As the race for county executive heats up, large corporations are already placing their bets.
The July reporting period showed former Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, has taken in $1.55 million and spent nearly $390,000, with about $2.2 million cash-on-hand. His challenger in the primary, Adam Haber, took in $1.13 million, most of which came from a $1 million loan that he made to himself.
On the Republican side, Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano raised $1.52 million, leaving him with $2.48 million in funds.
There is a legal limit on how much corporations can donate to political campaigns, but the corporations get around that through the creation of LLCs which are treated as individuals by the state’s campaign finance law.
This enabled Cablevision, owned by Madison Square Garden Company headed James Dolan, to donate $200,000 to the Suozzi campaign. Suozzi’s spokesman said, “Tom Suozzi is proud of every single one of his campaigns that have always followed to the letter any and all campaign finance laws.”
He’s right. What his boss is doing isn’t illegal. But it is still offensive.
Mangano also took in large amounts of money from corporations, including LLCs controlled by Cablevision.
Either Dolan really cares about Nassau County or, call us cynical, he’s greasing the wheels, backing both candidates likely to win their party’s nomination.
Haber, whose campaign is largely self-funded, calls it “pay to play.”
“For two decades,” he says, “Ed Mangano and Tom Suozzi have been filling their campaign coffers with special-interest money, and the results are ugly.”
The Brennan Center for International Justice calls it the “LLC loophole.”
It’s hard to deny that this is a way for people like Dolan to purchase political influence in Nassau County.
