Over 20 outings have been held at clubs around the state this season to help raise funds for upcoming fall elections. Lobbyists and other contributors love to pony up to attend, in many cases lured by the opportunity to gain special access to otherwise exclusive properties.
It’s golf season in the New York state legislature, even for lawmakers who aren’t golfers, the New York Daily News reported, as politicians scramble to take full advantage of the growing popularity of golf-outing fundraisers. Outings are now being held at clubs throughout the state, the Daily News reported, to help raise funds needed for upcoming fall elections.
A typical situation, the Daily News reported, involved Assemblyman William Barclay, a Syracuse Republican who says he’s “not passionate about golf” and is not very good at the game, either. But Barclay hosted an 18-hole fundraiser for his fall campaign recently at Oswego (N.Y.) Country Club in which he didn’t play, instead choosing to cruise around in a golf cart, mingling with his supporters.
“In politics, you try and raise money any way you can,” he explained to the Daily News. “Golf is very popular.”
Golf fundraisers have become “par for the course” in New York politics, the Daily News reported, because of their power in “turning an afternoon on the links into a windfall that can net a campaign tens of thousands of dollars.”
This season, the Daily News reported, the count of golf fundraisers held throughout the state by legislators and assorted campaign committees has swelled to 22, including a make-believe “virtual” golf outing that state Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) tried to host online.
For the people writing checks, and the politicians collecting them, the outings are seen as “more enjoyable than cocktail receptions or rubber-chicken dinners,” the Daily News reported.
“You can play golf [for work] every day in the summer if you want,” lobbyist James Featherstonhaugh, a veteran lobbyist in the state capital of Albany, told the Daily News.
“The young people that work for me consider the golf outings a perk of the job,” Featherstonhaugh added. “They get to take the day off of work, and they get fed a couple of times.”
State Sen. Betty Little (R-Glens Falls), who admitted to the Daily News that “I’m not serious, nor am I very good” when it comes to golf, has held an annual tournament for nine years that has become very popular, in large part because it attracts crowds who want to take advantage of a rare opportunity to gain access to the members-only Glens Falls Country Club in Queensbury, N.Y.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), an avid golfer, holds the priciest fundraiser of the summer, the Daily News reported. Silver’s annual Speaker’s Cup, which raises money for the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee, commands a $7,500 price tag for a foursome to play at the Whippoorwill Club in Armonk, N.Y. And dinner after golf costs another $500.
Josh Gold, a lobbyist for the Hotel Trades Council, told the Daily News that while he doesn’t golf, the fundraising-through-outings trend has convinced him that “Clearly, I need to visit the driving range soon.”
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