[State Senator Malcolm] Smith's Hooters excursion was one of several not- obviously- campaign- related ways in which state lawmakers used campaign money in the first half of the year, the spending records show. Tens of thousands of dollars were spent on dinners, flowers, baseball games and even parking tickets.
"Basically, campaign contributions can be used to subsidize the lifestyle of lawmakers," said Blair Horner, the legislative director at the New York Public Interest Research Group. "So few of them face serious political opposition, so they just spend it."
Sen. Carl Kruger, a Brooklyn Democrat, spent $1,888.97 at Italian Tile and Design on Coney Island Ave. His spokesman, Jason Koppel, said the money bought ceramic floor tile for the senator's district office.
"It was an older floor and it needed to be replaced," Koppel said. "The safety of our constituents is important."
Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV's campaign expenses included $97.20 to rent a tuxedo for a black-tie dinner and $117 for parking tickets.
"It's only fair," the Harlem Democrat said about the parking ticket reimbursement. "It's not on personal business. It's on official business or campaign business."
Campaign cash used to fund good times
9 comments:
I guess all those lap dances at Danny Boy's, etc. that "Pinky" Gallagher got were official business reimbursed by us taxpayers!
I'm not even playing devil's advocate here - but - campaign donations are not taxpayer monies - they are voluntarily given to the candidate. And since when can you get lap dances at Danny Boy's?
They are voluntarily given to candidates but there are still rules to follow on how one can spend it.
Campaign donations are given to elected officials by speical interests to buy their vote to make the rich richer. Most elected officials never have a real primary or general election so they use the money on themselves, dinner, car or lap dance.
The real lap dance is when they vote against us in city hall and Albany, not when they go to Danny Boy's with their whore
I guess "Pinky's" boys are still scoping this site.
Gallagher needs to be taken to a vet and "altered" so that he no longer poses a threat to the female public.
So it's not tax-payer money and there are no lap-dances at Danny Boys? And this simple observation makes me one of "Pinky's Boys"? How wrong you are....
There's such a thing as a matching funds program. 6-1 now, I believe. So most of this is OUR money.
State Senators, like Malcolm Smith, don't get matching funds...
Matching funds don't work; there isn't a single New York City elected official who owes his or her position to matching funds.
The real answer is a strong "Clean Money, Clean Elections" system of virtually full public funding with an equally strong monetary disincentive for "outside groups" who wish to spend money on an election.
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