New York’s top liquor regulator, Lily Fan, gave $40,000 on October 6 to Women on the Move NY, a super PAC registered to support Governor Kathy Hochul’s re-election — and the committee is run by partners at the same lobbying firm that represents clients before Fan’s own agency. The donation, along with a separate $1,378 contribution Fan made directly to Hochul’s campaign in August, has pulled the State Liquor Authority chair into a fresh ethics debate over executive appointees funding the governor who oversees them.
As reported by Syracuse.com, Women on the Move NY is run by officers including Emily Giske, Wayne Kawadler and Brette McSweeney — with Giske serving as managing partner at Bolton-St. Johns, the Albany lobbying firm that represents Southern Glazer’s, the Beer Wholesalers Association of New York State, and the Irish Repertory Theatre before the SLA. Bolton-St. Johns lobbied Fan directly on behalf of two of those three clients, according to the same report. The firm was ranked third statewide in lobbying compensation in 2025, and separately, Everything-PR notes the firm counts major tech, energy, real estate, and entertainment clients among its roster before state agencies generally.
Fan is no stranger to political giving — she has contributed more than $270,000 to dozens of candidates since 2009, including Andrew Cuomo, Letitia James, and a super PAC backing Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral bid, per the Syracuse.com account. She was appointed by Hochul to lead the SLA in 2023 and confirmed by the New York State Senate to a fixed three-year term in June 2024. Before that, Fan worked as a white-collar criminal defense attorney at Shearman & Sterling and Morrison & Foerster and served on Manhattan Community Board 4, according to City & State New York, which also notes she was originally confirmed as an SLA commissioner in 2018 before being elevated to chair.
A Firm With Personal Ties to the Governor's Office
Bolton-St. Johns’ connections to Hochul’s inner circle run deeper than lobbying contracts. Senior partner Mike Keogh is married to Karen Persichilli Keogh, who has served as secretary to the governor — Hochul’s highest-ranking executive adviser — since she took office in 2021, per City & State New York, citing a 2022 report. The firm has also drawn regulatory scrutiny before: New York Focus has reported that Bolton-St. Johns accrued $129,890 in late fees on 464 lobbying filings and settled for $97,417 in June 2022.
Jade Kraft said the super PAC and the lobbying firm have only an indirect, personnel-level connection, and that the dual-role member has no direct involvement with Bolton-St. Johns’s work before the Liquor Authority. Kraft also said Fan’s contribution to Women on the Move NY was reviewed and cleared by SLA internal ethics counsel and the state ethics commission, and that the donation is unrelated to SLA business and will not affect how the agency handles matters before it. The state ethics commission spokesperson declined to share details about what guidance Fan actually received, and the Hochul administration did not respond to questions about that specific guidance, according to Syracuse.com’s reporting.
Watchdogs See a Widening Loophole
The legal question turns on a 2007 executive order, originally issued by then-Governor Eliot Spitzer, that bars state employees or officers serving at the governor’s pleasure from contributing to a governor’s campaign or committees organized to benefit them. David Paterson reissued the order in 2008, and it was renewed by Andrew Cuomo and then by Hochul when she became governor in 2021. Hochul’s office contends the order does not apply to Fan because she serves a fixed three-year term rather than at the governor’s pleasure — and that it does not cover independent expenditure committees at all, which New York only recognized in state law in 2014.
Kassandra White argued the 2008 order could not forbid contributions to independent expenditure committees that were not contemplated when it was issued. But Alex Camarda, senior policy adviser at Reinvent Albany, said the governor should interpret the order broadly and that Fan should not be making large contributions that benefit the governor. Camarda warned the donation could compromise Fan’s perceived or actual independence in matters involving Bolton-St. Johns clients. Ben Weinberg, director of public policy at Citizens Union, said the order was drafted specifically to prevent officials from evading the direct-donation ban by funneling support through another committee, adding that excluding independent expenditure committees would create a major loophole. Camarda and Weinberg jointly called Hochul’s fixed-term interpretation of the order narrow.
The fixed-term argument isn’t new. Spitzer himself has publicly disputed that reading, saying his order was meant to apply to all gubernatorial appointees regardless of term structure — a dispute that dates back to 2018, when Cuomo’s attorneys used a similar fixed-term argument while his administration faced criticism for accepting more than $800,000 in campaign donations from state-board appointees, according to Radio Catskill.
Hochul's Own History With Appointee Donations
This isn’t the first time Hochul has faced scrutiny over money from her own appointees. In 2022, her campaign spokesperson said people appointed by Hochul are barred from donating after their appointment, and the campaign pledged to refund potentially improper donations from appointees to unpaid state-board positions as recently as 2025 — a pattern City & State New York has tracked across her tenure, reporting Hochul defended accepting more than $400,000 from state-board members in 2022. Hochul’s campaign has said it will refund the money Fan spent on merchandise, while her office maintains that both Fan’s merchandise purchase and her super PAC donation were proper.
New York Focus, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates power in New York, reported finding no other record of a Hochul appointee donating to a super PAC supporting her. Women on the Move NY was formed in August 2026 and has received $15,000 from the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee, a group that supports pro-choice candidates — to which Fan separately donated $10,000 in July 2026. The super PAC has disclosed no spending to date, though it plans to spend in support of Hochul ahead of her November 3 general election matchup against Republican Bruce Blakeman.
Big Money Floods a High-Stakes Race
The episode lands amid record-breaking money in Albany generally. Total annual lobbying spending in New York hit $384.8 million in 2025, the fourth consecutive record year, with gaming and housing leading spending, according to City & State New York. Separately, Deadspin has reported that online gambling interests funneled $1.2 million through the Sports Betting Alliance since early September to Greater Empire State, a different Democratic Governors Association-backed super PAC supporting Hochul, with online sports betting companies contributing nearly $10 million across New York races this cycle. New York Focus has also reported that Hochul’s campaign encouraged donors who hit individual contribution caps to redirect funds to the New York State Democratic Party, which then transferred $10 million to her campaign — a maneuver government reform groups have criticized as a way to bypass donor limits.
On the other side of the ledger, James Dolan has spent millions of dollars supporting Blakeman as of October 13, part of the broader outside-spending war chest both campaigns are drawing on this fall. Hoodline has previously reported on Blakeman-aligned attacks tied to a $637 million Covid test deal, as well as seven-figure super PAC spending shielding Hochul from that pressure. As chair, Fan oversees the state agency that regulates liquor. Hochul must decide whether to reappoint Fan to the post in 2027.
