Buffalo — Did you know that New York State Senate candidate Tim Kennedy gave $1,000 to anti-gay activist Joseph Illuzzi? Kennedy, an Erie County Legislator, reported in his campaigns January 2010 New York State Board of Elections disclosure that he had paid Mr. Illuzzi $1,000 for advertising that sponsored the conservative anti-gay Illuzzi and his politicswny.com web site.
Legislator Kennedy, a registered Democrat, organized with County Republicans to prevent Democrats from organizing the legislature as the majority. Kennedy is also an ally of Political operative G. Steven Pigeon. Pigeon is a former Erie County Democratic Party chair who in recent years has worked with Republicans such as former Erie County Executive Joel Giambra. Pigeon also is credited with masterminding theRepublican coup in the New York State Senate in 2009 that held up a vote on the marriage equality bill and in the end probably is the poison pill that defeated the bill. Kennedy has told the Buffalo News that he would accept campaign contributions and assistance from Pigeon controlled political groups.
In the fall of 2007 this newspaper detailed the fact that a number of local candidates for public office have been financing the anti-gay web site politicswny.net. The site is mainly a collection of creative rumors and pirated copyrighted content that are cut and pasted from professional news gathering organizations. The site is operated by anti-gay activist Joseph Illuzzi.
2007 site statistics obtained by Outcome indicated that Mr. Illuzzi greatly inflates his vistitor numbers and also showed that visitors to the site did so using computers owned by state and local governments. Meaning what web traffic the site gets is mainly from people already involved in local politics.
Our analysis of the site in 2007 found that of the 26 elected officials that had advertising on the site only Assemblyman Sam Hoyt had stopped paying for the advertising and had written Mr. Illuzzi requesting that their advertisements be removed from the site in light of Mr. Illuzzi's negative attacks on gay people. Illuzzi has thus far refused to remove the ads. Candidates financial reports indicated that ads on Mr. Illuzzi's webs site can run as high as $5,000 per campaign season.
Illuzzi is well known for for his practice of insulting and bad mouthing candidates until they agree to advertise on his website. Advertisers are then rewarded with praise and endorsement.
Kennedy was recently publicly called out for his two sided style of campaigning at last months Buffalo Brunch at Salvatore's Italian Garden. Kitty Lambert, accepting a community award for the local grassroots activist organization Outspoken, chided Kennedy, who was in attendance, for attending lgbt events and telling everyone that he supports lgbt issues but at the same time giving $1,000 to anti-gay activist and organizing with anti-gay legislators.
—Tim Moran
