| (My great thanks to Bill Mahoney, the Legislative Operations and Research Director at the New York Public Interest Research Group for supplying me with the spreadsheets and his work on this. The information provided in these spreadsheets is invaluable.)
The New York State Assembly member items for 2008-09 show us that the huge Democratic majority is alive and well and that a certain Speaker of said Assembly is reaping the rewards of his post.
This spreadsheet shows you the breakdown of Assembly member items for this fiscal year. But this spreadsheet shows you the party breakdown of where these member items are going.
In all, Assembly Democrats used $57,356,822.00 to fund their member items, averaging out to over $541,000 per Democratic assemblymember. Assembly Republicans have allocated $4,875,000.00 for member items this fiscal year, averaging out to over $121,000 per Republican assemblymember.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is the Assembly's King of Pork. He has over $3 million allocated for member items.
The top five assemblymembers who are bringing home the bacon are:
| Legislator |
Total Amount Of Member Items |
| Sheldon Silver |
$3,020,000.00 |
| Robin Schimminger |
$2,227,500.00 |
| Susan John |
$2,141,800.00 |
| Bill Scarborough |
$1,602,891.00 |
| Bill Magnarelli |
$1,035,000.00 |
One thing pointed out to me by Bill Mahoney of NYPIRG is that not all member items are indicated in those totals because not all member items are given by individual legislators. Some member items are given jointly by multiple legislators, so while it is not a true representation of how much in member items were given by individual legislators, it provides you with the necessary information to know who received the most and who is bringing home the bacon. |
