Goli$sano's Re$pon$ible, NY PAC

Independence Party founder Tom Golisano, announced yesterday his new PAC and is funding it with $5 million in seed money. The political action committee is designed to support any candidate, regardless of party, who in turn support the 8 point platform of the PAC.

(lift cap confidential)
The 8-point platform:

• Responsible budgets (budget increases limited to the rate of inflation)
• End to unfunded mandates
• Property tax reform
• Campaign and election reform (including redistricting reform)
• Government employee compensation commensurate with private sector
• Equitable distribution of economic development resources statewide
• Government transparency
• End back door borrowing

Responsible New York Mission Statement

Responsible New York is organized around a core of values, beliefs and principles that are essential to guiding true political reform in the State of New York.  Our quest is to create a political movement to return Albany to its rightful owners. Our pledge is help create an organization with no personal agendas, other than to give a voice to all New Yorkers - Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives and Independences from cities. suburbans and rural areas both upstate and downstate.

Today, more than ever, New York State is at a precipice. This isn’t news to New York families who are struggling to make ends meet, nor is it even news to the legislators in Albany or the special interest that own them.

Responsible New York will endorse candidates in the New York State Senate and Assembly. Candidates will be chosen in a non-partisan manner and only for their commitment and their ability to support Responsible New York,  removing Albany from the grips of special interest and returning our government to the people who support it. And to truly change Albany we will also endorse and support candidates for Congress who will work to put people first.

Responsible New York pledges that we will:

• Seek to enact economic policies which encourage fiscal responsibility and accountability on the part of both the government and its citizen by creating a modern budgetary process that uses professionally acceptable accounting standards and accrual accounting, avoiding unfunded mandates, understated liabilities, elimination of off-line budgeting and back-door borrowing. And to keep all budget increases limited to the rate of inflation.
• Support policies to reduce and then eliminate the disproportionate influence narrow special interest currently have on the creation of our laws. We will work to diminish the pervasive and pernicious role of campaign contributions in buying access to legislative decisions.
• Support and work with candidates who truly want campaign finance and electoral reform including, but not limited to, redistricting and franking privileges.
• Work toward a more equability and fair real estate property tax program to correct the financial burden that property taxes play on both the homeowner and the New York housing market.
• Work to correct the imbalance between government employees’ compensation and the private sectors’.
• Work toward a more fair and equitable distribution of economic development resources with a program to insure accountable to those who receive it.
• To create a government that is more transparent and understandable to all of the citizens of New York.

Golisano's goals are no doubt admirable and anyone who is reform minded would support this platform, but this will be in direct conflict with special interest and union's support for candidates as well, candidates who have traditionally been in the hip pockets of unions will have a difficult time professing their faith at the Golisano altar.

The other interesting point of the Golisano movement is that a PAC cannot make direct expenditures for candidates, they fund a candidate's campaign and they are limited in the funding that they can provide to a campaign. Golisano is proposing an "independent PAC" removed from any campaign and therefore it can spend any amount they desire in a given race provided there is no coordination with the candidate or the candidate's campaign, which also means after the initial questionnaire is submitted there is no contact with the candidate or their campaign.

Gollisano's difficulty comes in the fact that he has already had contact with some candidates. If this is not executed properly it is sure to have lawsuits swirling around it, and could become nothing more than another special interest, but the initial intent of the PAC is noble!

Golisano, had this to say yesterday for the leadership-driven structure in Albany, saying rank-and-file lawmakers "totally give up their independence" and become reliant on "pork" that is "directly related to how cooperative they are to the speaker."  

WELL SAID!