Not long before Hochul posed at WNBA game with Clara Wu Tsai and recipients of Tsais' charity, Wu Tsai gave Governor maximum campaign contribution, $69,700

Hochul (c) with TV personality Robin Roberts (l)
and Clara Wu Tsai (r). Photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/
Governor's Office, 8/2/22

Little more than a month before Gov. Kathy Hochul attended a WNBA New York Liberty game last summer, posed for a photo with Liberty co-owner Clara Wu Tsai, and also honored recipients of the team owners' Social Justice Fund, Clara Wu Tsai gave Hochul's election fund the maximum contribution, $69,700.

Tsai, by my calculation, was among the 42 individuals (plus five political action committees) that contributed the maximum.

Other contributors included Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan, local developers Steve Roth and Steve Ross, and tech leaders Eric Schmidt and Reid Hoffman. Contributors often have some business--or expect to do some business--before state agencies.

It was a part of a massive haul, $46 million in Hochul's first 14 months in office, as Gotham Gazette reported 10/12/22, noting that future campaigns will be limited--and made more fair--by a new state system that lowers individual contribution limits while establishing a matching fund for contributions between $5 and $250 from within the state (or the district, for local candidates). The max for statewide offices will be $18,000.

Speculating on motives

So why might Clara Wu Tsai have given the maximum? 

(It's her only local political contribution. Note that her husband, Alibaba billionaire Joe Tsai, might be seen as the main owner of the Brooklyn Nets, Liberty, and Barclays Center operating company, but is not a U.S. citizen, so he's unable to make campaign constributions.)

Photo: Norman Oder

It's always good to have friends in public office. 

New York State agencies have historically treated the arena gently and, for example, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority acceded to the Social Justice Fund's use--er, appropriation?--of previously unavailable (for advertising, etc.) public space over the transit entrance for a neon art installation that I suggested also doubles as advertising.

Also, the arena operators are the biggest beneficiary of retaining the plaza, now sponsored by arena ticketing partner SeatGeek, and allowing--as has been proposed-- the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park master developer to move the bulk of the unbuilt flagship office tower (aka "Miss Brooklyn"), once planned to loom over the arena across Flatbush Avenue to Site 5, longtime home of the big-box stores Modell's and P.C. Richard. 

After all, building the permitted tower would seriously cramp arena operations. 

Also, more generally, investing in elected officials helps keep the lines of communications open and serves to protect against proposals like a wealth tax, which would cost the Tsais much more than $69,700 or $100,000, the amount of money given to local leaders and, as described below, highlighted at the same event. 

Hochul receives custom Nets jersey from John 
Abbamondi, then CEO of team/arena company.
Photo: Don Pollard, Governor's Office, 11/2/21

A platform, and a halo

The Hochul administration and the arena operators have cooperated multiple times before, with the arena offering the governor a platform, and the arena and its operators getting a reciprocal halo in return. (Same too for previous administrations.)

Then-Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin--before his resignation and indictment this past April--appeared at the 10/23/21 unveiling of the Social Justice Fund's neon installation.

(Benjamin had a history of working with the Parkside Group, also a lobbyist for the Nets and arena company, as I wrote.)

Then Hochul on 11/2/21 came to the arena for a press conference and photo op, announcing a plan for two free tickets--Nets games or other arena events--to anyone who gets vaccinated at the former Modell's site on Flatbush.

The most recent visit, on 8/2/22, was highlighted in a press release from the Social Justice Fund, THE JOE AND CLARA TSAI FOUNDATION’S SOCIAL JUSTICE FUND JOINS NYS GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL IN RECOGNIZING THE BLACK VOICES FOR BLACK JUSTICE AWARD AT NY LIBERTY GAME TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2022.

Hochul and Wu Tsai with winners, from left, 
Hinds, Grier, and Williams. Photo: Kevin P.
Coughlin/Governor's Office, 8/2/22

The five winners are: Leslie-Bernard Joseph (Coney Island Prep); Bernell Grier (IMPACCT Brooklyn); Afua Atta-Mensah (Community Voices Heard); Chantal Hinds (Community Voices Heard); and Kei Williams (Marsha P Johnson Institute and People’s Climate Movement).

"Winners received $20,000 to use at their discretion to help them advance social justice in their communities," according to the press release. 

So, $100,000 in charity isn't all that much more than $69,700 in campaign contributions. It might all be seen as part of a reputation-building (or lobbying) effort.

There were also five such Brooklyn awardees in December 2020, though the amount given to each was not specified. The BK Reader reported, without a named source, that the grants that year ranged between $20,000 and $50,000.

Note: IMPACCT Brooklyn is a sponsor of the BrooklynSpeaks coalition that aims to improve Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park and hold the developers and government agencies accountable. Grier was nominated, I'd bet, for her work on housing issues at IMPACCT Brooklyn, not because of the BrooklynSpeaks association.

About the contribution

Note that Clara Wu Tsai's contribution came from an address in La Jolla, CA--a mailbox service, not their nearby home--the affluent San Diego neighborhood where the Tsais have raised their three children, one of whom remains in school there.

As I wrote for CommonEdge in September, whether their philanthropy makes the Tsais “extraordinary New Yorkers” (to quote the Municipal Art Society), or unusually generous nouveau New Yorkers, given their recent (and partial) relocation to the city, might be debated. 

Indeed, this further confirms New York is not their primary home.