be used to pay the party's attorneys.

Mr. Bloomberg, one of the nation's most generous philanthropists, is widely expected to donate the money to charity.

Update
He was sentenced to 16 months to 4 years but might only have to serve 6 months jail time.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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NYIPC 12th Annual ANTI-CORRUPTION AWARDS

The New York City Independence Party set out 17 years ago with a simple idea: to create a new and independent reform movement of New Yorker's from all walks of life. We are a new kind of minor party, genuinely independent, built from the bottom up, and not tied to the major parties.

The Independence Party has over 100,000 members in New York City, 4,500 of them have joined local county committees in all five boroughs, the governing bodies of the organization. Thousands more sign petitions, volunteer, and play a role in the Independence Party's many campaigns for political reform.

Partisan politics holds back development in our city. We support political reforms that bring the one million New York independents into the heart of the political process, such as nonpartisan municipal elections, seating independents on the Board of Elections, separating party interest from the public interest, and making sure that good policy, rather than partisan politics, guides the running of this city.

We have built a new electoral coalition in New York City that took center stage in 2005 when 47% of African Americans and 65% of independents supported our mayoral candidate, Mike Bloomberg, in his re-election bid. We partnered with Mike Bloomberg since 2001, when the votes on our line gave him his first margin of victory. In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg became an independent himself and we believe he has governed our city in a nonpartisan fashion. In 2009 the Independence Party received 150,000 votes on our line for Mayor Bloomberg, a record breaking number for a minor party.

The New York City Independence Party believes in change and community. We need to change the culture of New York politics and community. We need to change the culture of New York politics so that it is grounded in genuine civic debate that includes and empowers all New Yorkers. And it is by building a new community of independents from the bottom up that we can effect that change.

The 2011 Honorees are: Former Arizona State Legislator Dr. Ted Downing & Entrepreneur, Philanthropist and Activist Larry Sakin.

They are leaders of the Arizona Open Government Committee, which is spearheading a 2012 ballot initiative for top-two primaries.

I received my Anti-Corruption Award in 2008.

In the political year of 2012 with the very important primaries and general elections, the New York City County Committees must reconstitute. I must decide if I will run for my 5th term as a State Committee member representing the 73rd AD (Eastside of Manhattan). Petitioning this year is a moving target, as the legislators have not decided on when to move primary dates to comply with the MOVE Act, mailing absentee ballots 45 days before elections to military voters.

If you can not attend but want to support our efforts, use the above link to donate.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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New York’s ‘Housekeeping’ Money

In New York State there are no limits to the amount of money a person or group or corporation can give to a political party for “housekeeping.”

The State Board of Elections says that that money is supposed to go toward maintaining a party’s headquarters and staff or carrying on “ordinary activities that are not for the express purpose of promoting the candidacy of specific candidates.” But the reporting requirements for such contributions are so vague that it is almost impossible for the voters to figure out how the money is actually being spent. That, of course, is what makes these accounts so wildly popular with both contributors and recipients.

According to Bill Mahoney of the New York Public Interest Research Group, over the last two years, the Democratic and Republican Party committees in New York State have received more than $11 million in “housekeeping” money. Among the big contributors: Greater New York Hospital Association gave more than $600,000 to the Democrats, plus about $140,000 to Republicans. Wal-Mart boosted the state Republican committees by almost $230,000, with about $40,000 to Democrats. Robert Mercer, a hedge-fund operator, gave $1 million to the Conservative Party in 2010. In the last decade, Mayor Bloomberg has donated more than $8.2 million to Republican and Independence Party housekeeping accounts.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said one of his top priorities is campaign finance reform. Doing away with unlimited housekeeping donations is a good place to start.

That is a good start to "Get Money Out of Politics".









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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