Is Jim Maisano Sheila Marcotte's Fairy Godmother?

Maisano and Marcotte

Jim Maisano is the other County Legislator representing New Rochelle, from what was previously considered the Republican part of town. This past November he won re-election for a seventh 2-year term. He's also the Minority Leader of the Board of Legislators. He's also now running for Supreme Court Justice for the 9th Judicial District.

Looking at Friends of Jim Maisano financial reports, he's had a consistent, modest war chest for a while now. In 2009 he hardly raised or spent and money for his uncontested campaign. In his January 2010 filing (the most recent currently online), Maisano said he had $43,500 in the bank.

On April 9, 2010, Legislator Vito Pinto announced that he was resigning his seat representing Eastchester, Tuckahoe, and the (ahem) Democratic part of New Rochelle to take a job in the Astorino administration.

Three days later, Jim Maisano contributed $25,000 to the WRCC 21st Century Fund. This is the constituted committee that Rob Astorino used in 2009 to funnel campaign funds to the State GOP to pay for political mail. And it's the committee that this year was the unofficial fundraising arm of Sheila Marcotte's campaign for LD-10: when Marcotte held her June 9 fundraiser at Lake Isle, all those $125 checks were made out to WRCC 21C.

Is it normal for Jim Maisano to contribute more than half his reserves to the County GOP in a non-election year? Consider that he has contributed a total of only $1,125 over 5 years to the County GOP, and until 2010 had never given any money at all to the 21st Century Fund. This looks like a very targeted contribution.

But just to be fair, Marcotte did hold that June 9 fundraiser. Maybe she's a superstar and raised, all on her own, the money she needed for this campaign?



That adds up to only $13,725. But the WRCC 21C sent $37,500 to the State GOP during this time to pay for Marcotte mail (the only expenditures the State GOP had during this short window), and spent $1,800 directly on ads in the Hometown Media newspapers, for a total of $39,100. So for the WRCC 21C to cover its Marcotte debt, in addition to the June 9 fundraiser they'd need ... oh, just about $25,000.

In effect, Jim Maisano bankrolled Marcotte's special election to the tune of fourteen times the legal contribution limit of $1,750.

Two days after she was elected to sit next to Maisano on the County Board of Legislators, Marcotte attended the Maisano for Justice fundraiser at Dudley's in New Rochelle. She wrote his campaign a personal check for $150. At that rate, it'll take her an awfully long time to pay him back.

Following the Money in Westchester

It wasn't the County Republican Party, exactly, but the committee called WRCC 21st Century Fund that passed money to the State GOP to pay for Sheila Marcotte's winning campaign last month in Westchester. The State GOP filings incorrectly list "Westchester Co. GOP" as the contributor of over $100,000 this year, but the WRCC 21C filings match the amounts and the check numbers. Easy mistake, since the 21C committee and the County GOP operate out of the same office in White Plains.

As does Friends of Rob Astorino. In fact, after poking around the filings for Astorino and WRCC 21C, it's clear that Astorino last year turned this sleepy sub-committee into his conduit for campaign funds. Before his election in 2009, he pushed $138,000 through WRCC 21C to the State GOP; along with $64,000 from Dan Schorr, plus a little more from assorted other Republican candidates, there was $210,000 the State GOP used to pay for County-wide Republican campaigns.

Astorino contributed to WRCC 21C; 21C contributed to the State GOP; the State GOP paid for Astorino campaign mail. Which looks like the money was being laundered, except I can't yet figure out the reason for it. Why pass the money through so many hands? Why risk losing control of how it's spent? Especially since, in shunting so much money to one place, Astorino actually opened himself up to campaign finance violations — there's no limit to how much he can spend on his own mail, but there is a limit to how much he can contribute to a party or constituted committee: $94,200. He shot way past that in 2009.

Anyway, Astorino's contributions were already out of WRCC 21C hands by the time Vito Pinto decided to open up a legislative seat for special election, so Marcotte doesn't have Astorino to thank for her funds. Instead, someone else picked up the ball as soon as Pinto was out the door, someone determined enough to add a Republican to the County Legislature that he donated more than half of his own war chest to be used for the special election before an official nominee had even been named.

I wonder if Marcotte even knows who her benefactor is?

Who Paid for Marcotte's Campaign? Part 2

Now I'm really confused.

As mentioned previously, Sheila Marcotte's campaign mail was all marked "Paid for by the New York Republican State Committee." And the State GOP financial disclosure forms filed last week, while not breaking out specifically how much was spent for Marcotte (as they are required to do), listed only three expenses after Marcotte got the nomination, all for postage and mail, totaling just over $35,000.

Since, in the same time frame, there are three contributions from "Westchester Co. GOP" for the sum of $37,300, I assumed that the County party had pushed funds to the State party to pay for Marcotte's win.

But now the Westchester Republican County Committe's financial disclosure forms have finally been posted, and though they report over $88,000 total expenditures for the first half of 2010, they don't list any money sent to the State party. Zilch.

(For good measure, I checked the filing for the WRCC Housekeeping account, which isn't allowed to give money directly for campaigns, but they're not showing any contributions to the State GOP either.)

Just to confirm the strangeness, the State GOP lists check numbers 327, 335, and 336 for the three line items I'm adding up to $37,500. And the County GOP expenses are flying out with check numbers in the 5200s.

But even though I'm only trying to match three money transfers from County to State, there are actually three other receipts listed by the State GOP from "Westchester Co. GOP" before Marcotte's nomination for an additional $62,900. That is, the State GOP is listing over $100,000 in contributions from the County GOP for the first half of 2010 that the County GOP filings have no record of at all.

Who Paid for Marcotte's Campaign?

As mentioned previously, Sheila Marcotte did not pay for her own special election campaign last month. She raised just under $4,000, half of which went for her election night party. All Marcotte's direct mail was marked as paid for by the NY State Republican Party, which obviously relieved her of the hassle of fundraising during a such a short campaign.

So the State GOP filed their July 2010 Periodic Report today, and I was interested to see what it might reveal. Since they don't break out how much was spent directly for Marcotte's campaign (which they are required to do), it's impossible to tell exactly how much was spent for her. But there are only three expenses listed after Marcotte's designation as the nominee in early May, all for mail and postage, for a total of just over $35,000. That looks to me like a good approximation of the cost of the mail that was sent out on her behalf.

But where did that money come from? Again, there's no way to know, since the party raised $221,000 during the six month reporting period, all from other Republican campaign committees and candidates throughout the state. But after Marcotte became the nominee there are three contributions from the Westchester County GOP for a total of $37,300. Since that's pretty close to the direct mail expenses, it's probably a decent assumption that money was pushed from the county party to the state.

County GOP hasn't filed yet (or their filings have not yet been posted — it's a busy week at BOE), so I'll have to wait to follow this trail ...

Marcotte Files!

I want to congratulate Friends of Sheila Marcotte for finally figuring out how to file financial disclosure forms! In a short campaign there's a lot to learn, and even though Marcotte had been running for public office for a decade this was the very first time it even occurred to her that she needed to raise money and report her contributors to the NYS Board of Elections.

At the LWV debate on June 13, two days after the second filing deadline for the special election, Marcotte was asked why, despite a fundraiser at Lake Isle, lawn signs appearing around Eastchester, and robo calls hitting targeted households, she had filed only "No Activity" statements with the BOE. Her response, that the BOE had been late getting her a filing number and she had been unable to deposit donations without such a designation, was obviously bunk to anyone who's been involved in campaign committees. But there's not much you can do outside of very high-profile campaigns (senator, governor, president) to draw the attention of the press to what amounts to illegal activity by a campaign.

In the end, Marcotte reports just under $4,000 raised for her campaign:



Luckily for her, the New York State Republican Party was really paying for her campaign. (All her mail was clearly marked as paid for by them.) Not that the party has reported any of their expenses on her behalf — they are required to file two pre- and one post-special election report just as if they are the candidate. Presumably they'll report their regular July periodic report this week, but they won't have any Marcotte money broken out.

Which means no one — not even Sheila Marcotte — will know who paid to get her elected.

Are Cuomo's New Democrats Still 5% Old?

New NY Agenda

If you can judge a book by its page count, or a candidate by his manifesto, Andrew Cuomo's New NY Agenda tells us that New Democrats are only 5% like Old Democrats — there are still 14 pages out of 252 dedicated to the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

But even that probably overstates how connected I feel to Cuomo's agenda. The bulk of this document, released on the eve of his nomination in May, could have been written for the Republican candidate.

Two caveats: Cuomo's agenda might be a good one right now for New York, and it probably emphasizes the smart political message.

But the amount of this agenda that left me feeling proud to be a Democrat was pretty thin. After "Cleaning Up Albany," "Getting Our Fiscal House in Order," "Rightsizing Government," and "NY Works" — chapters dedicated to cutting Education, capping taxes, and rewriting the state constitution — comes Chapter 5: "NY Leads," those 14 progressive pages, written with much less fervor and many fewer footnotes than the aggressive attack on state government that precede them. There's some stuff about reproductive rights, marriage equality, and itty-bitty gun laws, but nothing convincing. (Actually the bulk of it is about expanding charter schools.) Then there's this little nugget of Old Democrat wisdom:

In difficult economic times we must protect key social programs including funding for housing, healthcare, children’s programs and combating hunger. There are fiscally prudent ways to balance a growing budget deficit without gutting the programs for the neediest and most vulnerable New Yorkers. We must ensure that critical programs receive adequate funding to protect vulnerable children and families.

How's that for a bumper sticker: "Adequate funding for vulnerable children!"

I guess I know that now is not the time for it, but still I want someone to say: we have important obligations to our neighbors; that those obligations are expensive doesn't make them less important; that times are tough makes them more important; let's all chip in (especially rich people).

Or this bumper sticker: "Government — You Get What You Pay For".

Political Consulting

Campaign management
2010 — Greg Varian for County Legislator, New Rochelle & Eastchester, NY

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2009 — Tim Idoni, County Clerk, Westchester County, NY
2009 — Janet DiFiore, District Attorney, Westchester County, NY
2009 — Chuck Lesnick, Council President, Yonkers, NY
2007 — Noam Bramson, Mayor, New Rochelle, NY
2007 — Marianne Sussman, City Council, New Rochelle, NY
2007 — Susan Kettner, City Council, New Rochelle, NY
2007 — Reggie Johnson, City Council, New Rochelle, NY
2007 — Barry Fertel, City Council, New Rochelle, NY
2005 — Tim Idoni, County Clerk, Westchester County, NY
2004 — Judy Myers, Board of Legislators, Westchester County, NY
2003 — Tim Idoni, Mayor, New Rochelle, NY
2002 — Noam Bramson, NY State Assembly