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(Other reasons Sheldon Silver is unfit for office: treating marriage equality as a crude brgaining chip, his desire to keep Bruno in power, his refusal to release his side income, he opposed David Paterson's bid for minority leader, he killed congestion pricing without even an up-or-down vote, he uses YOUR money to pay for his political mailers. and he let an accused rapist stay on his staff for far too long)
This past week has seen much blogger mulling over different campaign finance filings and what they mean. Since one of my criticisms of Co-Governor Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is that he doesn't want the Democrats to take State Senate, I figured I'd go over Shelly's campaign finance filings to see if my contention is backed up by numbers.
Indeed, it is.
Looking at the public info of expenditures of Shelly's two committees, Friends of SIlver and
SPEAKERPAC, I have crunched the numbers. Here are my findings, minus the numbers for a handful of committees that are defunct and I could not figure out what office they are for.
Since 1999:
*Shelly gave at least $154,200 to Assembly Democrats, both incumbents and challengers.
*Shelly gave at least $33,950 to other non-statewide races around the state. All were Democrats, and they were all municipal elections from the NYC Council to County Executives to Judges to Mayoral Candidates to Borough Presidents. Most were NYC, but he made contributions all over, like for Nassau County Exec and Mayor of Syracuse.
*Shelly also gave at least $75,000 to statewide Democrats, namely Andrew Cuomo, Alan Hevesi, and Carl McCall.
*Shelly gave Marty Connor $10,000 in 2006 to help fight off his primary challenge from Ken Diamondstone.
*Shelly also gave lots of money to various Democratic Clubs and other local organizations.
So despite spending all these thousands of dollars on the whole gamut of Democratic politicians, committees, and clubs all around the state, Sheldon Silver has not given a single dime to a Democratic Senate Candidate other than Marty Connor in a primary fight. Democratic Senate challengers in recent years, like Albert Baldeo and Nora Marino in 2006 (when Silver ally, Denny Farrell was heading the state party) were left hanging without sufficient funds to defeat otherwise vulnerable Republican Senators. Even ones that did manage to win, like Andrea Stewart-Cousins, had to do so without Shelly's help.
Think about that- not a single dime. This from a supposed leader in our party, someone who by all rights should be pushing hard for a Democratic Senate if he wants any of the progressive legislation he sponsors in the Assembly to become law.
But he doesn't.
With Shelly, it's all about him and his power. On the night of Darrel Aubertine's vitcory, I wrote about an anonymous Assembly Democrat who had this to say to Azi about Aubertine's victory:
"Losers are democratic assembly members in districts with democratic senators who by this fall will no longer be the only Dems that can pass legislation. Don't cite me as the source for that one."
Like that unnamed Assemblymember, Shelly probably wants to be the Democrats' top dog in the legislature. A Majority Leader Smith would eclipse a lot of his power. Additionally, with a Democratic Senate, Shelly can no longer hide behind Senate Republicans for excuses on why he doesn't pass rules reform, campaign finance reform, redistricting reform, or all other types of reform.
Shelly simply does not want the Democrats to take the Senate. Ever.
I look forward to the Shelly apologists' spin on this one.
On the web:
Paul Newell for Assembly
Luke Henry for Assembly
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