Golisano confronts GOP elections commissioner
Holds news conference outside critic’s office
Buffalo Sabres owner and political activist B. Thomas Golisano dropped the gloves and staged a face off of his own Friday, taking on the Erie County Board of Elections commissioners who have accused him of illegal campaign tactics.
“I am going after you,” Golisano told one of the commissioners, Ralph Mohr, after holding a surprise news conference at Board of Election headquarters to call for the ousters of both commissioners — and then confronting Mohr outside his office there.
But Mohr said he was unimpressed with Golisano’s performance.
“You are not going to intimidate the Board of Elections,” he told Golisano.
Friday’s showdown was the culmination of a battle between the commissioners and Golisano over Golisano’s political committee, Responsible New York.
Earlier this week, Mohr asked Golisano to answer questions under oath about his dealings with three political action committees controlled by G. Steven Pigeon.
Mohr has accused Responsible New York, as well as Pigeon’s three political action committees, of illegally interacting with the State Senate campaign of Democrat Joe Mesi. Mesi is locked in a tight race with Republican Michael H. Ranzenhofer.
Mohr had warned he might issue a formal subpoena to gain Golisano’s compliance.
Golisano accuses the two elections commissioners of violating state election law by overstepping their investigative and subpoena powers. He also accuses the commissioners of taking their allegations to the media, instead of to him.
Friday, he said, was meant to give the commissioners a taste of their own medicine. First, he held a news conference inside election headquarters — much to the surprise of the elections officials and workers there — to announce he had petitioned Gov. David A. Paterson to remove Mohr, the Republican commissioner, and his Democratic Party counterpart, Commissioner Dennis Ward.
He said he also requested that District Attorney Frank Clark investigate and filed an administrative complaint with the state Board of Elections as well.
Golisano said he was more than willing to meet with Mohr and Ward to answer their questions and after the news conference, surrounded by TV cameras and other reporters, trooped upstairs to see if the commissioners would talk with him.
After meeting with reporters, Mohr learned Golisano was outside his office and agreed to go out and arrange a meeting for an hour later, when Ward would be back in the office after checking voting machines.
It was not to be, however. In a brief face-to-face encounter crowded with media outside Mohr’s office, a combative Golisano repeated his accusations, saying the commissioners had “violated the public trust” and adding: “Welcome to fighting a war in the media.”
He rejected Mohr’s offer to meet that afternoon.
After Golisano left, Mohr said he just wanted Golisano “to answer the questions we asked. We will proceed [with the Board of Elections inquiry] in a manner we feel is appropriate.”
