Alan Greenblatt is a GOVERNING correspondent.
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Living By the Sword
Tom Golisano is a billionaire who is fond of running for governor of New York. Since there is no governor's race this year, he announced yesterday that he intends to spend $5 million on legislative races in the state.
Republicans are defending a one-seat majority in the Senate and Golisano's pledge represents more money than the GOP has in its statewide accounts, the New York Times reports. It's not clear, though, which way Golisano will be leaning. It appears he will pick and choose among candidates who support his main goals -- tighter campaign finance laws and changes to the redistricting process.
There's an obvious irony in a rich guy spending freely to tighten campagin finance rules, as the Times notes:
He added that he did not share Mr. Golisano's interpretation of state election laws, saying that he thought that the new committee might be restricted in what it could say about candidates in independent advertisements. But he said there was a "delicious irony" to the notion of Mr. Golisano using a loophole in the campaign finance laws to give a headache to incumbent lawmakers.
"Incumbent legislators who accepted the status quo could face a challenge through one of the loopholes they refused to close," Mr. Horner noted.
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