Browse > Home / Campaign Finances, News / Former Assemblyman Paul Tokasz Spreads the Largess as a Lobbyist

Former Assemblyman Paul Tokasz Spreads the Largess as a Lobbyist

January 28, 2008

Paul A. Tokasz, a former Assembly majority leader, has put his campaign war chest to work since leaving the Legislature to become a lobbyist.

Mr. Tokasz, a Democrat from Buffalo who left the Assembly’s No. 2 post in 2006, has donated more than $57,000 from his campaign account, Friends of Paul Tokasz, to government officials — most of whom his firm has been lobbying.

While the practice is not illegal or unique, it has raised questions about weaknesses in state and federal campaign finance laws. Last year, The New York Times reported on a similar strategy employed by Robert G. Torricelli, a former United States senator from New Jersey who became a lobbyist.

“Whatever the rules and regulations are, and I used to be the chairman of the election law committee, I clearly follow those rules,” Mr. Tokasz, now a partner with Patricia Lynch Associates, said in an interview.

His donations include more than $8,000 to Gov. Eliot Spitzer, $2,500 to Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo and $10,000 to the central account maintained by Democrats in the Assembly. There have also been what appear to be token donations across party lines, including $349 to Senator Dale M. Volker and $150 to Senator Mary Lou Rath, both Republicans from upstate New York.

Mr. Tokasz said he did not personally lobby the governor or lawmakers on specific issues, but he did have contact with them. A campaign finance filing this month includes a little more than $2,000 in reimbursement for lodging, travel and other costs from his attendance at a party for the governor in New York City in December.

Mr. Tokasz said that he did lobby officials in executive branch agencies and that his colleagues at Patricia Lynch Associates, one of Albany’s largest lobbying firms, lobbied the governor and the Legislature. Mr. Tokasz’s clients include the City of Buffalo and the Catholic Health System in western New York.

Referring to campaign finance laws, Barbara Bartoletti, the legislative director of the League of Women Voters of New York State, said, “There are so few things in New York State that are illegal, and that’s exactly the problem.”

“Can’t you just see the interoffice memo? ‘Welcome Paul Tokasz,’ ” she said, adding, “ ‘By the way, he has “X” number of dollars to contribute.’ ”

Asked if he had considered returning the contributions to his campaign account, Mr. Tokasz said: “There wasn’t a regulation that I do it; there wasn’t a statute. And although I don’t intend to run for any office at this time, it still affords me the option to do it.”

Mr. Tokasz’s largess is likely to continue. At the end of the latest filing period, Jan. 11, Friends of Paul Tokasz and another political action committee controlled by Mr. Tokasz had a total balance of $300,000.

Source: NY Times

Related Articles

Written by NY Politics · Filed Under Campaign Finances, News 

Got something to say?