Democrats plan $5,000 a person fundraiser in Buffalo
Goal is to stockpile cash for 2010 elections
Published: July 14, 2009, 8:10 am
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The Democrats have taken back the State Senate.
Time for a fundraiser. Tickets top out at $5,000 a person for the chance to chat in Buffalo on Friday with Sen. Malcolm A. Smith of Queens, the Senate president, and Sen. John L. Sampson of Brooklyn, leader of the Senate’s Democratic conference.
Buffalo-area Sens. Antoine M. Thompson and William T. Stachowski also are expected at the luncheon in the Buffalo Chophouse.
There’s no mention of Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx, who snared the post of Senate majority leader by rejoining the Democratic fold last week and giving the bloc its all-important 32 members.
But don’t read too much into Espada’s absence. Thompson, one of the organizers, says he’s trying to get him to Buffalo for a September event.
“We have to get ready for 2010,” Thompson said of the need to stockpile campaign cash for next year’s elections.
Reports due at the state Board of Elections this week should indicate how much the Senate Democrats hauled in during the first half of this year, when their rule was in doubt for a month.
The Democrats raised about $720,000 in the first six months of 2007, also an off-election year but when they were clearly in the minority.
Shouldn’t the senators now be more focused on government business, to make up for 31 days of inaction while Republicans and Democrats wrestled for control?
“We have sessions Wednesday and Thursday,” Thompson said of this week’s Senate calendar.
Plus, he has pointed out, the Senate late last week finally acted on some important legislation, such as extending New York’s Power for Jobs initiative and authorizing another phase of the Buffalo Joint School Construction Program.
Thompson is one of three cochairmen of the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee and was a co-chairman in 2008, when Democrats captured the Senate after decades of Republican domination.
He held a fundraiser for his own campaign account Thursday in Shanghai Red’s Restaurant in Buffalo, with tickets costing up to $5,000. But Thompson said he could not attend. He remained in Albany because the logjam was lifting.
Politicians of every stripe raise money in the summer, and those with actual governmental power tend to charge higher prices. Friday’s cheapest tickets cost $1,000 a person.
With Democrats in the majority, Thompson and Stachowski control separate Senate committees. They serve at the pleasure of the Senate’s top leaders, now a triumvirate of Sampson, Smith and Espada, who have yet to display how they will reign over time.
mspina@buffnews.com
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