New York looks like it will have some form of a voluntary system for publicly financing state government elections. Unfortunately, far too much of the program is unnecessarily complicated and untested.\u00a0 In addition, while the commission lowers New York State\u2019s ridiculously high campaign contribution limits, it still allows donations far in excess of those allowed for runs for federal office, including the President.\u00a0 Lastly, the commission has advanced new schemes to make it harder for minor political parties to operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before getting into the details, let\u2019s recap how we got here. The commission was originally established as\npart of the state budget deal that came together in late March. The law required the commission to finish its\nwork by December 1st<\/sup>, just eight months later. At that time, Governor Cuomo promised that\nthe commission\u2019s work would result in a program that was a model for the\nnation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, when it came to setting up the commission, the\ngovernor and the state legislative leaders dragged their feet. The governor and the Legislature finally\nappointed commissioners in early July, allowing three months to be frittered\naway. When the appointments were made,\nthe governor inserted the head of the state Democratic Party into the\ncommission, an unusual move that put the head of one political party involved\nin developing the campaign rules for all other parties \u2013 an obvious conflict of\ninterest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With only three months to go, the commission held its first\nmeeting. At that meeting, the head of\nthe Democratic Party pushed hard for the commission to change the rules for how\nminor political parties operated instead of conducting a focused public debate\non creating a system of public financing of campaigns for state elective\noffice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a series of public forums, experts, academics and\nadvocates testified that the commission should focus its efforts on adapting the\nwell regarded New York City public financing system for all state races. The City\u2019s program has existed for over three\ndecades and is widely viewed as a model for the nation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the commission ignored that advice and instead advanced\nan untested, complicated program that is dramatically different from the road-tested\nCity system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It seemed like the governor, the legislative leaders, and at\nleast some of the commission, were hell-bent on undermining their own work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what did they come up with?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The commission established a system of public financing, but\ndifferent from what advocates recommended. \nThe New York City system allows contributions up to $250 to be matched\nby public funding at a ratio of $8 to $1. \nSo a $100 donation, for example, turns into a $900 contribution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, the commission approved a plan that has a complicated\nsliding scale matching system. For\ncontributions up to $50, there will be a $12 to $1 match; for the next $100 a\n$9 to $1 match; and for the next $100, an $8 to $1 match. Matches are only allowed for contributions up\nto $250 from donors living in the district. \nCould be a good idea, but untested and extremely complex to administer\nand enforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The commission lowers campaign contribution limits a lot,\nbut they are still high. For example,\nunder current law, a donor can make a contribution to governor of up to\n$69,700, a shockingly high number. Under\nthe commission plan, that number drops to $18,000. But the national average for gubernatorial\ncandidates is up to $7,000 and no one can contribute more than $6,000 for\ncandidates for President. New York City\nlimits contributions for Mayor to no more than $2,000 for candidates running in\nthe public financing program. $18,000\ncampaign contributions for statewide office are still way too high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the commission\u2019s plan the New York State Board of\nElections will administer the program, although with some tweaks. The State Board of Elections is a political\ncreature \u2013 run by the two major political parties \u2013 and has been viewed as\nineffective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And, the commission added one more unnecessary measure by\nadvancing new obstacles for minor political parties to effectively participate\nin New York elections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of building on a successful New York City program,\nthe commission instead offers an untested and incredibly complicated public\nfinancing scheme, allows high campaign contribution limits, continues to rely\non a politically-driven entity for administration and enforcement, and establishes\nnew obstacles to minor party participation. \nIt\u2019s clear that the commission failed to do its job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the law, the governor and state lawmakers have until\nDecember 22nd<\/sup> to fix the commission\u2019s work. They must fix it so that New York State has a\nprogram that is truly a model for the nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New York looks like it will have some form of a voluntary system for publicly financing state government elections. Unfortunately, far too much of the program is unnecessarily complicated and untested.\u00a0 In addition, while the commission lowers New York State\u2019s ridiculously high campaign contribution limits, it still allows donations far in excess of those allowed […]<\/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-2335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335","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=2335"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2337,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335\/revisions\/2337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}