The New York Post points out that Sen. Shirley Huntley --who flipped on gay marriage this year-- is being investigated by NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (an outspoken proponent of SSM) over this:

State Sen. Shirley Huntley (D-Queens) founded The Parent Workshop, to which she steered $30,000. And between 1996 and 2008, she and Cook funneled another $400,000 to another nonprofit, The Parent Information Network, which is run by Huntley’s daughter.

This is why the Post is calling foul:

Member items, earmarks, discretionary funds — by whatever name they’re called, they’re the hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer cash that New York lawmakers steer to ostensible community projects but that serve as slush funds for the pols, their families and friends.

Here’s how it works: Legislative leaders dole out cash to their members in return for loyalty, support and votes. The members, in turn, toss the cash around in their districts to buy political backing. That’s corrupt enough.

But lawmakers increasingly steer the money to “nonprofit” groups that they, their relatives and/or their friends control. That makes the whole practice — both in Albany and at City Hall — just another way for pols to line their own pockets and those of friends and family.