The Money Against Prop. 1

Money flows as lines form over two ballot issues:  The Buffalo News

Tom Precious talks about the growing citizen's revolt against both referendums, including the Transportation Bond Issue.

New Yorkers to Change Albany, which has been sending a big display of a pink pig around the state to symbolize the amount of pork barrel spending they think Proposal One will create, brought in $100,000 in a single contribution from Russell Carson, a partner in a money management firm in Manhattan, and $100,000 from a real estate firm run by Howard Rich, a New York landlord. And $65,000 came from two prominent conservatives - Richard Gilder and Charles Brunie.

Pat Manning's group Stand Tall New York has also been barnstorming the state, calling into local radio shows and helping to promote the Big Big.

Conservative millionaires financing anti-amendment pink pig

Newsday had this story on a group of concerned citizens who are truly "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore":

"We're just political ideologues, so to speak, with no interest other than just trying to get New York state (going) in a direction that we think is really where it needs to be headed," Marshall Stocker, an Ithaca-based investment executive working with the group, told The Associated Press.

The contributors to the anti-amendment effort are Howard Rich, a New York City-based businessman and president of U.S. Term Limits ($100,000 through a real estate corporation); Russell Carson, a partner in a Manhattan-based private investment firm ($100,000); stockbroker Richard Gilder ($50,000); and Oppenheimer Capital founder Charles Brunie ($15,000).

News Copy has noted that many of the backers of the anti-amendment effort are former donors to the Change NY organization that so actively back George Pataki in his early Gubernatorial efforts.

C-Span has been contacted by volunteers, though News Copy was surprised to learn that C-Span apparently prioritizes its coverage for only nationally-related events.

What a pity that a fiscal revolution in the Empire State is not viewed as a nationally-related event.