Brooklyn assemblyman Vito Lopez, who is pushing hard to win the county's Democratic Party leadership post made vacant by the conviction of his former assembly colleague, Clarence Norman, Jr., has something else in common with Norman: Both men used political campaign committees to pay for their personal cars, and then accepted mileage reimbursement from the legislature - a legal no-no according to Brooklyn District Attorney Charles "Joe" Hynes who won indictments against Norman for that very offense.
State election board filings show that since 1999 the Bushwick pol's campaign committee, "Friends of Vito Lopez," has routinely shelled out $500 a month in leasing costs for his Acura sports car, and another $2800 a year for his auto insurance costs. It also pays more than $200 a month for a luxury dashboard computer service. In addition, the committee picks up a monthly American Express bill for the assemblyman, a tab that runs from $400 to $8,000 a month.
In recent DCCC experience
In 2006, the "red to blue" list of 32 seats garnered 9 wins and 23 losses. The overwhelming number of Democratic victories were in districts the DCCC ignored. In two cases, the "red to blue" candidates lost primaries to eventual Democratic red-to-blue winners, Carol Shea-Porter (NH-1) and Jerry McNerney (CA-11). The DCCC's recent track record of determining which seats are "winnable" is pretty bleak.
Bouldin seems right in his claim that the DCCC is un-idealogical -- sort of. They seem idealogically bound to the pursuit of the almighty Dollar, and believe that the DCCC helps them that can help themselves. Perhaps they feel that those people are the ones most likely to be able to "pay their dues" to the DCCC after getting elected.