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Pataki staging $50,000-a-person event for Schwarzenegger
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Race
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| Contributor | User 13 |
| Last Edited | User 13 Feb 06, 2004 02:56pm |
| Category | News |
| News Date | Feb 06, 2004 12:00am |
| Description | Gov. George Pataki is arranging a $50,000-a-person private dinner for fellow Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California to be held at the Manhattan home of millionaire businessman Robert Wood Johnson IV.
An invitation to the Feb. 24 event, a copy of which was obtained Monday by The Associated Press, said the money is being raised to help finance Schwarzenegger's California Recovery Team, the fund-raising committee aimed at helping pass Proposition 57, a $15 billion bond issue on the March 2 ballot.
To help sell Proposition 57, the largest state bond issue in history, Schwarzenegger and his allies are trying to raise the millions of dollars needed for a statewide advertising campaign. So far, however, polls show the ballot issue with less than 50 percent support.
Donors, the invitation said, can give up to $500,000 each.
Such a large figure "makes a mockery of our campaign finance laws," said Rachel Leon, head of the New York chapter of Common Cause.
New York Public Interest Group lobbyist Blair Horner, who has tracked political fund-raising in New York for 25 years, called the $500,000 figure "eye-popping."
Horner said he's never seen a solicitation for so much money and predicted that while some donors with an interest in California bond deals would attend, most would be seeking to ingratiate themselves with Pataki, New York's three-term governor.
The invitations, sent by Pataki's top fund-raisers, called the California Recovery Team "the principal organization supporting the implementation of the twin missions of the governor's first year in office – fiscal recovery and economic recovery. Since there are March 2, 2004, ballot initiatives that greatly affect the governor's efforts, time is of the essence."
The invitation to cocktails and dinner at the One Central Park West home of Johnson, owner of the New York Jets, notes that "this committee can accept unlimited contributions." And while corporate and political action committee co |
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