Pigeon, Golisano focus of discussion
State elections panel to mull complaints
Published: June 15, 2009, 12:30 am
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The state Board of Elections today is expected to discuss months-old complaints against the two political powers who last week plucked the State Senate from Democraticcontrol— G. Steven Pigeon and B. Thomas Golisano.
The complaints accuse Golisano and Pigeon, his key political operative, of violating state law through “Responsible New York” — the political committee Golisano launched with $5 million in 2008 to support candidates who agree with his philosophy.
Opposing candidates have complained to the state Board of Elections and to local district attorneys that Responsible New York—an independent committee unauthorized to represent a particular candidate — coordinated strategy with the Golisano-Pigeon candidates and their campaigns.
Unauthorized committees can spend as much as they want on mailings, advertising and other propaganda weapons, but they can’t coordinate their attacks with another candidate’s election committee —otherwise the limits on campaign contributions to candidates would become meaningless.
Anyone who uses an unauthorized committee to skirt the state’s contribution limits can be found guilty of a felony.
“If the two groups were allowed to coordinate then there would simply be no point in campaign contribution limits at all,” attorneys representing Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo, said in a letter last year asking then-Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark to investigate Responsible New York.
Hoyt had been targeted by Golisano, who backed Barbra Kavanaugh in the all-important Democratic primary. Hoyt won, and his team later alerted Clark and the state Board of Elections to likely campaign coordination and an overlap in personnel between Responsible New York and the Kavanaugh campaign.
Pigeon on Sunday called Hoyt a “sore winner” and his complaints nonsense.
“There was no coordination and there is no evidence of any coordination,” he said, arguing that Hoyt and others are confusing the timing of events and misinterpreting the law. “There is no evidence because it never happened,” he said.
The Senate coup that Pigeon and Golisano facilitated last week — leading two Democrats to defect to the Republican side — is making the former Erie County Democratic chairman almost a household name in New York, like the billionaire owner of the Buffalo Sabres who has three times run for governor.
Pigeon said it also makes them more of a target — perhaps even for the bipartisan state Board of Elections — “because we have challenged the status quo and we have challenged the establishment.”
State Senate candidate Michele M. Iannello of Kenmore also complained of the coordination she perceived between Responsible New York and the campaign of Joe Mesi, a rival last year for the Democratic Party nomination in the 61st Senate District.
“It is quite clear that Mr. Mesi’s entire campaign since April 2008 has been associated with and coordinated by political associates who are now part of ‘Responsible New York,’ ” Iannello wrote in an August letter asking the state Board of Elections, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo or Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares to investigate.
Iannello lost the Democratic primary to Mesi, and Mesi lost the November general election to Republican Michael H. Ranzenhofer of Clarence. Iannello returned to her seat in the Erie County Legislature, and with Pigeon’s influence Mesi landed a job in the State Senate’s Buffalo office.
Neither Hoyt’s team nor Iannello’s succeeded in persuading a district attorney to investigate.
However, a complaint about Responsible New York from Hoyt associate Jeremy Toth is before the state Elections Board for its meeting today, as is a complaint from Erie County’s two elections commissioners, Republican Ralph M. Mohr and Democrat Dennis Ward, who is Iannello’s husband.
The Elections Board today has a few options. It could do nothing. It could choose to investigate Responsible New York. Or it could suggest that a district attorney investigate, and sources who have been following the matter say it would most likely turn to Soares. It meets at noon.
mspina@buffnews.com
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