The Pigeoning and the McMurraying

I have been very critical of Tim Kennedy in the past. In the Erie County Legislature, Kennedy simultaneously disgraced and promoted himself with his self-serving and short-sighted alliance with Chris Collins back in 2010. The 2009 election cycle had resulted in a narrow Democratic majority in the legislature. Incumbent County Executive Chris Collins was unhappy with this, (the legislature was habitually overriding Collins’ vetoes, so he went so far as to unconstitutionally declare these overrides “null and void“.) Collins hatched a plot that would de facto undo that majority. The legislature’s re-organization in January 2010, typically a quiet affair, became instead a coup.

The Republican legislators in office at the time were now-Supreme-Court-Judge Ray Walter, weirdly aggressive pugilistic dummy Dino Fudoli, current minority leader John Mills, current NOCO Executive Ed Rath, and current Democratic County Comptroller Kevin Hardwick. Democrats elected to the Legislature at that time included activist Betty Jean Grant, Maria Whyte, now with the Community Foundation of WNY, Empire State Development Director of Intergovernmental Relations Lynn Marinelli, former Restaurateur Tom Loughran, Tom Mazur, Tina Bove, now-State Senator Tim Kennedy, and city Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams. The year before, Collins had given Democratic legislator Kathy Konst (now better known as the mother of DSA activist Nomiki), a job in his administration, thus leaving a vacancy in the legislature that was ultimately filled by the likes of alleged-former-drug-dealer Dino Fudoli.

By flipping Bove, Miller-Williams, and Kennedy into a risibly named “reform coalition” of minority Republicans and turncoat Democrats, Collins had maintained a majority caucus for power’s own sake. What did the others get? Some donations for pet causes, I suppose, but Kennedy was in for self-promotion. As I wrote some 14 years ago,

As best we can put together, Tim Kennedy approached Democratic HQ to ask to run against [Michael] Stachowski. [Len] Lenihan reportedly told Kennedy that he was going to stick with Stachowski and let [Stachowski] decide when he wanted to stop going to Albany. Kennedy then turned to Steve Pigeon and asked for his help to run against Stachowski. [Tom] Golisano’s money was pledged, but Pigeon wanted something in exchange.

Pigeon wanted Kennedy to deliver the legislature to him. Three Democrats to flip so Collins would have his majority. Rumor has it that Pigeon is working on Collins’ gubernatorial campaign behind the scenes.

Kennedy delivered Miller-Williams, who is affiliated with Grassroots, which is currently aligned with Pigeon and City Hall, as well as Christina Bove. It is also rumored that Brian Higgins is one of the people behind the scenes brokering this on Kennedy’s behalf.

Collins never ran for Governor, but he did eventually run for Congress, and became the first member to endorse Donald Trump. Collins’ rise, fall, and pardon all stem from the work of guys like Steve Pigeon, Roger Stone, and Michael Caputo.

(By the way, this Washington Post article about Chris Collins is simply an astonishing read. It takes an unlikeable petty bureaucrat and amazingly makes him seem exponentially worse than you could ever imagine. He lives a life giving zero f*cks about anything or anyone except himself. This is a guy who pleaded guilty to committing a federal crime, got a Trump pardon, cashed out his business, and is so much wealthier now that it seems that crime really does pay. Collins is running for Congress in Florida.)

Fifteen years ago, the “Landon Associates” political team of convicted child sexual assailant Steve Pigeon and convicted-then-pardoned felon Roger Stone (who now stands credibly accused of calling for the assassination of two Decocratic congressmen), had a great little scam going.

In the bad old days, it was becoming quite tough for Democrats to win without securing the Conservative fusion Party line. A special pathway for Democrats to get that line ran through Steve Pigeon and Ralph Lorigo. (Some of us are old enough to remember the Joe Illuzzi / Tony Orsini Independence Party endorsement pipeline and shakedown grift). Thankfully, with the demise of Pigeonism, Democrats locally now go out of their way to shun the regressive, anti-choice, homophobic Conservative fusion Party.

But in 2009, Kennedy needed Pigeon and Pigeon needed Kennedy. They conspired to throw the legislature to the Republicans, and in return Kennedy bought his Conservative Party endorsement for State Senate. Kennedy primaried Stachowski and beat him. At the time, Stachowski had opposed the same-sex marriage law, while Kennedy supported it. (When the Conservative fusion Party talks about its principles, remember that it set them aside for a supporter of same-sex marriage.)

It was these relationships and procedures that led me relentlessly to call for the abolition of the corrupt and pointless electoral fusion system in New York, which served only to facilitate the enrichment of minor party bosses and the patronage jobs they doled out.

As time went on, Betty Jean Grant launched quixotic but principled efforts to challenge Kennedy for State Senate. In 2012, Ms. Grant lost by only 139 votes. It was so bad that ECDC endorsed Betty Jean Grant over Tim Kennedy for the State Senate in 2014, issuing a stinging public rebuke of Kennedy in words and action. Alas, in 2014, Ms. Grant’s margin of loss was even wider as memories had begun to fade and Kennedy consolidated his base of support. Kennedy has not run against a credible challenger since 2014.

In the mid-teens, Kennedy was still playing footsie with Steve Pigeon and the “WNY Progressive Caucus” or #AwfulPAC, which endeavored to do harm to the Democratic Committee at the time. I covered the #AwfulPAC and its eventual downfall and prosecutions as “Preetsmas“, named for the then-Assistant US Attorney Preet Bharara, who was investigating political fraud and graft cases.

The Pigeon faction’s modus operandi was rote – set up a PAC, get it funded, (Pigeon enjoyed the support of a roster of reliably deep-pocketed donors, like Golisano and Mansouri), spend wildly on a primary race for some candidate running against Democratic HQ’s pick, do so in a way that it flies under the radar until election disclosures kick in, and do your best to ratf*ck the party favorite. Rinse, repeat. It happened to Sam Hoyt in the late aughts. It happened to Betty Jean Grant and Tim Hogues in 2013. But the ruse was discovered prematurely and the #AwfulPAC, its people, and its tactics were quickly outed before they could do a lot of harm.

I eventually called that sort of thing the “Pigeoning”. To explain:

Pigeoning: pi·geon·ing \ˈpi-jən-iŋ\: (n) the action of using money and influence, oftentimes pushing the election law envelope, to actively sabotage and undermine the Erie County Democratic Committee.

The Pigeon crew would often secure the assistance—tacit and overt—of Republicans, but more frequently the execrable and obsequious fusion parties — “Independence” and “Conservative” alike — to conspire with Pigeon to advance not just candidates, but their committees’ access to patronage jobs.

Blindside the party’s endorsed candidate with a sudden and unexpected influx of expensive mailers, robocalls, and ads that defame them, or worse. Fund it through various and sundry LLCs set up for no other reason than to legally flaunt campaign finance rules. Set up PACs or independent committees whose funding and organization is sketchy, at best, or criminal, at worst. Conspire fusion party bosses, for whom influence over patronage hires regularly trumps any manufactured, elastic ideological tenets. 

Nothing that the Pigeon crew ever did brought about real reform or good government. Nothing they touched had anything to do with policy, or helping the community — it was all about enriching Pigeon and the pilot fish who clung to him. Western New Yorkers of every party, of every race, of every nationality, of every class deserve so much better than what Pigeon and his cult offered. 

AwfulPAC was only active for a very short period of time—most of what it did took place between July and September of 2013. In May 2015, state and federal agents executed three nearly simultaneous raids on the homes of Pigeon, former Chris Collins chief of staff Chris Grant, and former Buffalo deputy mayor Steve Casey. I dubbed this law enforcement action and investigation ”Preetsmas,” after the former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara. Bharara had famously taken over the investigation of political corruption cases abandoned by the Moreland Commission when Governor Cuomo abruptly shut it down. 

AwfulPAC wasn’t even properly constituted; it filed its CF-02 in February 2014 to transform it — retroactively — into a multi-candidate committee participating and spending on candidates’ behalf in the 2013 primaries. AwfulPAC declared — nunc pro tunc — that it was an unauthorized committee for Dick Dobson in the primary and general elections, and in the primary for Joyce Wilson Nixon, Barbara Miller-Williams, Rick Zydel, and Wes Moore. They also claimed to be an unauthorized committee for Mark Manna for Amherst Town Board in 2013’s general election. Had AwfulPAC done that at its founding, it could have spent money on behalf of those candidates without coordination; however, as it was originally constituted, it was legally only allowed to raise and donate money to campaigns, and not to promote or oppose specific candidates. We’re meant to believe that it broke the law at the time, but a retroactive “oops” filing of a piece of paper retroactively rendered all its activities legal. 

The “bad old ways” are more-or-less dead. The investigations into AwfulPAC led to criminal investigations and prosecutions, which ultimately led to the downfall of a Supreme Court Judge and Pigeon himself. (Don’t forget Justin Sondel’s epic article on Pigeon’s rise and fall).

Tim Kennedy was, for a time, aligned with the Pigeoning and the bad old ways. His Senate campaign committee gave $85,000 to the #AwfulPAC and $10,000 to “Democratic Action” – another Pigeon-controlled PAC. This money was then donated to #AwfulPAC favored candidates including current City of Buffalo Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams.

Now, we are tasked again with dealing yet another disordered Nate McMurray campaign. All of this background, which is tedious to review, is to underscore the fact that Nate McMurray’s descent from credible Democratic congressional candidate to professional Twitter narcissist has become quite tough to swallow. As someone who promoted and supported McMurray’s previous congressional races, I find it infuriating and difficult to witness his disingenous heel-turns against Zellner and Poloncarz last year, and his embryonic, ill-informed hatred of Tim Kennedy now.

McMurray pretends as if Tim Kennedy hadn’t been there all along. Now, he discovers who Kennedy is because Kennedy stands between McMurray and congressional seat to which McMurray feels entitled.

While Kennedy has been working hard for the people of WNY generally, and his constituents in particular, McMurray has been embroiled in myriad lawsuits – as litigant and lawyer – and doing a pretty bad job of it.

Kennedy may have done bad things politically in the past, but as far as his tenure in the Senate is concerned, I’m not aware of any bad acts or omissions. By all accounts, he has been a reliable Democratic Senator and has won plaudits for his constituent services.

Can we maintain political consistency by overlooking Kennedy’s past misdeeds while simultaneously focusing on McMurray’s current behavior? I think so.

McMurraying is like Pigeoning in that both are informed by an irrational, visceral hatred of the local Democratic grassroots and party apparatus. The difference between Pigeoning and McMurraying is that the former found power, money, and electoral success; the latter is just social media noise.

McMurray’s efforts to divide Erie County Democrats have been tone-deaf failures. There is no grassroots clamor to overthrow the Zellner regime. Leftist malcontents and the DSA are small in number and without any real influence. The roster of former McMurray supporters who cannot now stand him is deep and wide. Some of ECDC’s best campaign minds and hardest campaign workers have undeservedly become the targets of his wild rantings and ravings. He had the nerve in 2023 to seek the nomination for County Executive, bad-mouthing everyone along the way, including Erie County itself. Now, he decided he is entitled to a do-over for Congress, but in Higgins’ seat, and somehow legitimately thought that people would give him the time of day? How deluded can you get?

For now, the stragglers on that dying platform formerly known as Twitter can filter through the bots and Nazis to go read the twaddle emanating from the disheveled mind of that guy we thought could be a Congressman. Now, he’s not so much the next member of the squad as he is a better-coiffed and sartorially unchallenged version of perennial candidate and convicted vote fraudster Rus Thompson. The fact that he trots out my 10-year-old posts to inform his disdain for Tim Kennedy – a guy who has been a State Senator for almost 15 years – underscores that he has nothing but grievance upon which to run.

I live in NY-26 now, and I will vote for a thousand Tim Kennedys before I would ever waste another vote or dollar on Nate McMurray, a conniving, untrustworthy, and backstabbing self-promoter who is no better than the people whom he claims to hate.