Just a query: What do you do when you suddenly become the governor of New York and your father, a veteran lawyer, represents some of the state’s most influential unions in labor negotiations with their employers?
David Paterson has been lieutenant governor since last year. Before that, he was a state senator and leader of the house’s Democratic minority.
But with Paterson suddenly set to become governor Monday, the role of the elder Basil Paterson (above), at the firm Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein, draws new attention today.
The state’s latest version of an ethics commission, the Public Integrity Commission, can issue guidelines aimed at avoiding conflicts for the Patersons — or simply cite general rules. It was not instantly clear yesterday which will happen.
Errol Cockfield, a spokesman for the governor’s office, stressed that Basil Paterson is not a lobbyist. But one ethics expert who requested anonymity posed this point: that the Meyer Suozzi firm has numerous lobbying clients, and that as governor, David Paterson could come to appoint members of the integrity commission, which in turn regulates lobbying.
This kind of discussion is, of course, far from exotic. Details always differ. For disgraced Gov. Eliot Spitzer, questions arose about his father’s real estate holdings, a family foundation, and campaign loans and contributions. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s giant New York-based business has drawn extensive....
Dan Janison
....review from conflict monitors.
Former Gov. Mario Cuomo, father of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, is of counsel at the firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and there’s been no inference of a conflict arising there.
The circumstances specific to the Paterson family as we know them provide their own partial Who’s Who of New York Democratic players.
Founded in 1960, the Meyer, Suozzi firm has a well-known pedigree, with offices in Albany, Garden City, Melville, New York and Washington.
That’s Suozzi as in Joseph Suozzi, the charismatic former judge and father of Democratic Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi.
Basil Paterson co-chairs the firm’s labor practice, according to its Web site — along with longtime Washington player Harold Ickes, who’s been in the news recently as Sen. Hillary Clinton’s top superdelegate strategist.
Among clients who Paterson apparently advises on collective bargaining:
-- 1199/SEIU, the massive health-care union that last year conducted a public-relations war against Spitzer’s proposed state Medicaid cuts. Ironically, it was the Republican Senate that became the union’s key ally.
-- The city-based United Federation of Teachers, which has frequent interest in legislative bills that reach the governor’s desk. Last month the UFT backed a Republican candidate in an upstate Senate race.
-- Transport Workers Union Local 100, the city’s sometimes controversial bus and subway union that carried out a wildcat strike two years ago.
-- Teamsters Local 237, billed as the largest Teamsters local in the United States.
Basil Paterson also serves on a property-tax advisory commission — appointed weeks ago by Spitzer.
Will any of this matter? So far, this mainly goes to show only that Albany can be a small world — which many of us already knew.
Comments (2)
Maybe the press should start asking Errol Cockfield Newsdays former Albany Bureau Chief who was in DC with Spitzer what did he SEE. THATS THE PROBLEM HE WAS A MEMBER OF THE FOURTH ESTATE WHO HOW WORKS FOR THE PEOPLE HE COVERED. THIS IS PART OF THE MESS IN ALBANY AND ELSE WERE. THE PRESS NEEDS TO COME CLEAN. WE NEED SUN SHINE IN THE FOURTH ESTATE. BTW HOW MUCH MONEY DID NEWSDAY PAY HIM ?????
Another Democratic crook...it will just take time to find out how crooked.