Michael Bloomberg Thanks Mark Grisanti, New York GOP Senators For Gay Marriage Vote
- By
- Carlos Santoscoy
- | July 14, 2011
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has thanked the four New York state GOP senators who voted for gay marriage by donating the maximum to their reelection campaigns.
Bloomberg, a Republican turned independent, made out checks of $10,300 – the maximum allowed – to Republican Senators Mark Grisanti of Buffalo, James Alesi of Rochester, Roy McDonald of Saratoga and Stephen Saland of Poughkeepsie.
The mayor had lobbied for passage of the law. He delivered a major speech calling on lawmakers to approve marriage equality and traveled twice to Albany to meet with undecided lawmakers.
“The mayor said he would support Senate Republicans who stood up – and he did,” Micah Lasher, a Bloomberg staffer, told The New York Daily News.
(Related: Michael Bloomberg to officiate over the same-sex wedding of two of his top staffers.)
Grisanti, considered the most vulnerable of the four Republicans, received another $40,000 in donations from people who publicly back gay marriage rights, including $10,000 from gay philanthropist Tim Gill.
“I didn't vote that way to get campaign contributions,” the Buffalo News quoted Grisanti as saying.
Gay marriage foes have labeled Grisanti a traitor for his vote and have vowed to work against his reelection. The Buffalo-area lawyer turned lawmaker said he was “inalterably” opposed to marriage equality during a failed 2008 campaign bid.
On the Senate floor before he cast his vote that helped New York become the sixth – and most populous – state to legalize gay marriage, Grisanti told lawmakers that he could not find a legal reason to oppose marriage equality.