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Today's New York Times

Adviser to Cuomo Is Also Top Lobbyist

By DANNY HAKIM
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/danny_hakim/in
dex.html?inline=nyt-per>

ALBANY - Jennifer Cunningham is one of this city's most prominent lobbyists,
best known for her advocacy on behalf of 1199/S.E.I.U. United Healthcare
Workers East, arguably Albany's most powerful special interest.

At the same time, she is among the closest political advisers to the man
Democrats hope will be their next governor: Andrew M. Cuomo
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/andrew_m_cuomo
/index.html?inline=nyt-per> .

Mr. Cuomo's promise to clean up Albany's ethical swamp has helped him
rejuvenate his political career, and will undoubtedly be a theme in his
campaign for governor.

But the role of Ms. Cunningham, who has advised Mr. Cuomo on everything from
when to enter the race to whom to hire for his campaign staff, is likely to
draw new scrutiny as he nears an official announcement of his candidacy for
governor next month and reflects the often symbiotic relationships between
politicians and lobbyists in Albany.

Mr. Cuomo's aides and Ms. Cunningham say she keeps her lobbying strictly
separate from her advising of Mr. Cuomo, for which she receives no pay. She
never lobbied the attorney general's office after Mr. Cuomo was elected,
they said, and never discusses the business of the office with him. Mr.
Cuomo has pledged not to hire lobbyists once his formal campaign begins.

"Jennifer Cunningham and Attorney General Cuomo have been friends for more
than 20 years," said Phil Singer, a consultant for Mr. Cuomo's campaign.
"She has never been paid by Andrew's campaign, nor has she ever lobbied him
or his office on any matter whatsoever."

Ms. Cunningham, in her own statement, said: "I will not have any role in
Andrew Cuomo's 2010 campaign. Andrew and I are old friends, and, from time
to time, I offer my advice and ideas for him on an informal, personal
basis."

After inquiries from The New York Times, Mr. Cuomo's aides said they would
review Ms. Cunningham's role and determine whether any of her advice to Mr.
Cuomo should be recorded as an in-kind contribution to his campaign - a
noncash contribution that has a monetary value. The next campaign filing is
in July.

"The law is crystal clear that people have a right to volunteer on campaigns
and that such volunteerism is not a campaign contribution of any sort," Mr.
Singer said, but he added, "We will, as always, err on the side of
disclosure in our filing."

Blair Horner, the legislative director of the New York
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/new_yor
k_public_interest_research_group/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Public Interest
Research Group and a former Cuomo staff member, said he believed Ms.
Cunningham's work did constitute an in-kind contribution. "Since it is
campaign activity, and since she is a prominent political consultant, we
certainly would argue that more disclosure is better and in fact that
information should be disclosed."

Ms. Cunningham, 48, first met Mr. Cuomo in 1983, when he was working for his
father, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/mario_m_cuomo/
index.html?inline=nyt-per> , and she was an intern for District Council 37
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/distric
t_council_/index.html?inline=nyt-org> , New York City's largest municipal
union. Since then, she has worked as a deputy counsel to Assembly Speaker
Sheldon Silver
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/sheldon_silver
/index.html?inline=nyt-per> and as S.E.I.U. 1199's political director,
before joining a lobbying firm and taking on a variety of clients.

Her tough tactics are the stuff of legend in Albany; when the Pataki
administration considered hospital cuts that 1199 opposed, she was known to
give Pataki officials a preview of the attack ads the union planned to run
against the administration, a strategy meant to unnerve the governor and
erode the administration's resolve. "She could be a little belligerent,"
said Bradford J. Race Jr., a former top aide in the Pataki administration.

"There were threats any time we would try to doing anything to Medicaid
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics
/medicaid/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> , and sometimes I'd have to
throw them out of the office," he said, but added that she was "pleasant
enough most of the time."

After Eliot Spitzer
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/eliot_l_spitze
r/index.html?inline=nyt-per> proposed hospital cuts in 2007, she helped
develop a $12 million barrage of aggressive ads; her consulting firm,
Knickerbocker <http://www.knickskd.com/> SKD, boasts on its Web site that
the campaign was "the first factor" in Mr. Spitzer's "deep decline in
popularity."

Many other elected officials praised Ms. Cunningham. Assemblyman Carl E.
Heastie, the chairman of the Bronx Democratic Party
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/democra
tic_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org> , said, "I have nothing but fabulous
things to say about her."

In 2006, Ms. Cunningham took a leave from her post as 1199's political
director to work free on Mr. Cuomo's campaign for attorney general. She
worked side by side with Mr. Cuomo's father to reintroduce the younger Mr.
Cuomo to New York political circles after his disastrous 2002 bid for
governor. Ms. Cunningham did everything from building Mr. Cuomo's political
operation on the ground to blocking other candidates from getting on the
convention ballot and winning a coveted endorsement from Eliot Spitzer's
campaign.

"Jennifer knows a lot of people in politics today that I didn't work with,"
the elder Cuomo said at the time. "So I have my people, she has her people,
and we are trying to be helpful."

After Mr. Cuomo was elected, Ms. Cunningham advised Mr. Cuomo on how to
guide his agenda through the Legislature, including his sweeping government
consolidation proposal.

At least one of Mr. Cuomo's major investigations as attorney general
dovetailed with 1199's interests. "Operation
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/nyregion/26homeaide.html?scp=1&sq=%22Oper
ation+Home+Alone%22&st=nyt> Home Alone" cracked down on home health care
aides who were not properly licensed, along with the agencies that employed
them and the schools that provided them with bogus certifications.

While similar prosecutions began during Mr. Spitzer's tenure, they were
accelerated by Mr. Cuomo's office, and he backed legislation to force all
home health care aides to be entered into a state registry, a potentially
powerful organizing tool in a major area of growth for the union.

The union has cheered Home Alone; George Gresham
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/george_gresham
/index.html?inline=nyt-per> , 1199's president, has praised it, and the
union was among the groups that sent a letter to state officials urging them
to pass the measure. On a Web site 1199 opened, www.homecarecrisis.org, Home
Alone is highlighted for cracking down on disreputable service providers.

Mr. Cuomo's office said that 1199 had no role in the effort.

"Any suggestion or implication that Operation Home Alone or the home health
registry legislation, which passed unanimously, were motivated by 1199 is
simply absurd," said Richard Bamberger, Mr. Cuomo's communications director.


For the last year, as Mr. Cuomo has planned his campaign for governor, Ms.
Cunningham has been a key adviser. She has helped shape the theme and
messages of the state Democratic convention and took a leading role in the
Cuomo camp's deliberations last month about moving the location of the
convention to Westchester from Manhattan.

She has also worked the phones on Mr. Cuomo's behalf, talking to a variety
of party and elected officials, drawing on a Rolodex that extends to the
White House; Patrick Gaspard, President Obama
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/i
ndex.html?inline=nyt-per> 's political director, was her successor as 1199's
political strategist. She also participates and sometimes presides over
periodic conference calls and meetings with a circle of Cuomo advisers.

"Right now, her role as an adviser is probably more of an internal one
rather than an external one," said Speaker Silver. "She has a legislative
background, a union background, she can put all of the things together for
Andrew in terms of being able to coordinate issues and people," he added.

Since 2007, when she left 1199, Ms. Cunningham has worked for Cordo &
Company, a relatively new lobbying firm that earned $1.5 million in fees
last year, according to an analysis by the New York Public Interest Research
Group. She is also a partner at Knickerbocker SKD, a political consulting
firm whose clients have included Caroline Kennedy
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/caroline_kenne
dy_schlossberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per> and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/michael_r_bloo
mberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per> .

She still represents 1199, and her other clients include a trade group of
private colleges and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. Cordo & Company
also represents the Beer Wholesalers Association and the Aqueduct
Entertainment Group, a controversial gambling consortium that is at the
center of state and federal investigations into the awarding of a casino
gambling contract at the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens.

By next year, she could have close ties to two top state officials; her
ex-husband, Senator Eric T. Schneiderman
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/eric_t_schneid
erman/index.html?inline=nyt-per> , a Manhattan Democrat, is a leading
contender to succeed Mr. Cuomo, and has already been endorsed by 1199. Ms.
Cunningham and her former husband remain friendly.

While she will have no formal role in Mr. Cuomo's campaign for governor, she
will not disappear, either.

"I am sure they will continue to talk as friends about politics and other
topics on occasion," Mr. Singer said, "as they have for the last 20 years."


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