Who does Andrew Cuomo work for?

The unofficial assessment is: the big insurance companies, corporations and law firms. We, the New York State public, have information that as Attorney General, Mr Cuomo sold his seat to the highest bidder.

No one is looking at how the Surrogate Judges of New York State are stealing pricey estates by giving control over these properties to the Public Administrator. Neither he nor any of his group cares about what a person's Will says.

Betsy Combier

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's wealthy campaign donors cash in with plum appointments
BY Kenneth Lovett, DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF, Sunday, June 5th 2011
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ALBANY - Gov. Cuomo, who bragged his administration would attract the best and the brightest from across the country, is also elevating the biggest: His wealthy campaign donors.

A host of Cuomo appointments feature the governor's well-heeled financial backers. Of the 13 appointments now awaiting Senate confirmation, eight of the nominees and their spouses donated a combined $328,402.

That doesn't even include John Dyson, a former deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani who was already confirmed as a new trustee of the state Power Authority.

Dyson and his wife handed over nearly $93,000 to Cuomo.

While it's not uncommon for governors to reward donors and cronies with plum appointments, Cuomo's nominations raised eyebrows given his vows to change the way Albany does business.

"It seems consistent with the past," said Assemblyman John McEneny (D-Albany).

And while most of the slots come without pay, watchdogs say they have one important benefit - influence.

Susan Lerner, head of Common Cause/New York, said, "The appearance of picking people who have provided you with donations is never the criteria we would recommend for appointments."

Many donors had one other thing in common - Cuomo never announced their nominations publicly, instead sending them up quietly for Senate consideration.

The big donors include:

Howard Milstein, Cuomo's nominee to chair the state Thruway Authority, and his wife donated $100,000 to the governor's campaign.

Former lieutenant governor candidate Dennis Mehiel, who made his fortune in the cardboard business, and his wife kicked in nearly $82,000. Mehiel was nominated to serve on the Empire State Development Corp.

Steven Weiss, a Buffalo-area lawyer nominated to serve on the state Housing Finance Agency, forked over $25,000.

Donald Capoccia, founder of the real estate development company BFC Partners, was appointed to the Battery Park City Authority. He dished $12,500 to Cuomo.

RXR Realty boss Scott Rechler and Jeffrey Lynford, co-founder of the Wellsford real estate companies, were both nominated to serve as commissioners to the Port Authority. Rechler and his wife gave Cuomo more than $71,000. Lynford chipped in $6,375.

Investor Beryl Snyder, nominated to the Dormitory Authority, handed over $18,500.

Jonathan Sheffer, a conductor and composer nominated to serve on the state Council on the Arts, ponied up $13,000.

Cuomo's team said there should be no surprise that there is "overlap" between people who participate in campaigns and those who serve in government since "they are the same universe of individuals."

"The relevant question is are these qualified, accomplished people and our nominees are outstanding individuals who have brought renewed credibility to government," Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto said.

More connections

An examination of Cuomo's appointments and nominations since taking office in January show political connections stretch beyond just donations.

His inner circle is filled with people who worked for Cuomo - either in the attorney general's office or at the federal Housing and Urban Development department when he was Secretary under President Bill Clinton.

Others worked for his father, Mario Cuomo, a former three-term governor.

Then there are political cronies.

Kenneth Adams, already confirmed as boss of the Empire State Development Corp., is a former head of the state Business Council. The council last year for the first time in its history made an endorsement for governor, backing Cuomo.

Former Bronx borough president and longtime Democratic activist Fernando Ferrer is awaiting Senate confirmation to the MTA board.

In the end, Cuomo will be judged by whether his appointments did their jobs and advanced his goals, said Russell Haven, of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

"That said, we encourage looking for appointees outside the traditional political and business circles," Haven added.

klovett@nydailynews.com

May 16, 2011, 5:42 pm
Group Spent Nearly $5 Million Backing Cuomo Budget
By THOMAS KAPLAN, City Room
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ALBANY – A coalition of business leaders supportive of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo spent nearly $5 million in the past two months lobbying in favor of the governor’s budget and his proposal to limit local property taxes, according to a new filing with the state ethics commission.

The group, the Committee to Save New York, which registered as a lobbying group in January after facing criticism from good-government groups, has now spent $7.4 million since Mr. Cuomo took office in January, including more than $5.8 million in advertising expenditures.

The group spent more than $4 million advertising in support of the governor’s agenda in March and April (see filing below) alone, according to the new filing.

The group, whose board of directors includes prominent people in real estate, banking and business, was formed with the mission of providing a counterweight to the usual advertising blitz from labor unions during Albany’s budget season.

Not all lobbying groups have yet reported their spending for March and April. But when they do, it is likely that the Committee to Save New York will rank as at least one of the biggest spenders in this year’s budget season, if not the biggest.

The group had initially been expected to spend as much as $10 million to lobby for Mr. Cuomo’s budget, which reduced year-to-year spending for the first time in more then a decade. But Mr. Cuomo faced less resistance than expected, in part because of a deal he struck with the state’s hospitals and health care union in which those groups, which historically are deep-pocketed foes of proposed cuts in spending, advertised on behalf of his budget instead of against it.

Who is the Committee to Save New York?
By Kevin Connor, Jan 20, 2011 at 13:46 EST
LINK

In a prelude to the looming budget battle, a shadowy group going by the name of the “Committee to Save New York” has started coordinating with the Cuomo administration to promote the dawning of a new era of “fiscal sanity” in New York State. The group has amassed a $10 million war chest to run ads in support of a fiscal reform agenda heavy on budget cuts. One ad has already gone on the air touting Cuomo’s approach to the state’s budget problems.

Who, exactly, is behind the Committee to Save New York? To find out, LittleSis’s Cuomo Watch research group will be investigating over the course of the next month. The Committee has refused to disclose its donor list, but it has released its board list, and we have already added that info to the Committee’s page on LittleSis. We will be using that and other public record information to shed light on who, exactly, is behind these efforts, and what their true agendas and interests are.

It is already clear that one of the main forces behind the Committee is the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), an industry association comprised of wealthy real estate and financial interests. REBNY’s president, Steven Spinola, and chair, Mary Ann Tighe, are on the board of the Committee, and Committee co-chair Rob Speyer is on REBNY’s executive committee. Speyer’s real estate firm, Tishman Speyer, has reportedly donated $1 million to the Committee, and other members of REBNY’s board have also donated to the Committee, including chair emeritus Stephen Ross (a billionaire) and the Durst Organization (Douglas Durst is on REBNY’s board).

REBNY’s board boasts many super-wealthy real estate investors and bankers, including billionaires Richard LeFrak, Stephen Ross, Leonard Stern, Sheldon Solow, and Jerry Speyer. Large real estate management firms like CB Richard Ellis, conglomerates such as Vornado Realty Trust, law firms such as Weil Gotshal Manges, and financial firms such as Barclays gain a voice in government through REBNY.

REBNY’s annual reports do not exactly paint a picture of an organization intent on tackling the state’s budget problems or easing the tax burden of the middle class. The reports detail a range of lobbying activities intended to lower the tax burden of big business and the super-rich, including advocating for equal income tax rates for billionaires and bus drivers, a continued “carried interest” tax break for hedge funds and real estate investment firms, and a continued tax abatement for condo owners in Manhattan. “Fiscal discipline,” in REBNY’s world, appears to mean helping wealthy, big business interests avoid paying taxes.
What does the Committee actually stand for?

What does the Committee actually stand for?

Judging from press reports, REBNY has a direct line to Cuomo’s office, but that has come at a high price: 26 of the organization’s board members donated $10,000 or more to his gubernatorial campaign, an incredible level of support from one organization.

There is much more research to be done on REBNY and other groups associated with the Committee. Who are they? What do they lobby for in Albany? What aspects of the budget and tax code benefit them? Do they pay their taxes?

Is this the Committee to Save New York, or the Committee to Scam New York? Join the research group to help us find out.

Note: For analysts who are more interested in the shadowy ways of Washington, Sunlight Foundation is leading an exciting investigation of Super PACs, the outside groups made possible by Citizens United that spent hundreds of millions of dollars influencing last year’s election. Go here to sign up for the research group and research a few Super PACs: where are they located? Who are their main officers? Do they have a website? Help us find out.

January 17, 2011
Group Takes On Albany With Cuomo’s Blessing
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and THOMAS KAPLAN, NY Times

When television advertisements criticizing state government began to appear across New York last week, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo seemed anything but displeased. After all, the group paying for the advertisements, known as the Committee to Save New York, shared many of the governor’s broad goals, like reining in runaway spending and capping local property taxes, and its Web site even included a link to video of his recent State of the State address.

“I encourage people to join that group,” Mr. Cuomo said Thursday, after speaking to an audience in Jamestown, N.Y., about his plans for the year. “I encourage people today to speak up.”

But he has more than a passing familiarity with the committee. It was organized at his urging, after a series of meetings last spring and summer at which the then-candidate pressed business leaders to take a more aggressive role in Albany.

The committee is represented by Dan Klores Communications, a public relations and consulting firm closely tied to the new governor. And the first salvo of advertisements was broadcast just days before Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, began a road tour to highlight his budget agenda and encourage New Yorkers to join him.

For years, labor unions and other special interests have pooled millions of dollars to mount advertising and direct-mail campaigns on budget issues in New York, usually aimed at governors. A joint fund controlled by the state’s powerful health care workers union and a hospital trade association has spent roughly $12 million a year on advertising campaigns to head off cuts to Medicaid spending, while the state teachers’ union spends about $1.5 million a year to advocate for more school aid.

In allying with New York’s newly active business lobby, Mr. Cuomo is borrowing a page from that playbook, and essentially organizing one set of special interests to offset the power of another.

Yet for Mr. Cuomo, who has pledged to seek radically stricter campaign finance laws and deeper financial disclosure in Albany, the effort poses quandaries. The new group is expected to spend at least $10 million in support of him, and, because it is organized as a nonprofit group, it is not required to disclose its donors or budget.

Meanwhile, some of those who have voluntarily disclosed their involvement in the group, like the Real Estate Board of New York and the state Business Council, collectively have billions of dollars at stake in the decisions that Mr. Cuomo will make in the coming year, on issues including insurance and banking regulations and rent control.

“It appears that they are coordinating with the governor and they are doing this to help the governor and maybe even at the request of the governor,” said Blair Horner, legislative director for the New York Public Interest Research Group, a nonpartisan watchdog organization. “We don’t know everyone who’s involved in this. But the ones who have crowed the loudest about it have critically important public policy issues in play this year.”

In a statement issued on Friday, a Cuomo spokesman, Richard Bamberger, said that the administration had consulted with committee members on “relevant issues” but suggested that those discussions were no different from the administration’s discussions with other advocacy groups, including groups like the Public Interest Research Group and the Empire State Pride Agenda, a gay rights organization.

A spokesman for the committee, William Cunningham, said that there was no direct coordination between its operation and the Cuomo administration and that the board had not cleared its advertisements with the governor before running them. In fact, Mr. Cunningham said, there was little need to do so.

“We know what the governor’s agenda is, and we don’t need a lot of guidance,” said Mr. Cunningham, who was an aide to Mr. Cuomo’s father, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. “We’ve got a high-powered group that’s hired us to make their voices heard.”

On Friday, after news media inquiries, the committee added to its Web site a list of 16 board members. The group includes Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of New York; Kevin S. Law, president of the Long Island Association; Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City; Rob Speyer, president of the real estate firm Tishman Speyer; and Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York.
Mr. Cunningham said that the group would file whatever lobbying disclosures were required by law, but that the issue of coordination was legally irrelevant.

“We’re not a PAC, and there is no candidate and no campaign to coordinate with,” he said.

The group echoes efforts by other elected chief executives to muster coalitions of supporters outside their traditional campaign committees, which typically report all donors and expenditures. In New Jersey last year, advisers to Gov. Chris Christie set up a nonprofit group called Reform Jersey Now to push his agenda with television advertising, mailers and automated calls.

In New York City, the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has encouraged its allies to set up at least three groups to advocate for his policies over the last few years. One group, Education Reform Now, pushed the state to raise the cap on the number of charter schools in the city, and another, the Campaign for New York’s Future, backed Mr. Bloomberg’s plan to charge a fee on cars traveling in Midtown.

Those involved with the Committee to Save New York insist they are not trying to evade disclosure but to develop a more formal version of the loose alliances that already existed among the state’s regional business associations. The committee’s members would continue to lobby separately on narrower issues, they said, but would speak as one on the issue of lower taxes and reduced state spending. Should Mr. Cuomo break his pledges on those issues, they said, the group would not stand behind him.

“We have been working with economic development and business groups across the state for the past three years to try and forge a statewide strategy for economic growth,” said Ms. Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City, a coalition of financial, real estate and other senior business leaders in the city.

Furthermore, Mr. Cuomo, who has about $4.2 million in his campaign account, is planning to raise millions more, through conventional channels, to mount his own advertising campaign should he come under fire from the unions. That money would be disclosed and reported like any other campaign contribution.

The Committee to Save New York’s first advertisement is fairly gentle, but certainly flattering to Mr. Cuomo. It features a montage of New York landmarks like Niagara Falls and the Empire State Building and a shot of Mr. Cuomo delivering his State of the State address.

“Our government in Albany hasn’t been as good as our people,” a voice-over intones. “It’s not only broke, it’s broken. But now we can change all that with a new governor who is ready to fix Albany.” The advertisement goes on to urge the creation of jobs and economic growth.

For Ms. Wylde and others, the new group also represents the culmination of a long struggle to organize business leaders into a more effective counterweight to the labor unions that have historically driven fiscal policy in New York. Mr. Cuomo complained during the campaign that businesses had allowed labor to dominate the debate.

“Andrew Cuomo, first as a candidate and later as governor, has explained that Albany is captive to a small handful of special interests that controls the system,” said Mr. Bamberger, the Cuomo spokesman, “which requires that other sectors and people get involved if the government is to represent all the people and interests.”

Those skeptical of Mr. Cuomo’s agenda, however, chafe at the implication that they — and not the governor’s well-financed allies — should be branded “special interests.”

“When did the real estate industry and Wall Street become the people who are going to save New York?” said Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, which supports higher spending on schools. “I don’t think that anybody who’s a voter in New York is going to buy into the idea that these guys are going to spend $10 million because they’re worried about what’s going to happen to average New Yorkers.”

Michael Barbaro and David M. Halbfinger contributed reporting.