Sunday, September 20, 2009

DeBlasio the lobbyist

From the Daily News:

Public advocate candidate Bill de Blasio set a bad precedent when he hired himself out in 2006 as a paid lobbyist while serving on the City Council.

An organization called the Progressive America Foundation paid de Blasio $33,000 to press states to adopt election rules that would enable groups like the Working Families Party to more easily field candidates.

De Blasio got an okay from the Conflicts of Interest Board with two provisos: that his lobbying would be done elsewhere, and that the foundation had no business with the city.

On the first count, de Blasio is fine. On the second, he is in murky waters. At the time of the payment, the foundation shared an address with the Working Families Party, and the two organizations have had a number of the same directors over the years.

The affiliations and the interests of the two organizations are close enough to create at least the appearance that the foundation was putting money into de Blasio's pocket at a time when the party was pressing numerous issues before the Council.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great

A choice between this one and Green.

Just like Yassky and Liu as controller.

And Thompson and Bloomberg for mayor.

Anonymous said...

You don't see anything negative about Green. I guess it does come down to who is the more honest candidate. Green gets my vote.