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New York, at last, has a statewide system for public matching funds. Candidates for the state Legislature — and governor, attorney general, and comptroller two years from now — can receive contributions from small donors and have them matched to increase their value. This will, in theory, permit anyone running for office to focus far more on poorer people within their neighborhoods than the wealthy far beyond them — since matching funds are only unlocked from donations, up to $250, from within the district.
But this being a program created in Albany, there are loopholes — and one, in particular, threatens to upend the whole system. There is no spending limit for participating campaigns. A politician can see each of their contributions matched as much as twelvefold by public money and still spend however much they’d like, whether it’s from powerful political action committees or wealthy donors. (Self-funders, like Michael Bloomberg, would still be barred from receiving public funds.)
It’s a bizarre new reality that doesn’t exist for municipal campaigns in New York City, which are subject to strict spending caps if participating in the matching funds system.
New York City’s system, administered by the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Board, functions well. Straw donor scandals are a reality, as well as campaigns that too often exist to ply friendly consultants with public funds, but a vast majority of races are run legitimately and audited closely. That is one strength of the CFB: how much it scrutinizes individual campaigns and how much compliance it demands of those who decide to run. There have even been arguments that the CFB is too tough, creating a barrier to entry for first-time, outsider candidates who don’t know how to hire the right treasurer to ensure no laws are broken.
The state system, naturally, has the opposite problem. For decades, campaign finance in New York has been something like the Wild West, with candidates routinely flouting rules—the old Senate majority leader, Joe Bruno, once used campaign cash to buy a pool cover — and getting away with it because the patronage-ridden Board of Elections barely (or selectively) brought enforcement actions. Donation limits have long been inordinately high and it wasn’t an exaggeration to say New York, until the last few years, had one of the very worst campaign finance systems in the country.
Under state law, only one in three legislative campaigns is subject to a post-election audit in any one cycle. In New York City, every campaign gets audited and many are fined. The only condition that triggers an automatic audit for state campaigns is when a candidate receives more than $500,000 in matching funds: a total above the maximum an Assembly candidate could possibly receive in a primary and general election combined.
Without effective oversight, the new state campaign finance system could be rife with abuse and fraud. Fear of the CFB keeps most city campaigns in line. Absent state scrutiny, it will probably be left to federal prosecutors to root out instances of corruption or law-breaking. That’s far from ideal. The state must effectively police itself before law enforcement gets involved.
This is especially true because the money at stake is much larger than any seen in the city system. The state budget allocated $100 million to matching funds, which wouldn’t be a problem if audits were reserved for every campaign.
What might happen is the worst of all worlds: a faulty, failed campaign finance program that justifies every criticism lodged at the public funding of campaigns. The CFB has survived all these years because it is relatively well-run. No mayor has ever felt any pressure to defund or destroy the CFB. It’s an accepted part of the municipal political process.
But it’s not yet a durable reality on the state level. For public financing to work, it will need closed loopholes and real oversight. Otherwise, a lot of taxpayer cash is going to be poured down the drain.
Ross Barkan is a journalist and author in New York City.
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Ross Barkan , 2024-05-06 20:32:04
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