Spitzer Helps Donors Skirt $10,000 Limit He Set

Typical politician, lie right to your face while the whole time knowing they will circumvent the policy enacted. Instead of focusing on fixing the insanity in Albany, Spitzer adds to it all and just makes it worse. Now of course the Democrats are pissed at Bloomberg for donating to the Republican so they can try and hold on to the Senate.

I don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth.

Spitzer Helps Donors Skirt $10,000 Limit He Set

ALBANY — On Dec. 3, Richard P. Richman, a real estate developer from Connecticut, wrote a check to Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s campaign account.

The check was for $10,000, less than one-fifth of the maximum donation allowed under New York State law. But it was all he could give to the governor, who had imposed strict limits on what he would accept from donors as part of his highly publicized pledge to end the excesses of special-interest money in Albany.

So Mr. Richman took out his checkbook again. This time he gave $15,000, but sent it to the state Democratic Party, which Mr. Spitzer is now tapping in his drive to rid Albany of the Republican Senate majority.

Dual donations like Mr. Richman’s are not uncommon. Despite his high-profile pledge, Mr. Spitzer’s political organization has raised more than $1 million above the cap he imposed on himself, by directing his donors to the state party account, which he controls.

The strategy has helped bring the governor and his party within one seat of gaining control of the Senate. But it has raised questions about whether Mr. Spitzer is living up to the high ethical expectations he set, especially among those who looked to him to change the way business is done in Albany.

“It’s not meaningful if you raise the ethical bar but you have a very effective work-around,” said Russ Haven, the legislative counsel for the New York Public Interest Research Group. “That doesn’t net you any reform to the system.”

Mr. Spitzer’s aides acknowledge encouraging contributors to give to both accounts, but say they are abiding by the law and the governor’s pledge, while trying to match the bare-knuckle politics of state Republicans.

“Reform needs action; it’s not a rhetorical device,” said Ryan Toohey, the governor’s top political strategist and the architect of the Democrats’ efforts to win the Senate. “So long as the Republican Senate is there, reform is going to be too often frustrated by their obstructionist tactics.”

The governor could not have been more emphatic when he initially announced his policy. On Nov. 30, 2006, before even taking office, Mr. Spitzer held a news conference to unveil a number of reforms he intended to undertake, with the $10,000 limit the most eye-opening proposal — well below the $55,900 that statewide candidates can accept.

“I think this is unprecedented,” the governor said at the news conference. “I do not know of another instance where others have acted unilaterally.

var sc_project=1609654; var sc_invisible=0; var sc_partition=15; var sc_security=”26e26d49″;