Last week, New York may have taken a step toward\nsignificantly changing the way elections are financed. Currently, candidates for state office in New\nYork \u2013 like much of the rest of the nation \u2013 rely on private contributions to\nfuel their campaigns. Not surprisingly,\nmany of those who give those contributions are expecting that their donations\nwill help their interests \u2013 be they personal or occupational \u2013 after the candidate\nwins elective office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New York law makes it easy to pull in donations from those\nwith deep pockets; the state has the highest campaign contribution limits (of\nany state that has limits) in the nation. \nUnder state law, one can make a legal campaign contribution of over\n$115,000 to a political party and can donate nearly $70,000 to candidates for\ngovernor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who writes those checks? \nThe wealthy and those who have business before the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For those seeking \u2013 or holding \u2013 elective office, hitting up\nthose who are most interested in contributing makes good economic \u2013 and\ncampaign \u2013 sense. Under state law,\nmaking one phone call to a possible $10,000 contributor is a more efficient\napproach than making 100 calls to potential $100 contributors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While it is clearly more efficient, it raises the risk of\ncorruption. A big campaign donor with an\neconomic interest before the state is expecting an elected official to be\nresponsive, or that donor may contribute to a challenger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And New Yorkers have seen the corruption that has resulted\nfrom a campaign financing system that relies on a relatively small number of\nbig contributors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What can be done to reduce that risk? Under various U.S. Supreme Court decisions,\nthere isn\u2019t too much that can be done to reduce the influence of the wealthy\nand powerful, or to reduce the risk of the corruption that stems from some of\nthose relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are two approaches, however, that can reduce those\nrisks and meet constitutional muster. \nFirst, the state can dramatically restrict the ability to make campaign\ncontributions from those seeking government contracts or from professional lobbyists\nseeking government action. Roughly half the\nnation has some form of \u201cpay-to-play\u201d limitations; New York should too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second, the state should do all it can to remake its\ncampaign finance system from one that relies on a small number of large donors\n\u2013 and the resulting higher risks of corruption \u2013 to one that relies on a large\nnumber of small donors. New York should\ndrastically reduce the size of its legal campaign contributions and establish a\nvoluntary system of public financing. A\npublic financing system typically allows for a public match for small\ncontributions. In New York City, for example, every $1 raised\nin small contributions is matched with an $8 donation in public resources. New York City\u2019s system was approved\noverwhelmingly by voters as part of a city government overhaul after a series\nof scandals and it\u2019s been steadily improved over more than 25 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which brings us to last week. As part of the budget agreement last March,\nthe governor and state lawmakers agreed to establish a commission that would be\ncharged with setting up a voluntary system of public financing, thus setting up\nan alternative to the private contribution system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The budget was approved on March 31st<\/sup> and the\ncommission was charged with establishing the public financing system by\nDecember 1st<\/sup> of this year, giving the commission eight months to do\nits work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In all-too-frequent Albany fashion, the governor and the\nlegislative leaders failed to choose the commission members until last week,\nfrittering away more than three months of the eight months available to the\ncommission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The nine members now have to hit the ground running in order\nto set up the public financing system. \nAs mentioned earlier, they don\u2019t have far to look for a model of how it\nis to be done (see New York City\u2019s program, which is three decades old). <\/p>\n\n\n\n But it must do its work in an open and transparent way, not\nsimply follow the dictates of Albany\u2019s top political leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, it is a start. \nAnd once their work is concluded, the commission members may have offered\ncandidates a clear alternative to the state\u2019s \u201cpay-to-play\u201d campaign financing\nsystem. An alternative that relies on\nclean public resources and one that relies on the support of a large number of\nsmall contributors. A system that\nreduces the risk of corruption and is far more likely to engage voters of\naverage economic means. Last week was an\nimportant step. Now the commission must\nquickly get to work to come up with a proposal and engage the public. For New York\u2019s ailing democracy, there\u2019s not\na moment more to waste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, New York may have taken a step toward significantly changing the way elections are financed. Currently, candidates for state office in New York \u2013 like much of the rest of the nation \u2013 rely on private contributions to fuel their campaigns. Not surprisingly, many of those who give those contributions are expecting that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2269,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions\/2269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}