Groups File Lobbying Complaint Against "The Committee to Save New York"

NEW YORK, NY (02/16/2011)(readMedia)-- Two organizations today filed a complaint with the New York State Commission on Public Integrity (Commission) asserting that The Committee to Save New York -- a veritable super-group of monied special interests -- failed to comply with the technical requirements of the state Lobbying Act and the rules set forth by the Commission. The groups are asserting that The Committee to Save New York (Committee) failed to meet the deadline to register with the state and, more critically, should be required to list Governor Andrew Cuomo as the third-party on whose behalf the Committee is lobbying. The full complaint is also available on Scribd at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/48969871/Lobbying-Compalint-Cmte-to-Scam-NY-Cuomo.

Community Voices Heard and VOCAL-NY filed the complaint. CVH is an organization of low-income people, predominantly women with experience on welfare, working to build power in New York City and State to improve the lives of our families and communities. Voices of Community Activists and Leaders, or VOCAL-NY, is a statewide grassroots membership organization building power among low-income people who are living with and affected by HIV/AIDS drug use and incarceration, along with the organizations that serve us, to create healthy and just communities, submitted the complaint.

The groups wrote, in part:

We believe the Committee to Save New York -- which is inextricably linked to the Governor's office through personal and professional relationships, which was established at the "urging" of the governor himself, which has reportedly raised more than ten million dollars ($10,000,000) to spend on television advertisements in explicit support of the Governor's budget proposals that are currently before the state legislature, which, we outline below, did not register as a lobbyist with the Commission in a manner compliant with the Commission's rules and the State Lobbying Act, and which should be expected to first report on those expenditures by the March 15, 2011 bi-monthly reporting deadline -- should be required to list Governor Cuomo on its lobbying registration as a third party on whose behalf it is lobbying.

Under the Commission's authority granted to it by the New York State Lobbying Act... the Committee should be required to register as a lobbyist listing themselves as a client. That registration form requires registrants to state that if a "client has retained, employed or designated the lobbyist . . . to lobby on a third party's behalf, [they must] complete the third parties name address and phone number [on the statement of registration]."

It is our understanding that The Committee to Save New York, acting as both a client and its own lobbyist, was non-compliant with its registration requirements under the state Lobbying Law and under the Commission's rules. Further, it is our understanding that the Committee is intending to lobby on the behalf of a third party -- namely, Governor Andrew Cuomo -- and therefore must include the Governor's name, address, and phone number on the Committee's statement of registration.

Ann Bragg, a Harlem resident and leader of Community Voices Heard, said, "Governor Cuomo called for the creation of this Committee to Scam New York so it would push through his agenda of tax cuts for the rich and service cuts for everybody else. He needs to be straight with New Yorkers about his relationship with this super-group of monied special interests."

Ms. Bragg continued, "Governor Cuomo pledged to improve ethics in Albany, but he's not practicing what he preached when it comes to his relationship with the Committee to Save New York. What happened to that word 'transdparency'? I thought it would apply to all elected officials."

Robert Tolbert, a Bronx resident and Board member of VOCAL New York (Voices of Community Activists & Leaders), said, "It's no secret the Committee to Save New York is lobbying on behalf of Governor Cuomo's agenda - he asked them to get together, it's staffed with his allies, and his campaign donors are bankrolling it. The real question is which New York do they want to save, Wall Street or Main Street? They're not the people I elected, and not the people I want running this state."

Mr. Tolbert continued, "The people of New York deserve to know the relationship between Governor Cuomo and the special interests pushing his agenda. The Committee to Save New York is operating as a privately funded wing of the Governor's office out for only for its own benefit."