Who’s looking out for No. 1?
Rest assured that state legislative leaders Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Carl Heastie and their respective Democratic majorities in the Senate and Assembly are on the case.
Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that you, the average citizen, are the No. 1 they’re looking out for.
The blatant gutting of a campaign finance reform law last week to make it easier for Albany’s finest to keep their jobs – and harder for voters to get viable Election Day choices – makes clear who legislators consider their top priority.
News flash: It’s not you.
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The only positive thing citizens can take from this slap in the face to democracy is that the Senate vote was so close. Immediately after the vote, a Senate official announced the tally as 32-31 to weaken reform, before the count was changed to 34-29.
John Kaehny, the executive director of Reinvent Albany who helped blow the whistle on what legislators were up to as the session wound down, said reformers actually had the votes to kill the rollback until some last-minute arm-twisting by Senate Democratic leaders as the vote was being taken. He said three senators, whom he would not name, changed their votes even though staffers had given assurances that they would not weaken the public funding system set up just last year.
The 2022 reform tried to lessen the impact of big money in state politics by setting up a public funding program in which small donations of up to $250 to state candidates would be matched on ratios of anywhere from 6-1 to 12-1, depending on the office and the amount raised.
The bill passed last week undercuts that reform by eliminating the $250 cap so that donations of any size are eligible for public matching funds on the first $250. It also raises the threshold for both the number of in-district donors and the total contributions a candidate must raise in order to qualify for the matching funds. Both moves will significantly tilt the playing field toward incumbents, giving voters fewer viable choices.
“I don’t think anyone outside of the Legislature supported the bill that they passed,” Kaehny said, citing the number of newspaper editorial boards and good-government groups that came out vehemently against what one senator dubbed the “incumbent re-election protection act.”
In one respect, New York Democrats’ preoccupation with their own survival makes sense – and could even be seen as a form of legislative self-defense for the state.
The combination of in-your-face Southern state gerrymanders by GOP-controlled legislatures, and the fact that a similar Democratic effort here was thwarted by judges more conscientious than those elsewhere, helped elect just enough New York Republicans to throw control of the House of Representatives to the GOP. We’ll all live with the consequences of that.
But that does not justify joining a race to the bottom when it comes to democratic principles. It does not justify giving voters less of a voice by making elections less fair and giving the average challenger less of a chance against an incumbent enjoying all the advantages of an officeholder.
This regressive bill is now in the hands of Gov. Kathy Hochul and will seriously test the theory that electing more women matters because females govern differently. Albany’s infamous “three men in a room” form of governing in which the governor, Senate majority leader and Assembly speaker controlled all significant outcomes has been transformed into two-women-and-a-man in the room. The fact that one of those women, Stewart-Cousins, would go along with what could only be considered business as usual does not inspire confidence that this is a new Albany.
A Hochul veto, on the other hand, would provide a denouement that would be the best of both worlds. For one thing, it would preserve the reforms that voters deserve. At the same, foiling this Legislature backsliding would highlight for the public once again – as if more proof is needed – just where too many legislators’ primary interest really lies.