WASHINGTON (Map, News) - New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer was elected last year as a reformer and proclaimed soon after winning that he would "unilaterally disarm" from big money contributions, but a look at state board of election data reveals a very different story.

The latest financial disclosure reports by Spitzer 2010, the governor's re-election campaign, to the New York State Board of Elections reveals that Spitzer has received at least 226 donations of $10,000 or more from a variety of influential New York individuals, law firms, corporate partnerships and political action committees and labor unions.

These donations were made even though Spitzer is still in only the first year of his first term as the Empire State's chief executive.

Among the high dollar donors are: Donald Trump, Bank of America New York PAC, Building and Construction Trades Council PAC, Cablevision Systems PAC, Edison Properties, LLC, Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP, Health Care Providers PAC, Leo Hindery, Victor Kiam, Law PAC of New York, Medical Liability Mutual Insurance Company PAC, Neighborhood Preservation Political Action Fund, Pomerantz, Haudek, Block, Grossman & Gross LLP, Richard Sarnoff, Sheldon Solow, Bernard Schwartz, Tonio Borgoss & Associates of New Jersey LLP and Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker LLP PAC.

Spitzer, the former New York Attorney General who is wealthy in his own right, personally contributed $500,000 to his re-election campaign. Spitzer 2006, the governor's previous campaign committee, transferred $1,930,000 to the re-election effort.

Just since the first of this year, Spitzer 2010 has taken in $5.6 million and spent $4.2 million on a campaign that doesn't officially start for at least two years. Among the largest reported Spitzer 2010 expenditures to date are payments totaling $3,161,112 to Global Strategy Group, a media consultant group, for "TV ads."

Even by New York's notoriously low political standards, an incumbent governor having such an active re-election campaign so early in his first year in office raises a host of deeply troubling questions.

Unfortunately, the governor's spokesman, Christine Anderson in Albany, did not return a reporter's telephone calls seeking answers to some of those questions, starting with why should anybody not believe that Spitzer has turned the governor's office into a "pay for play" scam?

It's hard to see how it could be anything else. Spitzer has parallel operations running in his official office in Albany and his re-election campaign, which shares office space in Manhattan with the New York state Democratic party.

When I told the campaign aide who answered my call to Spitzer 2010 that I had questions about contributions to the committee, I was transferred directly to the governor's press office. Clearly, the two operations are closely linked.

In the normal course of things, that wouldn't necessarily be suspicious, but two basic factors make it radically different in this case – Spitzer himself and the timing.

Spitzer's predilection for using public office to advance his political fortunes was legendary when he was New York Attorney General. That didn't change simply because he moved to the Governor's Mansion, judging by a recent report made public by his AG successor, Andrew Cuomo.

The report detailed how long-time Spitzer aides used official resources to concoct a phony charge against a Republican political foe in the state legislature. Cuomo's report was so embarrassing that Spitzer published what he called an "apology" in The New York Times. But the aides were only disciplined, not fired.

But as obvious as it is that Spitzer views his campaign and official operations as two sides of one coin, it is the timing that is most revealing. The smart approach of high-ranking officials like a governor is to put off launching a re-election effort as long as possible to avoid the inevitable ethics scandals that come when there is even a hint that policy and payola go together.

With Spitzer's approach, though, nobody in New York can have any doubt but that the governor's number one priority is getting re-elected. The message is clear: You want to do business with state government, you've got to pay now to help insure Spitzer gets another term.

It's no coincidence that among Spitzer 2010's 11 employees and at least seven consultants is the Esler Group, nor is it happenstance that a $50,000 contribution appears on the report from Akin, Gump, Straus, Haurer & Feld LLP. Can you think of a better place to be for a famous lobbying group or a high-powered law firm than right there in the governor's re-election effort?

What makes all this doubly ironic, of course, is one of Spitzer's major promises was to get a campaign finance reform measure through the state legislature. No wonder he started his re-election campaign so early – better to buy that second term now before the law changes.

Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner.

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