Categories for PoliticalPost

Jun 25

2021

Rallying to save their patronage jobs

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Wondering whether Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown is giving serious consideration to mounting a write-in campaign to keep his job in November? The answer might have been in plain sight Thursday night at Sahlen Field, where Brown threw out the first pitch before the Toronto Blue Jays went on to drop the Baltimore Orioles, 9-0. Outside the park, a crowd of Byron Brown supporters gathered in front of the main entrance to make a pitch of their own. They wore T-shirts bearing Brown’s name and carried signs reading “Keep Byron Brown.” This was no extemporaneous, grassroots expression of support for the[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 23

2021

Walton’s campaign outworked Brown

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The night before the Buffalo mayoral primary, India Walton’s campaign made nearly 19,000 calls to Democratic voters in the city, reminding them to vote and making the case for Walton over four-term incumbent Byron Brown. The campaign sent almost 100,000 text messages, too, while more than 150 Walton supporters stationed themselves at polling sites across the city on election day. The campaign fielded enough people, a campaign spokesperson said, to make a last-minute pitch to half the people who showed up to vote Tuesday as they walked in, and to take their temperature on the race as they left their[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 20

2021

Wealthy last-minute donors to Brown campaign

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Updated: 1:42 p.m. Maybe the race for mayor of Buffalo is tighter than most believed it would be.  Or perhaps the last-minute flurry of campaign activity by Mayor Byron Brown — who has been running a stealth campaign for the past five months — was forthcoming regardless of whatever internal polls told the four-term incumbent. Whichever the case, the Brown campaign has come alive in the last week. And big donors have poured money into the re-election effort, helping to underwrite a blitz of TV advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts as the countdown to election day approaches zero. Tuesday’s Democratic primary[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Jun 15

2021

Judged unfit for re-election

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The Bar Association of Erie County rated Diane Wray a poor choice for a Buffalo City Court judgeship when she first ran in 2011. Its members rated her “not recommended,” the lowest score they can give. She won anyway.  A decade later, local attorneys haven’t changed their opinion.  Two weeks ago, the Bar Association’s members rated Wray “not recommended” for reelection. It’s the only time in the past 10 years the Bar has advised voters not to return an incumbent judge to the bench. The Bar Association does not comment on its judicial ratings, which are made by a bipartisan[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jun 12

2021

Brown’s non-campaign campaign for mayor

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Mayor Byron Brown seems determined to act as though there’s no primary election next week.  No opponents, no contest, no question that he will cruise to an unprecedented fifth term. He’s barely bothering to raise money, nor is he spending much. There were no television or radio ad buys through the end of May, though some are coming soon, according to the mayor’s campaign finance filings. There have been few mailers and a paucity of lawn signs. Brown barely mentions the June 22 Democratic primary in public, unless compelled by reporters. He has flat-out refused to debate India Walton, his[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Mar 25

2021

Buffalo mayor’s race is on

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Updated on March 26, 9:27am. India Walton, the long-shot challenger to incumbent Byron Brown in the Democratic primary for Buffalo mayor, passed three milestones in the past month: She won the endorsement of the Working Families Party, providing her a ballot line in the general election, should she fail to beat Brown in the June 22 primary. She picked up the endorsement of People’s Action, a national coalition of progressive activists and politicians, which comes with access to phone banks and fundraising. Most importantly, from a pragmatic standpoint, today Walton filed a nominating petition at the Erie County Board of[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jan 23

2021

Brown’s campaign finance woes

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As he prepares to seek a fifth term, Mayor Byron Brown’s latest campaign finance report illustrates three things: Brown has never been so financially under-equipped entering a reelection year. His donations the past six months overwhelmingly came from folks who owe him their jobs and firms seeking city contracts and project approvals. The mayor’s campaign continues to violate state law governing how donations from limited liability corporations are disclosed. The mayor’s campaign committee, Brown for Buffalo, recently filed its latest campaign finance disclosure with the state Board of Elections, covering donations and expenses from July 11, 2020, to January 11[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Dec 19

2020

Brown a formidable, yet vulnerable candidate

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Since 2005, Mayor Byron Brown has raised and spent more than $5 million to win and hold the mayor’s office.  He spent $1.4 million to fend off Bernie Tolbert, his Democratic primary challenger in 2013. Four years later, he spent another $1 million in his primary race against then Comptroller Mark Schroeder. As of July, however, when his campaign committee last filed a disclosure report, Brown had just $115,568 in the bank. That may sound like a lot of money — and for most Buffalonians it is — but for the four-term mayor of a medium-sized city, it is a[...]

Posted 4 years ago
Investigative Post