Posted on 10/25/2002 5:03:21 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
Incumbent Democratic State Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer has raised more than 17 times as much money as his Republican opponent, former Court of Claims Judge Dora L. Irizarry, according to the most recent campaign filings with the State Board of Elections.
As reported in the two campaigns' filings on Oct. 4, Spitzer had raised $4.8 million to Irizarry's $267,000.
Enjoying the powers of incumbency and a wave of worldwide publicity generated by his probe of wrongdoing on Wall Street, Spitzer has had a much easier time raising campaign funds this year than in either of his two earlier races.
Both in 1994, when he trailed in a field of four in the Democratic primary for attorney general, and in 1998, when he narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Dennis C. Vacco, his campaign relied heavily upon his family's real estate fortune.
Almost his entire $3.9 million primary campaign in 1994 was funded with family money, as was all but $1.4 million of $9.7 million he spent on the 1998 race. But this year only a small fraction of Spitzer's campaign treasury comes either directly from him or family members.
He has, however, received contributions totaling $235,000 from his mother and father, Bernard and Ann Spitzer. Spitzer has pumped none of his own funds into the race, nor has his campaign borrowed money as it did in the previous races.
Altogether, Spitzer has collected contributions of more than $10,000 each from 103 donors, according to the Oct. 4 filing, which was current through Sept. 30. Of those 103 donors, 19 were lawyers, law firms or law-related entities. The next report, which is due to be filed with the Board of Elections today, will report fund-raising activity through Oct. 21.
Irizarry, the first Hispanic woman to run for statewide office, by contrast, has depended heavily upon funds from the state Republican Party. The party has pumped $100,000 into her campaign, more than 37 percent of her entire treasury.
Only 25 contributors have donated more than $1,000, seven of them lawyers, law firms or those otherwise connected to the legal field.
The most that state law permits any individual or firm to contribute to the Spitzer-Irizarry contest, where neither candidate faced a primary opponent, is $30,700. Candidates, however, may use an unlimited amount of their own money in their campaigns. Contributions from close family members under state law must not total more than $251,915.
Although Spitzer's campaign coffers were bulging with more than $2.7 million in cash as of the Oct. 4 report, much of that surplus has been spent in the last three weeks, according to his campaign manager, Cynthia Darrison.
About $2 million has been spent to purchase television advertising time, she said. More than $140,000 has been given to the statewide Democratic campaign committee, Democratic gubernatorial candidate H. Carl McCall's campaign, and to local Democratic parties in 41 upstate counties, she said. Another $25,000 has been donated each to the Working Families Party and the Liberal Party. Spitzer is running for attorney general on both parties' tickets, as well as with the Independence Party.
Darrison said that the contributions were made to other campaigns and political entities to help finance get-out-the-vote efforts and field operations on Election Day, Nov. 5, in order to advance the causes of Spitzer and other Democrats.
According to previous filings, the Spitzer campaign before Sept. 30 had paid $57,625 to other campaigns and political organizations. Since the Board of Elections first required campaigns to file their finance reports into a computer database in July 1999, Spitzer has personally contributed $19,550 to other campaigns and political organizations. His father, Bernard Spitzer, has made similar donations totaling $83,000.
As of the Oct. 4 filing, Irizarry reported having $29,384 in her campaign's account. Her campaign manager, Jake Menges, said she plans to advertise in Spanish media during the last two weeks of the campaign.
Six law firms have contributed more than $10,000 to Spitzer's campaign: Robinson Silverman Pearce Aronsohn & Berman, $22,500; Herrick Feinstein, $21,000; Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker, $15,500; Nixon Peabody, $15,327; Pomerantz Haudek Block Grossman & Block, $15,000; and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, $15,000, through its SSL PAC. In addition, the political action committee organized by the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, an organization of lawyers who represent plaintiffs in tort cases, contributed $24,200.
Among the biggest individual lawyer donors to the Spitzer campaign were Joseph Flom of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, $25,250; J. Stanley Shaw of Shaw, Licitra, Bohner, Esernio, Schwartz & Pfluger, $24,938; Marc Wolpow, a lawyer who heads a venture capital firm called Audax Group, $23,000; Peter James Johnson of Johnson & Leahey, $22,000; and Stephen Lowey of Lowey Dannenberg Bemporad & Selinger, $16,000.
Lawyers were identified by matching names contained in the filings with the Board of Elections and the Office of Court Administration's registry of attorneys.
(It was not always possible to verify that a person named in the campaign filing was a lawyer because some names were common and included no middle initials. Also, some donors listed a home address, and the OCA registry lists only business addresses. Unlike the federal campaign finance law, New York's does not require donors to list their business affiliation.)
In a few instances during the Law Journal's review of the Spitzer records, several lawyers and possibly a law firm itself combined to make contributions at similar levels. For instance, two name partners at Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach and the firm itself have combined to contribute $25,000 to the Spitzer campaign. Similarly, two partners at Constantine & Partners, together with the firm itself, have contributed a total of $22,500.
Ethics Charge
The Irizarry campaign has criticized Spitzer's acceptance of donations from lawyers connected with two firms as "ethically challenged" because the firms were representing companies that were being investigated by Spitzer's office.
Menges, Irizarry's campaign manager, pointed to the Spitzer campaign's acceptance of $25,000 from Flom two weeks after his office settled for $100 million claims arising from its probe of Merrill Lynch. Flom's firm, Skadden Arps, represented Merrill Lynch during the investigation into whether its analysts tailored their stock ratings to win investment banking business.
Menges also pointed to $10,900 in donations from lawyers at Debevoise & Plimpton while, according to a newspaper report, Spitzer's office was examining the relationship between Salomon Smith Barney and Global Crossing, Debevoise's client. One of the Debevoise donors was Ralph C. Ferrara, who represented Global Crossing in the Spitzer probe, Menges asserted, citing news accounts.
Flom rejected the criticism, saying he had pledged the $25,000 donation because he had agreed to co-chair a fund-raiser before he was aware that his firm was representing Merrill in the investigation. He added that he "did not do anything while the investigation was pending because it could be misread," including not attending the fund-raising luncheon he was sponsoring as co-chair. He made the contribution after the investigation was over, he added.
Darrison, Spitzer's campaign manager, said the campaign "prides itself on having the highest fund-raising standards," and takes prophylactic measures to avoid accepting any donations from people who either directly or through a company they control, have matters pending before the attorney general's office.
The office does not preclude donations from lawyers who represent clients with matters in the office, Darrison added, because "every law firm has some matter pending in the office whether it is a charity registration, a trusts and estates case or a Wall Street case."
Darrison strongly rejected the criticism of the contributions from the Debevoise lawyers, saying for "anyone to suggest for a lawyer who writes a couple of checks in the context of a previous fund-raising is going to have undue influence is making an absurd accusation."
John S. Kiernan, a Debevoise partner who heads its ethics committee, said that at the time Ferrara contributed $500 to the Spitzer campaign in April, "there was no activity at the attorney general's office with respect to Global Crossing and as far as we knew none was planned."
Kiernan added that Debevoise "as a firm doesn't make political contributions and no records are made of the contributions of individual partners."
Irizarry's Lawyer Donors
The Irizarry campaign has only had one large donation from a law firm to date: $25,000 from Hoguet, Newman & Regal. The campaign has also received donations of $5,000 each from four other firms or lawyers: Entwhistle & Cappucci; Leo Kayser III of Kayser & Redfern; Samuel F. Pryor III of Davis Polk & Wardwell; and John A. Levin, who heads a company called John A. Levin & Co. Two other lawyers contributed $1,000 each to the Irizarry campaign: Charles E. Dorkey III of Torys, and Manuel A. Romero, who practices in Brooklyn.
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