Q. Reverend Sharpton, how many suits do you own?

A. Well, you would have to — I debate whether I own it because a lot of that is business expense, but I have, I have access to about 10 or 12.

Q. And you say that you — you say they are business expenses. Are they paid for by someone other than yourself?

A. Some.

Q. Are they paid for by National Action Network?

A. No.

Q. Are they paid for by Rev. Als Productions?

A. Maybe a couple.

Q. Any other wearing apparel of yours paid for by other parties?

A. Yeah, I would say half my suits are gifts. The suit I have on, a guy gave me.

Q. Have you ever purchased a suit for yourself?

A. Not lately.

— Deposition, December 6, 2000, as reported in the New York Times of December 21, 2000

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It’s no wonder that, when Governor Paterson wanted to go somewhere Saturday to try to give the public the false impression that his campaign expenditures for personal expenses were no big deal, he chose the Reverend Al Sharpton’s House of Justice in Harlem. The Daily News had reported on March 13 that Rev. Sharpton had spoken “twice” to Mr. Paterson on March 12, the day Governor Spitzer announced his resignation. Maybe Mr. Sharpton was giving Mr. Paterson advice on how not to pay for his own wardrobe.

It emerges, after all, that, according to the Daily News, among the charges that Mr. Paterson listed as “constituent services” on his campaign finance filings was $1,075.90 in 2004 for clothing at Men’s Wearhouse. If Mr. Paterson thought that tax law allows a business account to pay for his campaign clothing without it being declared as income, it starts to become easier to understand why such an intelligent man did not pass the bar exam.

The governing case on the issue comes from New York’s own Second Circuit. In the 1959 case, Donelly v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, a panel of judges who rode the second circuit ruled, “a majority of the court hold that the expenses petitioner incurred for his work clothes are not deductible expenses. The Commissioner and the courts are in agreement that in order for the expenses of work clothes to be deductible the clothes must be of a type specifically required as a condition of employment, and they must not be adaptable to general usage as ordinary clothing.” Judge Learned Hand dissented on the matter of the “work apron” worn by James Donelly, who was a plastics polisher, but various courts have ruled with the Donelly majority.

As far back as 1992, the Texas ethics commission ruled that “legislators may not use political contributions to pay laundry and dry cleaning expenses” for their clothing while they are in Austin. The Louisiana Board of Ethics issued a 1998 ruling that found, “Ordinary clothing expenses may not be paid with campaign funds.” The Rhode Island Board of Elections issued a policy in 2004 forbidding the expenditure of campaign funds on clothing other than, in essence, t-shirts or hats bearing the candidate’s name. The Maine Clean Election Act forbids the use of those funds for “attire for political functions such as business suits or shoes.” Arizona forbids the use of campaign funds for clothing, “other than items of de minimis value that are used in the campaign, such as campaign ‘t-shirts’ or caps with campaign slogans.”

These state election laws mirror federal law, which, in the 1979 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act, forbade the conversion of campaign funds to the personal use of the candidate or any other person. Federal regulations issued in 1995 made clear that the purchase of clothing was a “personal use.”

New York Election Law, Section 14-130, is less specific. But the principle is the same. The New York Law states, “Campaign funds for personal use. Contributions received by a candidate or a political committee may be expended for any lawful purpose. Such funds shall not be converted by any person to a personal use which is unrelated to a political campaign or the holding of a public office or party position.”

In the matter of Governor Paterson’s pants, aides to the governor claim the candidate later reimbursed the campaign for the clothing expenses, which were listed as “constituent services.” The News quotes Reverend Sharpton declaring “it’s time to move on” and the city comptroller, William Thompson, as calling the questions over Mr. Paterson’s campaign expenditures “incredibly trivial.” A Paterson spokesman has even claimed that some of the questions are sexist.

* * *

This newspaper is in the camp that opposes regulation of campaign expenditures as an unconstitutional restriction on the freedom of speech. A politician’s suit, has, even before the founding of America, been considered an expense for which a politician’s backers could lend a hand. Before Samuel Adams left Boston for the first Continental Congress, some of his backers bought him a new suit and a pair of shoes. But we are also in the camp that reckons politicians are not above the laws and must obey them the same as the rest of us.

The klieg lights are on Mr. Paterson because he was installed because Mr. Spitzer was deemed to be insufficiently ethical. It is natural to hold him to a high standard. The Spitzer-Paterson administration, after all, tried to get the IRS to investigate Senator Bruno’s use of a state helicopter. Is Mr. Paterson prepared to stipulate that his uses of campaign funds would all pass muster with the Internal Revenue Service?

Mr. Paterson “has given conflicting accounts,” is how the New York Times put it Saturday in a news article reporting, among other discrepancies, that a woman was paid $1,000 for what the new governor’s aides say was work on Mr. Paterson’s campaign, though the woman herself denies having done any campaign work. Mr. Paterson himself has evinced a strange combination of candor and impenetrability. Before New Yorkers “move on” from this issue, they deserve a clearer explanation of on what Mr. Paterson spent his campaign funds. Until then he will be a figure weakened as badly as Governor Spitzer was by the Troopergate scandal, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see calls for him to begin accounting for his campaign expenditures personally, completely, and once and for all, under oath.