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Money in Politics: This Week in New York

By ReformNY – 05/18/12

Every Friday, the Brennan Center will be compiling the latest news concerning the corrosive nature of money in New York State politics—and the ongoing need for public financing and robust campaign finance reform. We’ll also be linking to dispatches from around the country highlighting the national scope of this crisis. This week’s links were contributed by Robert Friedman.

For more stories on an ongoing basis, follow the Twitter hashtags #moNeYpolitics and #fairelex.

New York Campaign Finance and Ethics News

1. WYNC touts the findings from the new joint report by the Brennan Center and the Campaign Finance Institute, Donor Diversity Through Public Matching Funds. A significantly greater number of small donors contributed to campaigns in New York City, which matches donations of less than $175 at a six-to-one ratio, than contributed to state-level elections, where no matching exists. The results also evidence greater participation by minorities and low-income individuals under New York City’s public matching fund system. The report notes the ongoing campaign to institute a similar system for New York State elections, suggesting that small donor public financing could increase the diversity of the donor base for state elections.

2. Super PACs are already dominating this federal election cycle, and an article from Crain’s New York Business suggests they may play a major role in New York City elections as well. "There will be super PACs," said New York Republican State Committee Chairman Ed Cox. "It's impossible not to have them. They're a part of the process now." Such organizations could put unlimited dollars behind policy issues or mayoral candidates, according to some sources. Nonetheless, heightened disclosure requirements and a vigilant city Campaign Finance Board, according to the Board’s former general counsel, Laurence Laufer, may mean that these organizations work within greater restraints in New York City than at the federal level.

3. After more than a decade of accusations of misusing public funds, the law has finally caught up with the former New York State Senator Pedro Espada. A federal jury convicted Espada of four counts of theft, and he now faces up to forty years in prison. The charges stemmed from Espada’s unlawful use of over $400,000 belonging to a health clinic he helped found in 1978. Espada became known statewide in 2009 after taking part in a coup against party leadership shortly after the Democrats gained a narrow majority in the Senate. Two other Senators involved in that political turmoil – Hiram Monserrate and Carl Kruger – recently pleaded guilty to separate corruption charges.

National Campaign Finance and Ethics News

1. The Federal Elections Commission continues to press Congress to extend the ban on using campaign funds for personal use, according to The Hill. The ban currently covers candidates and candidate committees, but the FEC is urging Congress to extend it to reach campaign funds held by all political committees, including Leadership PACs and party committees. The Department of Justice has echoed the FEC’s concern, noting a “dramatic rise” of theft of funds intended for use in a campaign. To date, Congress has not taken action to respond to the FEC’s recommendation.

2. An op-ed published in The Columbus Dispatch examines the distaste for Citizens United expressed on both sides of the political aisle. Particularly troublesome to congressional representatives is the lack of transparency, and both Republicans and Democrats interviewed cited the need for increased disclosure. “There are national groups dropping in and out of communities without it being clear as to their interests,” said Rep. Mike Turner, a Dayton, Ohio Republican.

3. Proponents of increased disclosure of campaign contributions and curbing rampant spending in politics won a victory this week. Last month, in Van Hollen v. FEC, the District Court for the District of Columbia struck down FEC rules that undermined a federal law requiring organizations that make electioneering communications to disclose their major donors. The Huffington Post reports on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ recent decision denying a stay of the District Court’s judgment.  While the FEC chose not to appeal the initial ruling, two private groups intervened to seek a stay. The Court of Appeals rejected their request two to one.

4. Some suggest that secretive spenders will find loopholes to exploit even after the Van Hollen decision. In an article on Slate, Richard Hasen argues that mandated disclosure for “electioneering communications,” which stop short of urging listeners and watchers to vote for a particular candidate, could lead to an increase in “independent expenditures,” which do expressly encourage voting for or against a certain candidate. While this express advocacy could cause the groups to lose tax-exempt status, Hasen notes that the FEC’s thin history of enforcement may lead to groups taking that risk. Another possibility Hasen flags is that the Supreme Court could hear the case, leading to a potential stay of the new disclosure requirements.

Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Public Financing, NY Reform

Money in Politics: This Week in New York

By ReformNY – 05/11/12

Every Friday, the Brennan Center will be compiling the latest news concerning the corrosive nature of money in New York State politics—and the ongoing need for public financing and robust campaign finance reform. We’ll also be linking to dispatches from around the country highlighting the national scope of this crisis. This week’s links were contributed by Matthew Ladd.
For more stories on an ongoing basis, follow the Twitter hashtag #moNeYpolitics and #fairelex.

New York Campaign Finance and Ethics News

1. State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries reiterated his strong support for public campaign finance in an interview on MSNBC this week, urging fellow state lawmakers to pass the Fair Elections Act before the end of the legislative session. Jeffries noted that Gov. Cuomo’s backing will be crucial to the success of the Fair Elections Act: “We need his leadership on this issue, and I’m convinced if he decides to lead and move this forward, we can get meaningful campaign finance reform in New York State.”

2. A new report issued by the Center for Working Families examines how money in politics led taxpayers to foot the bill for the new Yankee Stadium. In 2006 Yankees ownership paid over $300,000 to a lobbying firm run by former Bronx Assemblyman Roberto Ramirez—the largest lobbying fee reported that year—as well as other influential lawmakers including former state senator Joseph Bruno, in an apparent effort to secure funding for the stadium. The report highlights the financing of Yankee Stadium as a case study in the high-stakes influence-peddling permitted by New York’s current campaign finance regime.

3. The Democrat and Chronicle strongly urged Gov. Cuomo to stand behind his promise to prioritize campaign finance reform, recalling a 2010 campaign publication in which Cuomo called on state legislators to “fundamentally alter our system to give voices to all New Yorkers” by creating a small-donor matching program for publicly funded campaigns. Bills that would create such a program have been introduced in the Assembly, but Cuomo’s support is widely seen as instrumental in moving campaign finance reform through the Senate.

National Campaign Finance News

1. A new poll jointly released on Thursday by Democracy Corps, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, and the Public Campaign Action Fund finds that swing voters are likely to support candidates who make campaign finance reform a priority in their legislative agendas. Key findings from the poll suggest that ordinary voters see money in politics as a key economic issue, and that reform alternatives—including small-donor matching programs—have garnered wide support among the voting public. Over a third of the voters polled said that they considered candidates’ willingness to make campaign finance reform a legislative priority as a litmus test for their support. According to David Donnelly, Executive Director of PCAF, “Money and politics is increasingly becoming a ballot box issue. An overwhelming majority of Americans believe there should be common sense restrictions on the amount of money people can contribute to politics and voters—especially independents—will strongly support those who take the issue head-on.” The polling memo can be downloaded here, and individual slides from the poll can be downloaded as well.

2. The results of Thursday’s poll generated articles this week from The Hill, National Journal, and Mother Jones, among other media outlets, some of which noted the poll’s findings that campaign finance reform is supported by a broad swath of the American electorate. Nearly 75% of respondents, for instance, expressed support for limiting the amount of money in politics—a number that included 60% of voters who identify with the Tea Party movement. As Greenberg Quinlan Rosner CEO Stan Greenberg noted, “There aren’t many things we’ve tested that are viewed as negatively as super PACs.” Moreover, less than a quarter of those polled found that limits on campaign contributions interfere with free speech rights.

3. On Sunday, the New York Times editorial board called for the resuscitation of the flagging presidential public financing program. The editorial notes that this will be the first presidential election since the program’s inception in 1976 that neither major-party candidate draws on public funds. Public funding of elections is crucial to the legitimacy of the electoral process: “The era of “super PACs” and secret donors has made public financing more urgent. A system that greatly magnified small donations with high matches would give ordinary citizens a shot at competing with corporations, unions and wealthy donors. It would allow candidates to campaign more instead of constantly begging among the rich. And it would give a challenger a chance to be competitive without the help of a super PAC.

4. The Washington Times reports this week that presidential fundraising efforts this summer cannot afford to overlook the importance of the small donor. Mitt Romney in particular will have to do much more to court small voters, according to Prof. Michael Malbin, Executive Director of the Campaign Finance Institute. Malbin’s analysis of the Romney campaign filings indicates that 64% of the presumptive Republican candidate’s total funds came from donors giving the maximum legal amount of $2500.

5. The Sunlight Foundation reports that former Sen. Richard Lugar’s defeat earlier this week was influenced by outside PAC spending in favor of his challenger, conservative state treasurer Richard Mourdock—including over $2 million from the anti-tax Club for Growth. Although Lugar outspent Mourdock by a 3-to-1 margin, the state treasurer was backed by a “flood of outside money” from PACs and super PACs, as well as from 501(c)(4) “social welfare” groups not subject to FEC disclosure requirements.

6. In a clear indication of the revolving-door nature of Super PACs, ABC News reports that now that Rick Santorum is no longer a candidate for public office, the “Red, White, and Blue Fund” super PAC that spent on his behalf during the race has become a “hybrid PAC” with which Santorum can freely coordinate. The hybrid PAC can also fund some of the costs of Santorum’s ongoing political activity—expenditures that are technically legal, since Santorum currently holds no office and is no longer running a campaign.

7. This week the disclosure website Open Secrets, a collaboration between the Center for Responsive Politics and Center for Public Integrity, published new information on presidential campaign bundlers for the both the Democratic and Republican campaigns.

Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Public Financing, NY Reform

Money and Politics: This Week in New York

By ReformNY – 05/04/12

Crossposted at ReformNY

Every Friday, the Brennan Center will be compiling the latest news concerning the corrosive nature of money in New York State politics—and the ongoing need for public financing and robust campaign finance reform. We’ll also be linking to dispatches from around the country highlighting the national scope of this crisis. This week’s links were contributed by Matthew Ladd.

For more stories on an ongoing basis, follow the Twitter hashtag #moNeYpolitics and #fairelex.

New York Campaign Finance and Ethics News

1. In a radio interview this week, Gov. Cuomo renewed the call for statewide campaign finance reform, decrying the corrosive effect that super PACs and high contribution limits continue to have on electoral politics in Albany. “The power of money in the Capitol is unbelievable,” Gov. Cuomo said. Cuomo has pledged to implement a public financing system similar to New York City’s small donor matching program, as well as to improve enforcement of state campaign finance laws, close campaign finance loopholes and lower contribution limits.

2. The debate over public financing has begun in the state Senate, with the introduction of new legislation by Senator Eric Adams, which would establish a public financing program, create an independent enforcement counsel in the State Board of Elections, lower contribution limits and improve disclosure of independent political spending.  At a press conference called by Senate Democrats, Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson told reporters that public campaign finance would dilute the influence of moneyed interests and enhance the power of small donors. Sen. Tom Duane added that Gov. Cuomo’s support is crucial for a bill’s passage, observing that the governor’s track record on marriage reform and pension benefits is clear evidence that “when he puts his mind to something, he can win.”

3. Reform groups including Citizen Action New York gathered in Albany on Monday to protest the outsized influence of the natural gas industry on the state legislature’s approach to hydrofracking, noting that the industry has contributed more than $1.3 million to state legislators in an effort to buy support for the controversial practice. Sierra Club representative Robert Ciesielski cited a study by Common Cause that the governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, had received over $1.6 million in political donations from the industry—a figure that, given the current state of New York’s campaign finance laws, lobbyists in Albany could well surpass.

4. On Wednesday, Fair Elections for New York held a screening in Albany of “Pricele$$,” a new documentary on the influence of money in politics that includes interviews with former Gov. Mario Cuomo and former U.S. Representative Dan Maffei (D—NY), who is currently running for the seat he lost in 2010. Filmmaker Steve Cowan posted full transcripts of his interviews with Cuomo and Maffei on the film’s website, which include Maffei’s observation he supports public campaign finance “because it means the only people we’ll have to worry about in our day are the taxpayers and constituents in our district, and that’s what we’re supposed to do.”

National Campaign Finance News

1. President Obama’s two most recent fundraising efforts have added at least $2 million to his campaign’s war chest, adding fuel to predictions that 2012 will be the costliest presidential race in U.S. history. The two fundraisers, in which contributors paid $40,000 a plate, are the latest in over 100 campaign fundraisers the president has held since early last year.

2. Nate Silver writes in the New York Times, however, that small contributions ($200 or less) still make up over half of the president’s total contributions during the current election cycle, in contrast to a mere 13% of Mitt Romney’s campaign contributions. Silver notes that in the current era of super PACs and big-ticket fundraisers, the dearth of small contributions does not indicate a weak campaign budget so much as it suggests a lack of support among grassroots Republican voters.

3. In an effort to draw attention to the coercive effects of Super PAC spending on the political process, two leading reform advocates have chosen an unusual strategy: creating a “hybrid” PAC and super PAC whose aim is to remind voters “that money and politics remains an issue in the campaign, and that we have the option of creating political accountability around it.” The announcement came just days before a new report by the Annenberg Center revealed that “Restore Our Future,” the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney’s election campaign, has spend $20 million in deceptive advertisements in early primary and caucus states.

4. Ciara Torres-Spelliscy notes in the Huffington Post that, in a victory for campaign finance disclosure, the FCC has decided to make public broadcasters’ records of how much they charge political candidates or committees for advertisements. The disclosure of these so-called “political files” allows voters to see whether broadcasters in TV or other media are charging some candidates more than others—a potential violation of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. The FCC’s rule, Torres-Spelliscy notes, is in stark contrast to the SEC’s foot-dragging over a recent call for disclosure of the political contributions of publicly traded companies.

5. Redistricting in California’s 53 congressional districts has set off a wave of hyper-partisan fundraising by super PACs, as both parties see California races as crucial to winning a majority in the U.S. House this fall. Super PACs such as American Crossroads, partly managed by Karl Rove, and the GOP Congressional Leadership Fund, to which billionaire Sheldon Adelson has contributed $5 million, are expected to play a leading role. Bill Allison, editorial director of the nonpartisan watchdog organization Sunlight Foundation, predicted that “After the election, it is these donors who will have access and entree to Congress at a level that will be unbelievable compared to what we’ve seen before.”

Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Public Financing, NY Reform

Election Regulations and Voter Disengagement

By Sundeep Iyer – 05/03/12

Crossposted at Huffington Post.

The super PACs and nonprofit groups dominating the 2012 election filed their latest financial disclosures with the Federal Election Commission. The reports showed that these outside groups — some of which do not disclose any information about their donors — are poised to continue playing an outsize role in this year's elections. Karl Rove's Crossroads groups, for instance, raised about as much in the first quarter of 2012 ($49 million) as they did during all of 2011. This breakneck fundraising pace will only accelerate as November approaches.

But this fundraising is not just affecting the ads we see on TV. It may also be having a troubling influence on voter attitudes toward our electoral process. According to a national survey conducted on behalf of the Brennan Center for Justice, 41 percent of Americans already say their vote does not matter because big donors to super PACs have so much more influence than they do. Alarmingly, nearly one in four Americans say they are less likely to vote because of the influence big donors have over elected officials.

This is nothing less than a crisis of confidence in the power of average citizens to effect change through the electoral process.

Yet super PACs are only one reason voters might disengage this November. Across the country, more than a dozen states have passed laws making it harder for eligible citizens to vote. Voter ID laws are the most common — eight states have passed "no photo, no vote" laws since the last federal elections. Several others have adopted laws restricting registration drives, making it nearly impossible for groups like the League of Women Voters to register voters. All told, during the 2011-2012 legislative sessions alone, there have been 24 laws and executive actions restricting access to the polls. These new restrictions could make it harder for millions of Americans to vote in November.

Poorer communities and communities of color will bear the worst consequences of this year's new election law changes. The Brennan Center super PAC survey found that Americans with household incomes under $35,000 are much more likely than the general population to think their vote does not matter in the face of super PACs. That holds true for African-Americans and Latinos, too. Most voting law changes, like voter ID laws, also have their most pernicious effects on people of color. For instance, the Department of Justice recently noted that Hispanic registered voters in Texas are between 46 percent and 120 percent more likely than whites to not have a driver's license or non-driver's photo ID.

The combination of new campaign finance and voting law changes is almost certain to cause voter disengagement this fall, especially among those traditionally marginalized in our political process. Of course, this would not be the first time that America has had problems with voter turnout. In 2008, an election noted for its high turnout, there were still 75 million voting-eligible people who did not vote.

We need structural reform to the way we run our elections, and fast.

Congress can immediately make outside groups less potent by adopting meaningful rules to prevent coordination between candidates and the super PACs that function as shadow campaigns. But Congress can and should do more. Adopting a system of public funding for federal elections would make the voices of average voters matter as much as those of super PAC fat cats.

Modernizing our voter registration system is also long overdue. Registration-related problems have perennially been the biggest obstacle voters face each election season. In 2008, 80 percent of voting-eligible people who did not vote were not registered, and about three million more were prevented from voting because of problems with their registration. According to the Pew Center on the States, there are now 50 million voting-eligible Americans who are not registered.

To expand the voter rolls, Congress should require states to automatically register consenting eligible citizens to vote when they interact with any state agency — and to provide a failsafe procedure to register voters who are left out. In states like Washington, Kansas, and South Dakota, automation has substantially increased the number of registered voters. States should also be required to provide online voter registration, a more convenient, secure, and cost-effective alternative to paper-based registration forms.

Congress alone cannot completely counteract the harmful effects of the new rules governing our elections. But in an election cycle where these rules threaten to undermine voter participation, Congress must act now to soften the blow.

Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Public Financing, Voting Rights & Elections, Voter ID, Voter Registration Drives

Money in Politics: This Week in New York

By ReformNY – 04/27/12

Crossposted at ReformNY

Every Friday, the Brennan Center will be compiling the latest news concerning the corrosive nature of money in New York State politics—and the ongoing need for public financing and robust campaign finance reform. We’ll also be linking to dispatches from around the country highlighting the national scope of this crisis. This week’s links were contributed by Matthew Ladd and Dan Rockoff.

“For more stories on an ongoing basis, follow the Twitter hashtag #moNeYpolitics and #fairelex.”

New York Campaign Finance and Ethics News

1. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver formally introduced a bill this week that would create a statewide voluntary public matching funds program in New York, calling on fellow legislators to pass the bill and make New York state “the model for the rest of the nation in establishing and preserving fair elections.” In a press release accompanying the announcement, Silver noted, “In light of the devastating effects the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has had on federal elections, we in New York should be leading the way in reducing the influence of money in our own elections.” The full bill, which can be read here on the State Assembly website, in addition to providing new contribution limits and enforcement rules, also stipulates that the public campaign fund would be partially financed with money from Wall Street fraud settlements.

2. Media producer and NY LEAD coalition member Marc Weiss, writing for Newsday, called for New York senators and assembly members to support Gov. Cuomo and Speaker Silver in passing public campaign finance legislation, asking, “Do they want to continue business as usual, or do they want to be part of the solution?” Under the state’s current system, Weiss observed, “regular voters feel disconnected from the process and tune out altogether. He went on to cite a Siena poll conducted earlier this year that found 3 out of every 4 New Yorkers would support a statewide campaign finance reform that includes a voluntary small-donor public matching funds program.

3. Washington Post editorial writer E.J. Dionne offered unequivocal support this week for public campaign finance in New York state, pointing out that, like the New York City small-donor matching system on which it is modeled, the state public finance legislation “creates incentives for more people to participate... expands the number of people speaking through their contributions... [and] opens the way for candidates who might otherwise be driven from the competition by established politicians with access to traditional funding sources.” Simply put, Dionne concludes, “it makes our democracy democratic again.”

4. The Nation reminds us why this year presents such a unique opportunity for the passage of public campaign finance in New York, pointing out that the current legislative campaign has garnered the support of the pro-business Committee on Economic Development, Senator Russ Feingold, and an impressive roster of business leaders and philanthropists. But no bill will pass without the public support of Gov. Cuomo; the article finds that public campaign finance presents the governor with the opportunity “to step into the leadership vacuum and provide a rare glimpse of hope on a mission-critical progressive priority.”

5. Former state Senator Carl Kruger was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday for his leading role in a million-dollar bribery conspiracy that exemplified the pay-to-play reputation of the New York state legislature. In imposing the sentence, federal judge Jed S. Rakoff observed that Kruger had engaged in “extensive, long-lasting, substantial bribery schemes that frankly were like daggers in the heart of honest government.” This week also saw closing arguments in the corruption trial of Pedro Espada, Jr., the former state senate majority leader accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a publicly funded healthcare system in order to finance his lavish personal lifestyle.

National Campaign Finance News

1. The New York Times reports that the same wealthy groups that funded the Republican takeover of the U.S. House in 2010 are now mounting an “aggressive campaign” to capture seats in the Senate, one whose final cost will exceed $100 million by November. Much of that money is evidently funding attack ads against Democratic incumbents; for instance, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D—MO) already faces over $2.2 million in television ads funded by the Chamber of Commerce, Crossroads GPS (an offshoot of the super PAC American Crossroads), and other right-leaning groups. Sen. McCaskill said, “You make one company mad by casting a principled vote, and they say, ‘Okay, we’ll just gin up $10 million of our corporate money and take her out anonymously.’ I think if people figure out that’s what’s going on, they’re going to be very turned off by it.”

2. A new national survey conducted by the independent Opinion Research Corporation on behalf of the Brennan Center revealed that “nearly 70 percent of Americans believe Super PAC spending will lead to corruption.” Nearly three out of four survey respondents also found that limiting contributions to super PACs would reduce corruption, and over 50% of both Republicans and Democrats agreed with the statement that “spending in this election is more likely to lead to corruption.” Candidates across the country are taking notice and adopting campaign rhetoric accordingly.

3. The Times also called on the U.S. Senate to require electronic filing of campaign finance reports, finding that while the House already has a system whereby candidates disclose “by a push of a button,” the Senate does not. Under the Senate’s outdated and inefficient system, the Times reports, crucial information is often not disclosed until after voters have already been to the polls.

4. The corruption trial of disgraced former Senator and presidential candidate John Edwards began on Monday. The trial, which is expected to last six weeks, opened with testimony that Edwards knowingly accepted illegal campaign contributions in order to hide an ongoing affair from his ailing wife. Conviction on all six counts would leave Edwards facing up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines.

5. A former aide to U.S. Representative Don Young (R-AK) told the FBI that Rep. Young used campaign funds for personal expenses, including hunting trips, meals, and charter flights. The FBI ultimately cleared Rep. Young of wrongdoing in connection with a budget earmark for a highway, but documents released last week from the investigation show that his aides expressed doubts about “inappropriate” expenses.

Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Public Financing, NY Reform

Money in Politics: This Week in New York

By ReformNY – 04/20/12

Crossposted at ReformNY

Every Friday, the Brennan Center will be compiling the latest news concerning the corrosive nature of money in New York State politics—and the ongoing need for public financing and robust campaign finance reform. We’ll also be linking to dispatches from around the country highlighting the national scope of this crisis. This week’s links were contributed by Matthew Ladd and Dan Rockoff.

For more stories on an ongoing basis, follow the Twitter hashtag #moNeYpolitics and #fairelex.

New York Campaign Finance and Ethics News

1. This week saw the publication of several editorials calling on Gov. Cuomo to maintain his commitment to creating a public campaign finance program in New York state, beginning with a Sunday New York Times editorial that cut to the heart of the matter: “There is no mystery about what New York State needs: do it like New York City.” The Times also noted that Cuomo now has “big-time support” for public campaign finance in the form of the NY LEAD coalition, the subject of a front-page story in the Times last week.

2. On Monday, the Newsday editorial board called public campaign finance “New York’s chance to blunt big donors,” noting that the current contribution limit of $60,800 for a state candidate is over 12 times the national median, and citing a recent report by NYPIRG that found that just 127 donors gave one third of the total amount of money raised by state-level candidates and political parties. The editorial praised Gov. Cuomo for supporting public campaign finance but adds, “better still would be action to make it a reality.” Monday’s Times Union reported that Cuomo’s popularity, together with emergence of the NY LEAD coalition, have created what Citizen Action Executive Director Karen Scharff calls a “unique moment in time” for public campaign finance. A Times Union editorial also highlighted one of the major benefits of public campaign finance: not only a reduction in the influence of corporate money, but a “surge in civic engagement,” based on new information released by the Campaign Finance Institute (below).

3. The Campaign Finance Institute released a new report by Prof. Michael Malbin finding that a state-level public matching funds system would “reverse the importance of small and large donors” in state electoral campaigns, and that “importing something like the city’s program is likely to bring greater participation and equality to the state’s campaign finance system.” Prof. Malbin’s report concludes that a small-donor matching funds program is likely to boost the total percentage of small donations ($250 or less) in state races from 6% to 54%, allowing small donors to be “the most important financial constituents instead of the least important.” The full study can be downloaded as a PDF here.

4. As if to confirm the conclusions drawn by the Campaign Finance Institute, the Wall Street Journal noted this week that hedge funds have contributed tens of millions of dollars to state political candidates and parties within the past few years, and that the amounts are steadily growing: from $4.1 million in 2006 to over $7 million in 2010.

5. Advocates for Fair Elections for New York held a well-attended press conference in Albany on Wednesday, urging lawmakers to pass a public campaign finance bill before the end of the legislative session in June. The press conference included statements from NY LEAD, Citizen Action, the Brennan Center, NYPIRG, and Citizens Union, among other organizations and community groups from across the state.

6. An Albany grand jury is deciding whether to indict former Sen. Majority Leader Joe Bruno on new charges of receiving kickbacks while he was in office. Bruno, who was earlier convicted of fraud by a federal district court, saw that conviction overturned on appeal thanks to a Supreme Court ruling that limited the definition of “honest services fraud,” which includes accepting bribes and kickbacks. Bruno spent nearly $2 million in campaign contributions to fund his legal defense during his trial in 2009.

7. In other news concerning disgraced New York state senators, former state Sen. Carl Kruger, facing over a decade in prison for taking over $500,000 in bribes during his tenure in office, appealed to a federal judge for mercy this week in a sentencing memorandum that emphasized his “humble and modest life.” He will be sentenced in Manhattan federal court next week. Meanwhile, testimony in the embezzlement trial of former Sen. Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr. revealed that Espada took in over a quarter of a million dollars from his Soundview Health Care Network, ostensibly for “unused vacation time,” in order to reimburse Soundview for the “personal expenses” he charged to its corporate American Express card—expenses that included tickets to sporting events and bills from restaurants near Espada’s home in Mamaroneck.

National Campaign Finance News

1. 2012 is shaping up to be the most expensive presidential race in history, with Mitt Romney’s campaign now estimating that it will spend a total of $1 billion in the general presidential election this summer and fall, including $800 million from joint fundraising between the Romney Campaign and the Republican National Committee. The campaign also states that another $200 million will likely be spent by super PACs.

2. The Democratic Party and the Obama campaign raised $53 million in March in preparation for the upcoming general election season. Obama campaign manager Jim Messina pointed out that the average contribution to the campaign in March was small—a little over $50—but the president ahs also held big-ticket joint fundraisers with his victory committees and the Democratic National Committee, events at which wealthy donors can write checks for up to $38,500.

3. The Obama White House has also shown itself friendly to lobbyists; as the Times reports, “the regular appearance of big donors inside the White House underscores how political contributions continue to lubricate many of the interactions between officials and their guests.” Although the Obama administration has publicly declared that it will not accept contributions from registered lobbyists, this does not stop big donors with access to the White House from bringing lobbyists with them on their visits.

4. The Presidential Election Campaign Fund, which allows presidential candidates to opt into using volunteered public funds to finance their campaigns, is steadily shrinking, according to FEC records. Those records show that in 2010 fewer than 7% of Americans chose to make a donation to the fund, far below the funds’ high-water mark of 29% in 1980. President Obama was the first major-party candidate to opt out of public funding for both the primary and general elections in 2008, and both he and Mitt Romney are expected to opt out of the system this year as well, leading some to wonder whether the PECF will last much longer. The New York Times called upon candidates to fix the presidential public financing system – and to stop selling White House access to big campaign donors.

Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Public Financing, NY Reform

Latest News from the Brennan Center

By Madeline Friedman – 04/17/12

See all these stories in full and all the latest news on the Brennan Center website.

Read and sign up for the Brennan Center’s new voting newsletter – the most comprehensive digest of the latest news affecting voting.

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Coalition Pushes for Public Financing of Elections

A new coalition is pushing for public campaign financing in New York State, and they’re not of the type of profile you’d expect, the New York Times reports. Members of New York Leadership for Accountable Government, brought together by the Brennan Center, are CEOs, executives, and political leaders — many of whom have donated large amounts of money to political campaigns in the past. The coalition proposes that Albany adopt New York City’s public financing system to let state legislators focus less on fundraising and more on actual policy and constituents. This would be a double victory for all New Yorkers, the Brennan Center’s Fritz Schwarz, Jr.  told the Times. “You have lower amounts of money that can be given, and No. 2, ordinary people become engaged in political campaigns and candidates change their approach to campaigning.” Read the Times and Newsday editorials in favor of public campaign financing.

Judge Diane Wood Keynotes Jorde Symposium

Judge Diane P. Wood has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for Seventh Circuit since 1995, so she knows more than a little something about the keys to effective decision-making. Yesterday, for the Brennan Center’s Jorde Symposium, she delivered a lecture on the topic called, “When to Hold, When to Fold, and When to Reshuffle: The Art of Decision Making on a Multi-member Court.” Judge Wood peppered her lecture with movie quotes and examples from decisions she was involved in throughout her career. She explained what she thought were the main reasons appellate judges choose to write separate dissenting opinions: They are compelled out of a strong matter of principle, they do not believe the majority rule will provide the necessary guidance, or they feel the need to correct errors when they think a panel is mistaken.

Surveilling the NYPD’s Surveillance

The NYPD's decision to monitor Muslims solely on the basis of their religion is not conducive to building trust, the Brennan Center’s Faiza Patel and Michael Price argued on Al Jazeera. If the NYPD insists on modeling its intelligence operation as a mini-FBI, they said, it should be subject to the same level of oversight the FBI faces — from an independent inspector general. The AP reported that the Department’s “counter-terrorism” efforts since September 11, 2001 included secret surveillance of American Muslims based on their ethnicity alone. Unlike the NYPD, which operates independently, law enforcement in Chicago and Los Angeles work with the FBI to build relationships with Muslim communities to develop and share credible information. A Brennan Center report found that an evidence-based approach is the best way to deter “homegrown terrorists.”

Modernization is the Real Way to Protect Votes   

States across the country continue to pass restrictive voting laws, claiming that they protect citizens from voter fraud. Instead they should be encouraging participation by modernizing the voter registration system. “The paperless systems are much cheaper than the old forms and far more accurate,” The New York Times wrote. The Times called for states to adopt an electronic registration system and expand the rolls, a proposal the Brennan Center first introduced in 2009. Modernization would cost less, add millions to the rolls, and do much more to curb any real possibility of fraud.

From the Brennan Center Blog

DISCLOSE 2012 Will Make Mandatory Disclosure Mandatory – Mary Kate Hogan

• For decades, the one piece of campaign finance reform that Democrats and Republicans agreed about was the importance of disclosure. Here is their chance to prove they are serious.

Jim Crow Legacy Continues Today – Keesha Gaskins

• We are seeing a war on voting that can only be compared to the dark, discriminatory past of the Jim Crow era.

Louisiana’s Public Defender Fees are Poor Fiscal and Legal Policies – Roopal Patel

• A client- and conviction-dependant funding scheme in Louisiana places well-intentioned public defenders in conflicting positions relative to their clients.

It Takes a Village to Raise a Battle Cry – Ethan Smith

• In the battle to defend voting rights, it is easy to demonize Florida.

What We’re Reading Today

• A round-up of quick hits, clips, and opinion pieces touching on key issues of democracy, justice, liberty and national security.

Read more blog posts here. To have the blog in your RSS feed, click here.

• April 18 – Monica Youn testifies at a congressional forum on campaign finance reform in Washington, D.C.
• April 18 – Wendy Weiser testifies on restrictive voting laws at a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C.
• April 19 – Nicole Austin-Hillery participates in a University of Memphis panel on racial justice advocacy and reform.
• April 25 – The Brennan Center co-hosts a debate on the scope of executive power with the American Constitution Society.
• April 27 – Diana Kasdan presents a workshop on voter suppression at the 4th Annual Civil Rights Summit in Kansas City, Missouri.

• Liza Goitein and Faiza Patel wrote about religious and racial profiling for The Hill's Congress Blog.
• USA Today’s story about spending in West Virginia’s Supreme Court races mentioned a Brennan Center study showing that fundraising of state races has increased exponentially since 1989.
• The Nation cited a Brennan Center survey showing how voter ID laws affect women, whose last names often change with marriages, and whose address might change due to separations or divorces.  
• Nicole Austin-Hillery told The Washington Post that Americans should learn from — not turn from — racial issues that arise from events such as Trayvon Martin’s killing.
• Adam Skaggs told UPI that the Supreme Court’s decision to evaluate a recent Montana court decision on corporate campaign funding “gives justices a chance to review the ‘real-world consequences’ of Citizens United and the devastating effect it has had on our democracy."
• A Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed questioning if there is indeed “true merit” in judicial selections used the Brennan Center’s numbers on judicial elections spending.
• Lee Rowland helped a New Republic blogger figure out why voter suppression isn’t a protest cause.

To read more Brennan Center In The News, click here.

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Tags: Newsletter, Campaign Finance Reform, Public Financing, NY Reform, Liberty & National Security

Money in Politics: This Week in New York

By ReformNY – 04/06/12

Crossposted at ReformNY

Every Friday, the Brennan Center will be compiling the latest news concerning the corrosive nature of money in New York State politics—and the ongoing need for public financing and robust campaign finance reform. We’ll also be linking to dispatches from around the country highlighting the national scope of this crisis. This week’s links were contributed by Matthew Ladd and Dan Rockoff.

For more stories on an ongoing basis, follow the Twitter hashtag #moNeYpolitics and #fairelex.

New York Campaign Finance and Ethics News

1. A report issued this week by the Center for Working Families finds that Pedro Espada’s contributions from the real estate industry skyrocketed once the ex-state Senate Majority Leader took over the housing committee. The report not only finds that Espada’s fundraising shot up by over 650% once he became Chairman of the housing committee, but that over half of the funds Espada raised from 2009 to 2010 came from the real estate industry—and that only three contributions, totaling a mere $800, came from his own district. The full CWF report can be read here.

2. An analysis by Common Cause of donor data from the most recent state legislative election reveals that the vast majority of contributions in state races originate outside candidates’ home districts. For instance, the data shows that two state Senators, Republican Mark Grisanti and Democrat Tim Kennedy, raised from 75% to 90% of their campaign contributions from wealthy donors living outside their districts. Additionally, about $3 of every $4 donated to Syracuse’s two state Senators—Democrat David Valesky and Republican John DeFrancisco—came from corporations or groups, not individuals, and most of that money came from outside the legislators’ district. Susan Lerner, of Common Cause New York, noted that most contributions for state races come “not from the actual voters” but from small clusters of zip codes near the Capitol, Wall Street, and the Upper East and Upper West sides of Manhattan.

3. The Times Union editorial board issued a strong call for Gov. Cuomo and the state legislature to improve the transparency of the new Joint Commission on Public Ethics, citing the commission’s recent refusal to release its voting records as a red flag that the commission is too secretive. Given that the commissioners of the new ethics watchdog are appointed solely by the governor and legislative leaders, “when a commission this important and this powerful votes, the public ought to know who is voting and how they vote.”

4. Following the conviction of Yonkers Council Member Sandy Annabi and her political mentor Zehy Jereis on charges of corruption, US Attorney Preet Bharara stated publicly that “the investigation is ongoing,” suggesting that the bribery scandal surrounding Annabi’s sudden support for two development projects may grow. As an editorial in the lower Hudson Valley Journal News opined, “nothing in recent experience suggests, for an instant, that these prosecutions will be the last.”

5. The Buffalo News called on the New York state legislature to refrain from voting itself a pay raise in the absence of progress on needed reforms. The paper urged lawmakers to “focus on the matters that reform state government – the public financing of campaigns, for example –“ before they can consider benefiting themselves. New York legislators are already paid a base of $79,500, making them some of the nation’s “best-paid state legislators.”

National Campaign Finance News

1. In a clear victory for campaign finance disclosure, a federal district court judge ruled late last week that a Federal Election Commission rule permitting the sources of some corporate donations to remain hidden violated the intention of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law. The rule required disclosure only for corporate contributions that were explicitly earmarked for political purposes, creating an easy loophole for corporate donors who could simply give to campaigns without declaring what the funds were for. Although the rule does not apply to super PACs, the loophole was wide enough to let in $138 million in undisclosed contributions during the 2010 Congressional elections, 80 percent of it to Republican candidates.

2. Public hostility to Citizens United and the broadening perception of partisanship on the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to play a major role in the 2012 elections. Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster who works with Priorities USA Action, a Super PAC supporting President Obama’s re-election, said that his polling and focus groups showed that Citizens United “is probably the best-known decision since Bush v. Gore.” Garin said: “To the extent it would be a motivating issue this year, it would be for Democratic and independent voters around the Citizens United case.”

3. In California, Kinde Durkee pleaded guilty Friday, March 30 to mail fraud after embezzling $7 million from more than 50 campaign clients, including Senator Dianne Feinstein. Durkee, called the “Madoff of Campaign Finance,” was investigated after submitting falsified campaign finance reports to elected officials. Durkee’s case is especially notable for its enforcement and disclosure lessons: As one California paper noted, “Despite a history of fines for campaign disclosure violations issued by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, Durkee maintained a client list that included some of California’s most prominent Democratic politicians, political organizations and nonprofits.”

Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Public Financing, NY Reform