Making connections

Daily Point

Pete King lobbies Mike Pence

Will a chance encounter during the 9/11 commemoration ceremonies help restore nearly $4 million in missing funds from the FDNY’s World Trade Center health program – money that goes toward providing care for firefighters stricken with 9/11-related illnesses? 

Rep. Pete King hopes so.

King saw Vice President Mike Pence for a brief moment during the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’s 9/11 ceremony Friday morning – but wasn’t really able to connect with the vice president there.

But moments later, King headed to the firehouse of Engine 10 and Ladder 10  right near the World Trade Center memorial site - and ran into Pence again. There, the two had a few moments to talk – and King was able to mention the missing funds. Perhaps even more importantly, King was able to connect with Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, who had seen the story about the funds first reported in the New York Daily News, and the two were able to have a longer conversation about the issue.

Read on to see how King and others are working to restore funding for first responders.

—Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall

Talking Point

There's always a Long Island connection: Kanye

Kanye West’s erstwhile presidential bid has included a meeting with Jared Kushner, the statement that Harriet Tubman “never actually freed the slaves,” and charges that his public support for President Donald Trump could cast him as a spoiler on Nov. 3.

It also has included a firm serving Democrats, with offices in Huntington and Manhattan. West’s filings with the Federal Election Commission show close to $3 million in disbursements to Millennial Strategies, for all sorts of work from polling to ballot access services to GOTV consulting and campaign management consulting. 

It may seem like a strange fit for Millennial, whose website boasts of progressive wins like being “thrilled to recently guide Jumaane Williams to Citywide office in 2019, as well as play a role in flipping the NYS Senate in 2018.”

The website describes partner Jeff Guillot as a Long Island-based political operative with experience working for Democrats like former Rep. Gary Ackerman and former Assemb. Richard Brodsky, who died in April. Guillot has been quoted in Newsday as a one-time spokesman for Long Islanders Assemb. Chuck Lavine and Nassau County Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs.

Some Republicans have helped West, who has publicly struggled with mental illness, in his quest to get on state ballots nationwide; he is on several already and involved in legal fights in others. It remains unclear exactly who the entertainment mogul would draw votes from and where: Competitive states like Colorado could be complicated but many of the state ballots where he already has a spot are deeply red, and in others, like Vermont, he wouldn’t make a bit of difference for Democrats. 

What is clear is that he has been happy to dole out millions to political consultants eager for work. Even if that work doesn’t last long. 

"Millennial was involved very early on in the campaign and then cut ties after a few weeks," said Millennial Strategies partner Alex Voetsch in a statement to The Point. 

—Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Pencil Point

Never forget

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Final Point

Postage not included?

A coalition of groups including Common Cause New York and the New York Civil Liberties Union wrote to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo this week with a concern regarding plans for absentee voting:

“We write to bring your attention to one crucial voter access accommodation from the Spring that has not been acted on thus far: Prepaid return postage for all absentee ballots.”

That was accomplished by executive order for the June primary, but Cuomo has not done the same for November. 

And the logistical deadline to do prepaid postage for the general election is imminent, according to Nassau Democratic elections commissioner James P. Scheuerman: The county is using a vendor to prepare ballots and its work is expected to begin within days.

So things don’t look good for voters who — during a pandemic — hoped to avoid going out and purchasing stamps to send in their absentee vote which was meant to safeguard them from having to go out and vote in person.  

The Point asked a Cuomo representative whether the governor would be mandating prepaid postage this time around, and we received a statement from budget spokesman Freeman Klopott about other voting-related actions the state is taking, including “an executive order requiring boards of elections to develop a plan for voters to drop completed ballots at the board of elections offices, early voting sites, or election day polling centers — negating the need to mail a ballot at all.”

Klopott noted that this had been done “even as the State is facing a $62 billion revenue decline over four years and the funds initially provided by Congress that supported pre-paid envelopes for New York’s primary in June have largely been spent.”

Some groups, including the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, have issued their own letter encouraging the state to use remaining CARES Act funding or “an independent funding stream” purportedly at the NYC BOE “that would allow for the Board to pay for prepaid postage.” A city BOE spokeswoman disputed the existence of such funding. 

Shown this part of the letter, Klopott added to the statement that the “boards of elections have millions of dollars available to them from previously provided funding from the State and Federal governments and they should make use of those resources” given the state’s deep funding gaps barring federal help.

Asked whether local boards, should they have funding, could go it alone, state BOE spokesman John Conklin said, “I guess they could,” but raised the issue of cost plus another challenge that came up during the primary: “Remember it was suggested that the postage-paid requirement contributed to the invalidation of some absentees because the post office failed to put a cancellation mark on postage-paid envelopes.”

Regardless, we’ve arrived at a late hour, and Conklin reiterated the logistical challenges involved in shifting course: “Boards are ordering their supplies for absentee ballots now, so if another Executive Order came out now it would create chaos and delay the issuing of absentee ballots.”  

—Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano