Would be Democrat gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo has raised quite a bit of money for his political campaign account. While impressive, questions have arisen about the ethical nature of the contributionssince many of those contributors have come from law firms representing clients that were investigated or accused of wrongdoing by the AG’s Office according to Bloomberg.com reporters Linda Sandler and Karen Freifeld.
Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) — New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s campaign fund took tens of thousands of dollars from law firms representing clients his office investigated or accused of wrongdoing, state records show.
Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP, a New York law firm led by David Boies, gave Cuomo $35,000 this year, records show. The firm represents former American International Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Maurice “Hank” Greenberg in a civil fraud case the attorney general is pursuing. Lawyers defending Dell Inc., Deutsche Bank AG and a former state political party chief in Cuomo cases also contributed to him, records show.
Cuomo’s donation forms ask contributors to sign a statement saying they have no “matter” pending with him. That rule “does not extend to attorneys representing persons or entities with matters before the NYS Attorney General’s office,” the form states, mirroring predecessors’ policies.
Ethics experts weighed in on the contributions.
“If Cuomo doesn’t want to accept contributions that have the appearance of being corrupting, then he would need to include those attorneys as well,” said Allison Hayward, a former Federal Election Commission chief of staff and counsel who teaches legal ethics at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia.
Middlemen, such as lawyers, are sometimes seen as a bigger threat to an official’s integrity than their clients, because “they are working the political system for a profession, and the public sees them as insincere and manipulative,” she said.
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If Cuomo were to reject lawyer donations to avoid any appearance of conflict, he could still raise enough for “a credible campaign,” said Ronald Michaelson, a former national chairman of the Council of Governmental Ethics Laws who teaches at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
“Even if he’s going to use the money in a gubernatorial race, he would still be the attorney general,” Michaelson said in an e-mail. “The perception of impropriety is obviously clear, and that’s reason enough to refuse the money.”
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Lawyers probably regard campaign contributions as “a cost of doing business,” said Peter Henning, a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission senior lawyer who teaches legal ethics at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit. “They take the view that it will help us down the road.”
Susan Lerner from Common Cause used the story to promote their call for establishing taxpayer funding for political campaigns.
Sorry Ms. Lerner, but forcing another tax increase on regular working people just to raise money for political candidates remains a completely insane suggestion, now more than ever.