What We Have in Common with Bill Murray
*Cross-posted from ReformNY
We're feeling a little bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. In the movie, weatherman Phil Connors is sent to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the ceremonial emergence of the groundhog who shares his first name. To his horror, Phil discovers that each day after that dawns not anew but as that same Groundhog Day.
For us, the nightmare is waking up every day and reading about the same
people doing the same thing: New York politicians, with their nearly
100% reelection rates and few viable challengers, legally raising
astronomical amounts of campaign cash that, after the election, they
can use for things clearly unrelated to campaigning.
Next week
we’ll get a fresh reminder of this constant fundraising; a law passed
in 1995 is set to cause contribution limits, already sky-high, to escalate even further. Every four years (this is the third iteration), the limits are adjusted according to the Consumer Price Index, which has risen almost 12% since the last adjustment in 2002.
The resulting change
in the New York contribution limit for individuals giving to
gubernatorial candidates, shaking out to around $4,000, will actually
be larger than the entire allowable contribution in 21 states.
In the words of Phil/Bill: “There is no way this winter is ever
going to end as long as that groundhog keeps seeing his shadow. I don't
see any way out of it. He's got to be stopped. And I have to stop him.”
We
echo the sentiment and vow to keep pushing for more reasonable
contribution limits and other critical campaign finance reform.
