A version of this story was co-posted on Urbanalia.

In New York state, legislative politics are more than a little counterintuitive. Democrats have a majority in the state Senate, but since the 2012 elections, a group of breakaway members of that party have lined up with Republicans to keep the chamber under GOP control.

The coalition, though, collapsed last week, and, facing a strong chance that Dems will rule both the Assembly and Senate in the state, various interests are injecting greater urgency into their mission to win more seats for Republicans.

Even before the fracturing was announced, though, groups were gearing up. Enter the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), a D.C.-based organization that focuses on turning state legislatures red, and keeping them that way. It gave $10,000 to a super PAC called Balance New York, most of whose money has come from two linked real estate interest groups – the Rent Stabilization Association PAC and the Neighborhood Preservation Political Action Fund ($25,000 each, thanks to recent court decisions legalizing unlimited contributions to super PACs in New York). Balance New York had $60,000 in its tank by mid-January, and has now spent almost all of that sum in preparation for November.

This isn’t the RSLC’s first injection of funds into New York, nor is it likely to be the last. In the 2010 cycle, the group set out to flip or keep state legislatures around the country in the R column so as to control the post-2010 redistricting process as much as possible — and succeeded handily. That year it put $1.4 million into four New York state Senate races, winning two of them and helping deliver the body to the GOP.

It’s not just state legislatures that draw the group’s involvement: Earlier this year it spent $650,000 on a North Carolina Supreme Court race, running ads that attack the Democratic incumbent as lenient on child molesters.

And the RSLC has a “dark money” 501(c)(4) nonprofit affiliate, the State Government Leadership Fund. In 2011, the latter group ramped up its activity, taking in $2.5 million and giving out $1.4 million in grants to such well-known conservative causes as the Wisconsin Club for Growth, the American Future Fund and the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform. The biggest sum — $1.25 million — went to something called the Indiana Opportunity Fund, which ran ads supporting an anti-union bill pending in the legislature. In 2012, with its budget just a bit larger, some of the group’s biggest grants went to Protect Your Vote, an organization that opposed an Ohio measure to put a citizen board in charge of the redistricting process, and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Issues Mobilization. Both of the Wisconsin groups supported GOP Gov. Scott Walker when he slashed collective bargaining rights and was forced into a 2012 recall election.

In a churning of funds that’s not uncommon among such networks of outside groups, some of the foundation’s grantees — such as the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform and the American Future Fund — were also donors to its sister group, the RSLC.

In the Empire State, according to a campaign filing with the state board of elections, Balance New York has already spent $45,000 with Eagle Point Strategies, a consulting group registered to Republican pollster Claude LaVigna — who also happens to be the director of Balance New York. On April 28, Balance dropped $2,500 with former National Republican Senatorial Committee staffer Kevin Wright’s Old Dominion Research Group, a firm that specializes in opposition research. Old Dominion’s clients in the 2012 election cycle included Virginia Republican George Allen’s Senate campaign; Make Us Great Again, the super PAC backing Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s bid for the GOP presidential nomination; and the mega-super PAC American Crossroads, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

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That would be the same American Crossroads that was co-founded and advised by Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, Republican uber-strategists. Gillespie, as it happens, also ran the RSLC until recently — including during its redistricting campaign. He’s now challenging incumbent Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia for a U.S. Senate seat.

Balance’s activities are only public due to its filing of an unusual off-cycle campaign finance report. LaVigna has not responded to a request for comment.

New York’s developers have long been a major financial force in city and state politics, bolstered both by their interest in influencing property taxes and housing regulations and a quirk in state campaign finance law that allows them to spend virtually unlimited amounts on campaigns. While the law limits how much any individual can give to a candidate, it also treats limited liability companies as individual donors — meaning that anyone who controls LLCs can give donations through their companies. Because real estate companies often register each property they own as a separate LLC, their combined contributions can dwarf those of ordinary donors, as in the case of developer Leonard Litwin’s $1 million-plus in donations in 2013.

But the ruling on super PACS renders those financial acrobatics unnecessary when it comes to independent political groups, as unlimited lump-sum contributions to those organizations are now legal.

The Rent Stabilization Association represents the owners of New York’s rent stabilized buildings, and as far back as the 1990s has had a cozy relationship with Republicans in Albany. The RSA’s PAC lists almost none of its donors, as its members primarily contribute in sub-$100 increments that do not have to be itemized. As recently as 2010, however, the group has drawn tens of thousands of dollars from LLCs registered to Litwin’s Long Island offices.

Litwin, consistently also one of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s biggest donors, has no problem being a source of funds for both parties. At the federal level, he personally has given more than $1 million to candidates, parties and other committees on both sides of the aisle since 1989.

Neighborhood Preservation, which, in contrast to the RSA’s micro-funded committee, takes big-dollar donations, has among its top contributors both Litwin’s LLCs and one registered to another Long Island developer — The Parkoff Organization. In 2012 Parkoff inked a nine figure deal for a collection of buildings in the West Village, the Lower East Side and the Bronx.

A clearer sense of the real estate industry’s direction, including possible support for Cuomo and other Democrats, will emerge after the state board of election’s July 15 filing deadline. For now, though, Balance’s disclosure reveals one set of developers working to wrest New York into Republican hands, with an assist from a national group with more than a little experience helping the GOP overcome adverse odds.



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