With the June primary system firmly in place, the time period between the end of June and Labor Day is pretty slow in local politics. That makes it the perfect time for projecting forward.
Mickey Kearns’ political career has included service on the Buffalo Common Council, the State Assembly, and since 2017, Erie County Clerk. The Clerk’s Office annually processes more than $100 million in transactions in its Registrar and Auto Bureau sections, producing nearly $3 million in net revenues for the County.
This past winter Kearns found himself in a public relations mess as he tried to explain his use of approximately $100,000 included in his budget for advertising. The advertising overlapped his campaign for re-election, suggesting questions about the proper use of the funds.
More recently Kearns has been dealing with an audit of his Office by Comptroller Kevin Hardwick. The audit found that $90,000 in funds could not be accounted for. It indicated that a more comprehensive audit might turn up substantially more than that. Kearns’ staff at first was not cooperative with the audit but then agreed to assist. A more detailed investigation about the missing funds now involves the Erie County District Attorney, the Sheriff, and the Office of the State Comptroller.
Kearns is in the first year of his term in office, but regardless, he is now telling some folks in the political community that he is considering a run for his previous Assembly seat, presently held by Pat Burke. Kearns is a registered Democrat who has won all of his election over the past ten years as a Republican.
Perhaps salary is a factor in Kearns’ interest in the Assembly. County Clerk pays $84,628 but a seat in the state legislature comes with a salary of $142,000.
The controversies now hovering over the Clerk’s Office would seem to cast a long shadow over a run for the Assembly. The potential attack ads practically write themselves.
And then there is the matter of one or more other Republicans who may be interested in the party line in the 142nd District. West Seneca Supervisor Gary Dickson could be a leading alternative, although Dickson will need to get past a strong challenge to his re-election this year from Democrat Chris Rusin.
Current Assembly district lines will be redrawn before the 2024 elections.
When $142,000 is not enough
When the salaries of state legislators were raised from $110,000 to $142,000 in 2022 the legislation also included a provision imposing a limit of $35,000 on outside income of the legislators. The law made New York legislators the highest paid in the nation. The state legislature is generally only in session a few days a week between January and June. The outside income restriction will go into effect in 2025.
State Senate Republican Leader Robert Ortt in December posted a tweet saying that the salary increase was “patently offensive to the people we represent.”
Recently, however, some Republican members of the Legislature filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the outside income legislation. The suit states that the income cap is unconstitutional and “deprives Plaintiffs of their property interests, namely their legislative salaries and outside income, by imposing restrictions on their businesses and outside income.”
Earlier this year this blog cited a story from New York Focus which reported on the outside income of state legislators in 2021. Among the Western New York legislators that year with income in the range that would exceed $35,000 were:
- Assemblyman Stephen Hawley (R, 139 District) Range of $430,000 – $690,000
- Assemblyman Michael Norris (R, 144 District) $176,000 – $300,000
- Assemblyman Andrew Goodell (R, 150th District) $53,000 – $195,000
- Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes (D, 141st District) $10,000 – $40,000
- Senator George Borrello (R, 57th District) $10,000 – $40,000
A change in voting machines in New York
For many years voters in New York State have voted by filling in their choice of candidates by marking a paper ballot and then feeding it into a machine for counting. While there are some reported breakdowns in the equipment, for the most part the system has operated smoothly and generally provides quick election night results.
Things might be different in 2024. The four-member state Board of Elections voted last week to change to a new system. The two Republican members of the Board voted for the change along with one of the two Democrats.
The new system, ExpressVoteXL, is touch screen equipment. City & State reports how the equipment would work: “Rather than marking a paper ballot with a pen that a machine then reads, voters are given a blank summary card made of thermal paper that they feed into the machine, choose their candidates on the screen and have those choices recorded on the summary card with their names. But the card represents a backup record and is not what gets counted by the machine. The actual vote gets counted as a barcode that good-government advocates warned do not allow voters to properly examine their vote before casting it, since those barcodes are not readable by humans.”
Board Democratic Co-Chair Doug Kellner voted against the change in equipment. He suggested, according to City & State, that the new system “should include a function to print a traditional ballot in addition to a summary card that only lists a voter’s choices.” Kellner predicted that the Board’s decision is headed to a lawsuit. Good-government and election security groups raised objections before the Board voted.
How much is a podium on the debate stage really worth?
The first Republican presidential debate is scheduled for August 23. The party’s criteria for qualification to participate in the debate have some of the announced candidates scrambling to collect enough donors to meet the qualification that requires at least 40,000 unique donors with a minimum of 200 from at least 20 states. Some candidates have come up with interesting ways to get onto the stage.
- Multi-millionaire North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum’s campaign offered $20 gift cards to the first 50,000 donors who gave at least $1.
- Miami Mayor Francis Suarez asked people to donate $1 to have a chance to win front-row tickets to watch soccer superstar Lionel Messi’s first game as a player for Inter Miami.
- Businessman Perry Johnson is giving away a book he wrote for a buck.
- Donors to Vivek Ramaswamy have the opportunity to share a fundraising link to other potential donors; the campaign will pay them 10 percent of whatever they raise.
- Former Vice President Mike Pence is simply begging for a dollar.
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