B U F FA LO
BHARARA: HONEY BADGER
ALAN BEDENKO from THE PUBLIC
P
city & state — February 9, 2015
14
reet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has the ability and willingness to do what no elected official in New York can or will. In fact, we should be thankful that Gov. Andrew Cuomo disbanded his Moreland Commission on Public Corruption, enabling its investigatory files to be picked up by Bharara’s team of federal prosecutors and the FBI. The U.S. attorney, after all, is an appointed federal law enforcement official, not beholden to any of the parties, factions, personalities or pressure groups that maintain a corrupt chokehold on New York’s body politic. Bharara is New York’s honey badger, completely unconcerned with the toes on which his investigations might be treading. Rumors swirled in advance of a Bob McCarthy recent article in The Buffalo News, as political junkies texted each other about the visit that the FBI and state law enforcement paid to one G. Stephen Pigeon. Before I get into this party political inside baseball—why should you care? Ultimately, the policies under which we live and work are decided by people whom we elect to public office—locally, regionally, statewide and in Washington. The quality and efficacy of those policies can vary, so it’s theoretically important that voters make informed choices and select good candidates. Unfortunately, that’s not always how it works in real life, and too often personal ambition and greed get in the way. Scapegoats are many, but
political machines aren’t necessarily to blame. Factionalism is the bigger problem. If you’re a Republican, it can be frustrating how the ultra-right “Tea Party” wing of the party can be at odds with the establishment party committees. One need only look at the 2014 race for the 60th Senate District—rightist Republicans were so angry at incumbent Republican Mark Grisanti’s support for same-sex marriage and the NY SAFE Act that they ousted him in favor of a same-sex marriage and NY SAFE Act proponent, liberal Democrat Marc Panepinto. As for the Democrats, they cyclically rip each other to shreds. However, the Democratic factional trench warfare is seldom about ideology or policy, but instead about patronage and power. It can be so paralyzing and distracting that Democrats end up losing winnable elections. Steve Pigeon was the chairman of the county Democratic committee until about 12 years ago, when he was replaced by Len Lenihan. Pigeon’s committee was known for sharp elbows and racking up electoral losses. Throughout Lenihan’s—and now Jeremy Zellner’s—chairmanship, people and clubs loyal to Pigeon have popped up periodically to sabotage the Democratic establishment’s candidates and procedures. Rather than mounting a credible or serious challenge to the chairmanship in order to regain control of the committee, they directly and indirectly help the other side. One of those years when Pigeon and his cronies gave sabotage a try was 2013. It’s not just that they run primary races—there’s nothing wrong about that on the surface. It’s that they disappear after September. Come primary day, they generally stop any meaningful activity and refuse or fail to help any Democrat, whether their candidate or not. In 2013, the Erie County Democratic Committee endorsed several candidates for the county legislature, and Deputy Sheriff/bike shop scion Bert Dunn for county
sheriff. The Steve Pigeon faction backed different candidates for all of those races, including Dick Dobson for sheriff. On its face, primary races during primary season are no big deal. But for years, Pigeon has been suspected of playing fast and loose with election regulations that run the gamut from vague to toothless to unenforced. Typically, the Pigeon modus operandi is to use go-betweens and shell corporations or LLCs to funnel money to, from and between his candidates and certain campaign consultants and companies to do lit, polling, signs and media buys. They use rhetorical sledgehammers to demolish their opponents with whatever smear they can muster—just ask Sam Hoyt. It’s a well-oiled machine that has, over the last decade, been organized quickly and quietly, but enjoys few electoral accomplishments. When Pigeon’s candidate “Baby” Joe Mesi ran for the state Senate, you’d have thought his primary opponent, fellow Democrat Michele Iannello, was the worst villain since Torquemada—but when it came time to go after Republican Mike Ranzenhofer in the general election, punches were pulled all over the place. As usual, they stopped fighting in September. Campaign finance and disclosure violations are seldom investigated and almost never prosecuted. At least, not in Erie County. In 2013, Pigeon and erstwhile political commentator Kristy Mazurek set up the “WNY Progressive Caucus.” New York doesn’t formally recognize “political action committees” or PACs, so the Pigeon-Mazurek group was set up as an unauthorized committee. So constituted, the law permitted the WNYPC to raise and spend money to donate to specific campaigns. The WNYPC explicitly could not coordinate with campaigns, nor spend money on their behalf. In early September 2013, just weeks before primary day, the WNYPC paid for thousands of pieces of literature to be mailed to voters that slammed legislative candidates backed
by party headquarters, most notably Tim Hogues, Betty Jean Grant, Wynnie Fisher and Lynn Dearmyer. By way of example, one piece of WNYPC lit slammed Hogues for being a “Republican” and promoted the candidacy of his challenger, Barbara Miller-Williams—a woman who had quite literally conspired with Republicans to mount a legislative coup in 2010. Furthermore, the WNYPC’s disclosures were not complete. For a time, it showed the PAC to be in the red, a big no-no. Disclosures came in late and were inaccurate and misleading, in one instance showing a $9,000 donation from another, long-dormant Pigeon-associated PAC, “Democratic Action.” What was odd about that Democratic Action donation was that this group did not disclose any outflow of money during the same 2013 cycle, and had most recently showed a fund balance of $2,400 and a concomitant “no activity” report with the Board of Elections. It didn’t have $9,000 to give. Dick Dobson, a Pigeon-backed candidate for sheriff, embarrassed Bert Dunn on primary night. Dunn went on to waste his money on an unsuccessful general election run using a personal, bespoke minor party line. But in September, Pigeon, Mazurek and their WNYPC utterly abandoned Dobson during his general election bid. There were contemporaneous whispers that the Dobson effort had merely been a repeat of an earlier “Democrats for [Republican incumbent Sheriff] Tim Howard” campaign. In a county legislative race, Wynnie Fisher defeated Wes Moore, the primary candidate backed by Pigeon and Mazurek. Apparently Fisher and her neighbors don’t get along, so Mazurek planted a story with her WGRZ 2 Sides colleague Michael Caputo accusing Fisher of being crazy. The problem was that a letter from the aggrieved neighbors was sent to Wes Moore at an address in Lancaster. But Moore’s campaign committee was based in an office in Clarence. The Lancaster address was a house on Doris cit yandstateny.com