Another Voice / Campaign finance
Responsible New York complied with state laws
New York faces a budget deficit of historic proportions. We pay the highest per capita taxes in the country, and too many of our friends and neighbors are voting with their feet and leaving New York. These challenges have been decades in the making and yet incumbent state legislators are reelected more than 95 percent of the time. I founded Responsible New York to change that.
Since we began, the defenders of the status quo have attacked Responsible New York, people associated with it and even, now, me personally.
The most recent accusations come from officials with the Board of Elections. These are the very people who represent us and are tasked with protecting and policing elections. They are using their positions of public trust to launch political attacks. It is outrageous that they would use taxpayer money to fight our reform efforts.
Let’s be clear. Elections commissioners are chosen by political parties. They are selected because of their service to party, not because they have expertise in election law or administration, and are paid more than $100,000 a year and work part time.
Both of these commissioners have extensive political and personal ties to career elected officials who were challenged by candidates backed by Responsible New York.
Let me be as clear as possible: Responsible New York has and will continue to follow state election law in all of our activities. We have not coordinated our activities with any candidate or candidate committee. Responsible New York has endorsed candidates. In some campaigns we have provided direct contributions (all within the legal limits). In other races we have conducted independent expenditures.
Basically there are two allegations. One concerns donations Responsible New York made to a political action committee. The question is: Should this committee file reports twice a year or six times a year? This PAC has been reporting biannually for almost five years and the commissioners only decided to object now, the week before an important election.
The second allegation alleges Responsible New York is coordinating by using audio of a candidate and pictures of a candidate. In every case we obtained these recordings and pictures from the Internet, using information available in the public domain. This is exactly what courts recommend.
As a result of these politically motivated attacks I have filed an administrative complaint with the New York State Board of Elections, asked the Erie County district attorney to investigate this abuse of power and petitioned New York Gov. David Paterson to remove Election Commissioners Dennis Ward and Ralph Mohr from office.
The real test is up to voters. When New Yorkers vote, they must base their decisions on the candidates themselves.
Tom Golisano is the chairman of the board of Paychex Inc., former candidate for governor of New York and founder of the B. Thomas Golisano Foundation.
