Cuomo’s hilarious claim to not know a lobbyist when he sees one nor has he ever seen ny const art 1 sec 3
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
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Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
Was Gov. Andrew Cuomo trying to get laughs by pleading ignorance about just who is a lobbyist, or just laughing at the public?
The gov was dodging a question in a WNYC interview Tuesday: “I’m sure, from time to time, I meet with lobbyists. I really don’t know who’s a lobbyist, who’s not a lobbyist,” he claimed. “But I’m sure that I’ve met with lobbyists.”
Ya think? Maybe at one of his regular private fundraisers? Like all such affairs, they’re packed with donors representing entities with business before the state.
And he has a wealth of experience that lets him know a lobbyist when he sees one. As The Post’s Bernadette Hogan noted, this son of another New York governor and career politician has been surrounded by lobbyists his entire life.
Including those who used their ties to the Cuomo family to become lobbyists — such as Todd Howe, one of several Andrew Cuomo associates now convicted of corruption.
Joe Percoco, once so close to Cuomo that he was likened to a brother, revolved from top aide to campaign adviser to outside “consultant” and back again to top aide before his bribery conviction.
Yet the gov pretends to be blind to the lobbyists (and future lobbyists — they know who they are) who surround him.
All you can say about Cuomo’s evasion is that his sheer chutzpah makes it more artful than Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fumbling on the same topic.
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