April 15, 2006
How much is that assemblyman in the window?
Common Cause/NY has totaled up the New York Yankees' lobbying expenses since 2003, and found that the team spent $1,049,621 on lobbying state and city officials to approve their new stadium. At the same time, team officials have donated $25,600 to state and city electoral campaigns, including $500 from Yankees president Randy Levine to state assemblymember Jose Rivera, who spearheaded last summer's stadium push in the legislature; execs of the YES cable network, meanwhile, which is 60% owned by the Yankees, donated $270,850 in that time, including several officials from as far away as California who gave $1,000 apiece to the election campaign of Bronx borough president Adolfo Carrion.
These numbers pale in comparison to the more than $3 million that the Jets spent pushing their doomed stadium plan - but then, the Jets faced a more deep-pocketed opponent (Cablevision, owner of Madison Square Garden) than the ad-hoc group of Bronx residents fighting the Yankees plan. "With the West Side stadium, we saw two companies with an amazing capacity to engage in political spending raging a loud and expensive public debate over the issue," said Megan Quattlebaum of Common Cause/NY in a news release. "With the Yankees, you have one company lobbying quietly but consistently in Albany and New York City, and no other voice in the debate." In other words, pretty much just what I was afraid of.
