In a climate of highly charged politics and ramped-up white-collar activism, The Business Council of Westchester”™s recent venture into political endorsements and campaign fundraising ended abruptly after some business members objected to the break with nonpartisan tradition.
Protests from what the business group”™s leaders described as “a very small minority” of members led Business Council CEO Marsha Gordon to issue an apology for deviating from that tradition. In a brief email, she said that any members”™ checks sent to the council to support chosen candidates”™ campaigns will be returned.
“After serious internal debate, we broke with our tradition of nonpartisanship,” Paul Vitale, Business Council vice president for government and community relations, said in the absence of the vacationing Gordon. “It was a situation where our members are telling us, get more aggressive. Our membership demanded we take a more aggressive advocacy role because the state of business in New York state and Westchester in particular is in really horrible shape.”
“Business as usual is not acceptable,” said real estate broker Christopher O”™Callaghan, Business Council board chairman and head of the executive committee that discussed the misfired campaign initiative. Still, “Some people saw this as going too far,” he said. Some members called it “one-sided.”
Call for support
In a June 28 letter to Business Council members, CEO Gordon revealed a new strategy to ally the council with state Sen. Dean Skelos, the Senate minority leader from Long Island, and the Republican Party to restore Senate control to the party with its pro-business agenda.
Gordon wrote that a return to Republican control would “force a much needed balance of power to a government that is controlled at all levels by one party” and produce more bipartisan redistricting in 2011.
Skelos in a series of meetings with Business Council leaders called Westchester a key battleground in the Republican takeover bid for the Senate, where Democrats hold a 32-30 majority. Gordon noted the Metropolitan Transportation Authority”™s year-old payroll tax on employers in the region, widely opposed by business groups, was levied after two Democrats representing parts of Westchester, Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer, joined in a party-line vote in support of the tax.
Gordon told members the council was focusing on a campaign “to raise funds to support the Westchester Republican candidates who share our pro-business agenda and have a good chance of winning in November.”
The letter solicited campaign donations for three Republican candidates: Liam McLaughlin, the former Yonkers city councilman who seeks to unseat Stewart-Cousins in the 35th senate district; Bob Cohen, a real estate construction company owner from Scarsdale opposing Oppenheimer, the 26-year incumbent, in the 37th district, and Mary Beth Murphy, the Somers town supervisor who is backed by Skelos in a Republican primary election, where she will face Assemblyman Greg Ball for the party”™s 40th senate district nomination. The primary winner will face Democrat Michael Kaplowitz, a Westchester County legislator, in the November election.
Members react
To initiate the campaign, members of the Business Council board, its Governmental Action Council and its Clout executive collaborative group were asked to make individual contributions to those candidates”™ campaigns through the Business Council office.
Contributors could join the council”™s newly created “$99 Club” and avoid campaign-finance reporting requirements with a $99 contribution. The $99 Club could be used for family members “to further increase your contributions while remaining anonymous,” members were advised. The letter also listed the state”™s campaign contribution limits for individuals and companies.
O”™Callaghan said some members thought the new campaign was “partisan, which is how the letter sounded. Without being candidate-specific or party-specific, it really meant to back those candidates that support our agenda, because we think it”™s very important that the voice of business is heard.”
“It was a very, very small minority that didn”™t like the position” taken by council leadership, Vitale said. “But we take input from our members very seriously and we”™re going to stick with our role of being nonpartisan.
“It just illustrates the challenges that arise when you are a passionate advocate for a pro-business agenda in a volatile and unpredictable political environment,” said Vitale. He said no members have resigned in protest.
As a nonprofit business organization, the Business Council is not prevented by Internal Revenue Service regulations from endorsing candidates and soliciting campaign donations from members. “We”™re certainly within our bounds to do so,” said Vitale.
The council also could funnel funds to candidates through its Golden Apple Business Action Committee, a registered political action committee that reported no activity in its recent midyear filing with the state Board of Elections.
”˜Our legislative agenda”™
Vitale said the aborted Westchester campaign was not part of a broader initiative by The Business Council of New York State Inc. The state Business Council does financially support candidates and their fundraisers through its PAC, said Michael P. Moran, state Business Council spokesman in Albany. The state group”™s board of directors currently is considering whether to endorse candidates in this year”™s elections, he said.
Through a spokesperson at his district office in the Bronx, state Sen. Jeffrey Klein, chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, dismissed the Business Council action and retraction as “water under the bridge.”
Both Klein and Kaplowitz, the Democratic candidate, were said to have called Gordon in response to the campaign letter. Klein, whose 34th senate district includes parts of Westchester, said the business group should not be endorsing candidates or raising funds for them.
Oppenheimer and her campaign coordinator did not respond to a request for comment. While a target of the short-lived Business Council campaign, the incumbent from Mamaroneck recently signed a reform pledge sent to candidates by the county”™s other leading business group, the Westchester County Association, as part of its Call to Action movement. Among other reforms, she committed to a balanced state budget and no additional state taxes, fees, assessments or borrowing and pledged not to vote for any mandates not funded by the state.
Oppenheimer”™s opponent, Cohen, also signed the Call to Action pledge, as did Senate candidates McLaughlin, Murphy, Ball and Kaplowitz. Steward-Cousins did not respond.
At the Business Council, “We”™re still going to be advocating for a pro-business agenda,” said Vitale, “but we”™ll stick to the issues” rather than support specific candidates.
“We want to maintain our traditional role of being nonpartisan,” said O”™Callaghan. “It really is not about party. It”™s about our legislative agenda supporting our members.”
