[Ed: This excerpt is the second in a series of articles originally reported at City Hall. Go here for Part I in the series. Lead reporter on City Hall investigation was Edward-Isasc Dovere.]
The Working Families Organization, a tax-exempt 501(c)4, was legally created with a certificate of incorporation filed with the New York Department of State on July 12, 2006. Despite the similarities in the names, this paperwork established the Working Families Organization as a legally separate entity.
That certificate lists four initial directors, starting with now-White House political director Patrick Gaspard, who was then a board member of the Working Families Party. The other three were ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis, Robert Master of the Communications Workers of America and Sam Williams of the United Auto Workers. These three also were and remain the three co-chairs of the Working Families Party.
Kevin Finnegan, who is now the political director for the 1199 Service Employees International Union, but who was then an attorney at Levy Ratner PC, signed the document as the incorporator. Finnegan is also the notary on the official Party rules filed with the Board of Elections and the lawyer who set up Data and Field Services.
The incorporation forms and other documents, like the Organization’s paperwork filed with the IRS, must be made public as a condition of its tax-exempt status. However, the process takes years, meaning that the most recent forms that are completed and available are from 2007.
WFO Certificate of Incorporation
WFO Certificate of Incorporation
Donations began arriving quickly, as can be seen on a “Donations By Deposit” form filed with the New York attorney general’s office. Several went far past the $94,200 annual cap for individual and union donations to which the Party is subject under state campaign finance laws.
Among them was a $150,000 check from George Soros, though the majority of the money came from union donations, including $100,00 from the labor conglomerate UNITE HERE, $190,000 combined from two 1199 Service Employees International Union affiliates and $108,000 combined from three Communications Workers of America affiliates. At the time, Gaspard was the local 1199 Service Employees International Union political director. Master was and still is the local Communications Workers of America legislative and political director.
Meanwhile, in May 2006, Dan Cantor filed paperwork with the New York State Commission on Public Integrity as the Working Families Organization’s executive director authorizing lobbyists to focus on “health care, wage and labor issues.” This was two months before the Organization was incorporated.
Cantor also serves as the executive director of the Party and one of its two “non-voting assistant secretaries” on the rules filed with the state Board of Elections.
Cantor authorized four other people to lobby on behalf of the Organization, including Party deputy director Bill Lipton. Neither Cantor, Lipton, nor any of the others are listed as Organization employees on the tax returns. (The tax returns for 2006 and 2007–the most recent available–list no employees.)
For 2007, the Organization lists a total of roughly $21,000 in compensation and an additional unspecified $200 in expenses on state lobbying forms. New York City lobbying records for 2007 reveal a separate Organization lobbying expense, with the records listing the “targets” as Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, and the subject of the WFO lobbying listed as “decision making process.”
Bloomberg administration press secretary Stu Loeser said he believed that this was in relation to Department of Education restructuring, but he said he could not point to any specific meetings or contact between Organization staff and the administration.
State records show that the Organization’s 2008 lobbying charges rose to more than $1 million in reported spending to lobby “affordable housing, campaign finance reform, green jobs, clean energy, IDA reform, paid family leave and property tax relief.” This put it as No. 8 on the State Commission on Public Integrity’s list of Clients and Public Corporations Ranked by Total Lobbying Expenses, just behind Goldman Sachs, outpacing the Organization by only about $7,000.
The New York City lobbying database also shows Organization activity throughout 2008, with records listing just Bloomberg as a target. For the work, which is listed as having taken place over the course of the whole year, the lobbyists are listed as receiving a total of $14,000 in compensation for a subject described simply as “resolution.”
Loeser confirmed that there had been some conversations between Working Families employees and senior and legislative staff about the administration’s environmental agenda, but said he believed the lobbying charges in the later periods of the year were related to the term limits extension, which the Party actively opposed.
The Organization records, do not, however, list any Working Families Organization lobbying of the City Council. This is despite the city administrative code that requires disclosures of all efforts costing more than $2,000 aimed at “any attempt to influence … the passage or defeat of any local law or resolution.” Nonetheless, many Council members saw targeted mailings and phone calls come from the Party opposing the extension or had conversations with Cantor about the extension which also included talk of 2009 Working Families Party endorsements. The effort also included two television advertisements–all part of the “It’s Our Decision” effort, (the website now redirects to the Party’s). Though the 60-second spot did not include a notice of who paid for it, the 30-second spot did: the Working Families Party, not the Working Families Organization.
However, Working Families Party state campaign finance records list no payments for television commercials at that time.
The Working Families portrayed what they were doing as a “grassroots campaign” of community organizing. But that was not how the Council members involved appear to have understood what was happening. And according to them, they were not even aware of the existence of the Working Families Organization at all.
“The WFO? Never heard of it ’til you asked,” said Queens Council Member Peter Vallone Jr., who was for weeks undecided about his vote on the term limits extension. “My only dealings with the WFP were during the term limits debate. They were outside my office constantly, and illegally placed giant posters on my street with some message about calling me up. I may be going out on a limb here, but that sounds like lobbying a Council member to me.”
Read the whole article here.
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