Paterson Family Values?

James Fanelli and Isabel Vincent report in the New York Post on the remarkable synergy of the Paterson family combination: father Basil a super-lawyer-lobbyist, son David governor of the state of New York:

The elder Paterson is a senior partner at Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, a Long Island-based law firm and lobbying juggernaut in Albany.

Since 2005, the lobbying wing of Meyer Suozzi has raked in at least $4.45 million from scores of clients, including many unions, for work on state and city issues, lobby records show. 

As co-chair of Meyer Suozzi's labor practice, Basil heads the firm's legal wing, but is not a registered lobbyist. Its Web site boasts 40 unions among its clients, and in 2008 alone, the firm took in at least $4 million representing them, according to federal Department of Labor filings.
Basil personally represents Service Employees International Union 1199, the city teachers union and the transit union -- organizations whose combined memberships total about 542,000. The three unions paid a total of $1 million to the firm in 2008 for legal representation, records show.

 SEIU, the UFT and Teamsters Local 237 -- also repped by Basil -- paid a total of $467,000 in lobbying fees to the firm since 2005, according to state lobbying data.

SEIU 1199, the city's health-care workers union, has received $58.6 million in grants from the state Department of Labor since 2006, records show.

 The transit union is currently in arbitration with the MTA, since its contract expired in January.

The family ties have led some observers to wonder if Basil was behind major policy decisions his son made in the last 10 months, including:

 

* His signing, over objections from his agency bosses, of a bill last July that allows correction officers to become detectives without passing a civil-service exam. Basil's firm lobbied for the law on behalf of the Suffolk County Correction Officers Association, which has paid it $53,000 since 2005.

* The governor's decision in March to drop an 8 percent theater-ticket tax he had proposed in his December budget plan. The levy vanished after outcry from Broadway and lobbying by his father's firm, which was paid $2,000 to fight it by Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians of Greater New York, which had poured $42,000 into Meyer Suozzi lobbying coffers since 2005 and spent $15,000 on legal representation by it in 2008.

 * His scratching of a health-insurance levy from his budget proposal that would have taxed companies, municipalities and unions that self-insure. Five unions paid Basil's firm $63,000 between January and February to lobby against the tax. The measure would have generated $120 million for the state in 2010.

* His unusual directive in late April to make it easier for unions to organize workers at new hotels and convention centers that receive state funding or tax breaks. The initiative was backed by UNITE HERE, a hospitality union that has given $219,000 to Meyer Suozzi for lobbying since 2005. UNITE HERE also paid $73,000 in 2008 for legal representation.

 Errol Cockfield, the governor's spokesman, said father and son never discussed issues surrounding those four decisions.