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Term Limits:
A Consultant's Best Friend

By MICHAEL SCHENKLER

Term limits and new campaign finance, which included 4-1 matching funds, has attracted many new candidates to the political game, but it has also built a whole new cottage industry to help those candidates with the tough task of running for office.

Political consulting is probably the second oldest industry in the country — and not too different from the first. The industry thrives in the nation’s Capital feeding on Congressional, Senate and Presidential elections.

Many of the people involved in it on a local level are fine, upstanding individuals, only problem is they are supposed to make the politicians look good to the rest of us.

It was really only a generation ago, when David Garth, the guru of John Lindsay then Ed Koch, became the true granddaddy of modern day New York consultants.

Now, local Hanks, Morris and Sheinkopf presently compete for the top position in the New York crowd. You might catch their firms with some Council candidates, but these guys play for bigger stakes.

Morris, the man behind Chuck Schumer’s victory, now has his longtime friend and client Queens mayoral hopeful Alan Hevesi.

Sheinkopf, a reporter for the Queens Tribune 30 years ago, who has done work for Bill Clinton, is now playing a city trifecta of Betsy Gotbaum for Public Advocate, Bill Thompson for Comptroller and Mark Green for Mayor. Queens Beep candidate Carol Gresser is another of the firm’s candidates.

Other than Hank and Hank, several consulting firms have come and gone. There have also been some long-standing respected ones, including Ernie Lendler’s Branford Communications and Joe Mercurio, now with our old friend Frank Baroff in Manhattan.

However, with term-limits and 4-1 matching funds, the resultant number of candidates and the quantity of dollars has caused new firms to spring alive for this election season. Council candidates have been signed up for petition and field operation, creative, print, direct mail and more.

In Queens, the Parkside Group leads the newcomers in attracting candidates. Evan Stavisky, Bill Driscoll and Harry Giannoulis bring their years of political experience together to represent a dozen-plus odd Council candidates — maybe some of them aren’t too odd.

The new firm has taken the Borough by storm and represents viable Council candidates in 10 of the 14 Queens races. They have a batch of other candidates throughout the city.

The Advance Group’s Scott Levenson and Peter Krokondelas are back in Queens with a small handful of very respectable candidates.

Lois Marbach’s Promotional Strategies has picked off several Council wanabees. Marbach, who has been playing the game for a while representing fringe candidates, might come up with a winner this time.

Alan Clobridge of Silver Bullet, an old pro from DC, has been visiting the city to pick up some players for the NYC free for all.

However, Run! Inc., the newest player in Queens, has a novel twist. While partner Harris Leitstein has the traditional consultant’s experience, his childhood friend and new business partner Laurence Laufer has a different twist. He doesn’t want to write campaign brochures, tape commercials, bind petitions or plan a direct mail campaign like the rest of them. He wants to help candidates through the maze of 4-1 matching funds.

Peter Vallone for Mayor, Carol Gresser for Beep and a handful of Council candidates have signed aboard. Laufer, former Counsel to the Exec. Dir. of the Campaign Finance Board from its inception in ‘88 through last year, was responsible for preparing all CFB regs and advisory opinions. Laufer oversees the financial compliance and matching fund filings for his clients. He believes  that his initial consultation will save  more than the entire cost of using his service.

If campaign fund raising has become a political industry, Laufer may just have a winning idea. He seems to be the only player in the game and if we were backing a candidate, we’d give Larry a call.

There are endless families eating  well this season because of the new open city elections.

More importantly, term limits and 4-1 matching funds have created a whole new crop of candidates who will bring to public service, this city and the Council, new vision, energy and dedication which benefit us all for years to come.

The Petition Challenge Game

Petitioning is over. As you read this, the last of the candidates have rushed to the Board of Elections to file their nominating petitions to secure their place on the ballot.

The Thursday, July 12 midnight deadline marks the end of the 37 day period where candidates could collect signatures of registered party members residing in their district.

But that is only a beginning to insure a place on the ballot. Any voter from the district may challenge a candidates nominating petition claiming, for some reason, it does not contain the proper number of valid signatures.

There are professionals that have reputations managing such challenges. Tom Manton’s Queens County Democratic Organization led by his law partners, Mike Reich, Gerry Sweeny, Frank Bols and a coterie of volunteer club regulars have mastered the process. These guys are as good as they get at what they euphemistically call “cleaning up the ballot.” What they really mean is “deny the opponents a place on the ballot.”

They can go the Board of Elections and/or the court route challenging opponents and tying them up delaying a decision on ballot placement. This process is critical in an election where the Campaign Finance Board is sitting with oodles of 4-1 matching money that it won’t give to a candidate until ballot access is assured.

If you can’t knock an opponent off the ballot but can keep them tied up in court, you can prevent them from funding their campaign.

You can challenge individual petition signatures because the signer is: not registered to vote, not enrolled in the candidate’s political party, or does not live in the district. In addition, a voter may sign only one petition for each office.

Challenges may also be made to the people who gathered the petitions, known as the subscribing witnesses. If a subscribing witness is found to be ineligible, all of the signatures they gathered are invalidated.

Furthermore, seemingly minor errors on the sheet or in the subscribing witness statement may invalidate the entire page of signatures.

The goal of the challenger is to reduce the number of signatures so that it falls below the required number  – for City Council, 900 signatures. Reducing a petition to fewer than 900 valid signatures knocks that candidate off the ballot.

Tying the candidate up in court so that he is finally certified very late, keeps the money from the candidate and thus unable to participate effectively in the election.

The challenges begin this week. The Queens Democratic organization is the skilled player at this game. This may be their last and most effective way of helping their candidates.

Their ability to deliver voters to the polls has always been somewhat suspect. Their ability to deny ballot access to opponents has never been in doubt.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your attorneys; let the games begin.

New York’s Cell-Out Legislature

Okay! It’s hands-free car phones! First they’ll warn you; then they’ll fine you. Gee, 100 smackers for talking on and holding your cell phone while driving.

Yup, the NY Legislature has passed, and Guv Pataki signed, a “don’t talk, hold and drive” cell phone law.

So, you can talk on it, if you’re not holding it. And you can hold it, if you’re not talking on it. And I think you can dial it and hold it if you’re not talking. But, can you listen on it but not talk, while holding it?

Can you hold a cup of coffee while talking hands-free on a cell phone?

Can you put on your lipstick — no, not me — while holding coffee, while driving and talking on a hands-free speaker cell phone?

Can your significant other hold it while you’re driving? Your cell phone that is?

What else is illegal to do while driving? Have the super-legislators in Albany spelled out which behaviors are acceptable and which are not while driving a car?

Can you pass a budget while talking on a cell phone while driving a car and drinking coffee?

Now these guys (and gals) in Albany, don’t do very much. I mean it! The damn NY State budget was due on April 1. That’s more than a quarter of a year ago. Can you imagine a business not having a budget for three months? Now, the State budget is larger than any of the businesses you can think of. It’s humongous. And it’s more than three months late.

But don’t be surprised. This is the 17th year in a row members of the NYS Legislature have failed to pass a budget on time. 

These are the same chaps and chapettes who voted themselves a healthy salary increase two years ago along with  lulus, bonuses and expense accounts.

As they go about their everyday business, the all-powerful leadership, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Governor George Pataki seem unconcerned that their State is without a budget. If this was a private business or public company, management would have been gone a long time ago.

They can take your cell phone out of your hands. These mother jumpers can enter the privacy of your car, sit next to you and tell you how to behave. But they can’t travel to Albany and do their business. They can’t pass the single most important piece of legislation on time. There are not a whole lot of them who were around 18 years ago when the last on-time budget occurred.

Okay, these jokers made a concession. A number of years ago, they passed a law that said, if a budget is late, they won’t take their salaries until one is passed.

Now, when it is passed, they get all of their back wages — ridiculous!

If they did not get paid and lost their salary if the budget was late, you could bet the ranch or tenement or attached house or the bank that State budgets would be on time.

It seems pretty simple to me. We must demand that they legislate a forfeiture of salary during any period where the budget is not on time. We’ll have to add safeguards to prevent them from getting any gray area money via back door routes, too.

If they pass a true salary forfeiture bill, budgets will be on time.

It’s really that simple.

Now everyone should call their State Senator and Assembly member and tell them if they don’t pass Schenkler’s “no budget salary forfeiture law,” you’re not going to vote for them next year.

Okay, now everybody pick up your cell phones and dial . . . .

Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato

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Michael Schenkler can be reached at: MSchenkler@QueensTribune.com

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