A Diversity of Opinon in Nassau
A Nassau Democrat tells The Politicker that the Suozzi camp is readying a petitioning operation that will rely, in part, on county workers -- particularly Board of Elections patronage employees and Democratic staff of the County legislature -- "volunteering" their vacation time in June and July to gather nominating petition signatures in upstate New York.
And if that doesn’t have you feeling the winds of reform on your back, hard to see what will.
Suozzi aide Kim Devlin responds that Suozzi supporters on the County payroll, along with others, have helped with petitioning before, and probably will again.
"We never tell anybody -- especially a county employee -- that they have to petition," she said.
Meanwhile in Nassau, County Legislator Craig Johnson endorsed Eliot today, citing "a diversity of opinion in Nassau County as to the appropriateness of County Executive Suozzi’s political activities."
Hey BEN: Stop picking on Suozzi OK .
Regular county employees, bad. Unless they are top-level people who answer directly to Suozzi, and not run of the mill civil servants. Eat at the kings table, do the king’s bidding. Most of these folks will be gladly volunteering. They want Tom to take them to Albany.
Board of Elections employees? Who cares? They are pure patronage by statute and were hired for just such purposes. Lord knows, Dem BOE employees would be carrying for Spitzer in every county but Nassau, if Spitzer needed to petition. And, they will be carrying petitions in every county, including Nassau, as will their Republican counterparts, for every office which does require petitions.
Mostly a non-story.
Party bosses are going to put Spitzer on the ballot because they know that if he won (far from a done deal) they could count on him for all the patronage they want. Some crusader! Also, Spitzer has told the party bosses that he wants Suozzi to have to petition to get on the ballot. And BTW who is Eliot relying on for campaign "volunteers" - could it be the machines who will be sending out those who hold patronage jobs out in droves for him? Hypocrisy, thy name is Spitzer.
oh please poor tom suozzi.
Ben pick, pick and keep picking.
1:39- you do not know what your talking about. Spitzer has run the least patronage driven office in the states history. I am a democrat, not beholden to anyone. I love Spitzer because he is fearless and brilliant. No one is keeping Suozzi off the ballot. He just has no support with the state committee members. So Suozzi will have to circulate, just like Eliot did in ’94.
I have some second-hand knowledge of the internal policy on campaigning by OAG employees and can tell you that it is very stringent. So stringent, that few if any OAG employees do anything even though they are technically permitted to do so on their own time.
Kim Devlin doesnt see that there is an appearance of impropriety and coercion. Wow is that an ethical blindspot for Suozzi.
Safe to say that Craig Johnson’s staff will not be petitioning upstate this summer.
1:45 - no one is keeping Tom off the ballot? Your either stupid or ill informed. By using several ballots, the state committee is going to nominate ALL of the AG candidates -- you need 25% so you have to have mulitple ballots with state committeemembers changing their votes to ensure that 6 candidates get 25% or more each.
Get real. Eliot is going to make Tom work for his spot on the ballot, which he has the right to do since the establishment supports him. It will cost Tom a ton of money, but that is the cost of running in primaries sometimes. It costs a great deal of money.
Eliot’s first Executive Order as AG, in 1999, banned OAG employees from contributing to his campaign. Their spouses and/or domestic partners, too.
Suozzi’s persuasive skills with his county employees sound like Dennis Vacco’s persuasive skills with his OAG employees. Look how far that got Vacco in the ’98 elections.
Eliot’s quickly cleaned the AG’s Office up. Is Suozzi going to stop taking money from county employees who are beholden to him for their jobs?
4:10 you obviously didnt read 1:45’s post thoroughly. She/he says that tom will have to circulate petitions. I think the point was that the party bosses would have to twist arms to get Suozzi automatically ON the ballot.
In the past, Spitzer bought Clarence Norman’s support with money and patronage jobs. That is a fact. It is also a fact that staffers from his office and the patronage job holders of the local bosses will be working as his campaign volunteers. And it is a fact that he has refused to investgate the local political organizations. Another fact is that the local bosses are backing him because they know he is a fraud who - if he won (which is very far from certain) - would give them lots of patronage just like he did with Norman. He is a total fake and the hypocrisy angle is going to work against him. As for the petitions - he has publicly said that he does not want Suozzi to be allowed on the ballot without them. It is the bosses who control that. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the bosses would never support Spitzer if he was a real reformer. They are backing him because they know that he would give them tons of patronage. Give up the Kool-Aid. That stuff is bad for you.
10:23
What patronage jobs?
The payroll and identity of every NYAG employee is a matter of public record. Please identify the patronage jobs to which you are referring.
Patronage? Suozzi invented it.
From:
http://www.longislandpress.com/?cp=162&show=article&a_id=4500
"Nassau’s Republican legislators issued a press release listing the names and salaries of 33 Nassau department leaders by the county elsewhere, even though they live outside the county, since 2002. Their salaries range from $57,750 at the low end to $150,758 for Dr. David Ackman, Commissioner of Health, who commutes from Brooklyn. But the beleaguered Parks Dept. invites special scrutiny.
’Since we began inquiry into high-priced seasonal employees who reside outside the county, we have found not only the two that have been identified in today’s reports, but others who have been brought in by [Deputy County Executive Michael] Klein at similar rates,’ says Minority Leader Peter J. Schmitt. ’The recent passage of the whistleblower law has produced a great number of telephone calls to my office, claiming irregularities, forged time sheets, no-show employees and other abuses within the parks.’"
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