At a recent Brennan Center event, panelists offered a variety of valuable perspectives on the urgent need for New York State to adopt public financing and comprehensive campaign finance reform.
Professor Michael Malbin, Executive Director of the Campaign Finance Institute, presented new data supporting an increase in small donor participation in New York State elections. If the state adopts New York City’s model of public campaign financing, Malbin predicted a ninefold increase in the percentage of funds generated by people donating less than $175.
Dr. Hazel N. Dukes, President of the NAACP New York State conference, explained why campaign finance reform is a civil rights issue. Dr. Dukes observed that politicians who represent minority districts are forced to raise money out-of-district to remain financially competitive under our current system. This, she said, means that minority communities do not get the representation they deserve.
Lisa Genn, an attorney in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center, moderated the panel and also presented maps illustrating data provided by Professor Malbin and the Campaign Finance Institute. These maps demonstrated that the large donors who dominate the current campaign finance system live in a small collection of predominantly white and wealthy neighborhoods. By contrast, small donors — whose participation is encouraged and amplified by New York City’s multiple match public financing system — live in every neighborhood in the city. This suggests the ability of public financing to empower underrepresented communities.
Michael J. Petro, Executive Vice President of the Committee for Economic Development, described the widespread business support for public financing and campaign finance reform. He explained how public financing promotes competition, and allows elected officials to focus on good public policy — which is good for the economy, and good for business.
Professor Zephyr Teachout of Fordham University School of Law concluded with a passionate address about her own experiences exploring a run for Congress in 2005. She explained how fundraising affects the thinking of even the best-intentioned politicians and advocates. In order to demonstrate viability, every candidate must attract large contributors, whose concerns are very different than those of potential constituents. Teachout argued that public financing that matches small contributions — as currently proposed for New York State — would have allowed her instead to appeal to a much broader spectrum of donors to launch a run for office.
Many constituencies are fighting for public campaign financing in New York State. These panelists added their voices to a chorus of citizens that includes leaders from New York’s civil rights, business, labor, religious, academic, and reform communities. As they forcefully concluded, it is time for the legislature to act.
The word ‘radical’ derives from the Latin word for root — radicalis, so radical politics quite literally involve altering society at its roots. The playbook for radical change closely resembles the winning strategy for the smartphone favorite, ‘Angry Birds.’ Any casual ‘Angry Birds’ enthusiast knows that one cannot win by launching birds at individual pigs suspended in precarious structures. Rather, one must target the foundations of the structures themselves and bring them toppling down on top of the unassuming pigs. So too with radical politics.
Recent developments in the area of campaign finance reform contain the telltale signs of ‘Angry Birds’ politics.
Last week marked the 10-year anniversary of the enactment of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), better known as McCain-Feingold. The landmark piece of legislation closed the soft money loophole, which allowed large individual, corporate, and union donors to make unlimited contributions to political parties. It also created more robust regulation for campaign advertisements that air in the days immediately before an election or primary.
When the Supreme Court issued its decision in Citizens United, opponents of campaign finance reform hailed the decision as the death knell for McCain-Feingold. Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin declared BCRA to be “decimated.” Former Republican National Committee general counsel Jan Witold Baran praised the Supreme Court for declaring “most of the fabled McCain-Feingold law unconstitutional” and cheered the end of “legislative meddling with campaign speech.”
But, as former Senator Russ Feingold insisted on the decade anniversary of the legislation he championed, BCRA remains almost entirely unharmed, but its foundation has collapsed under a barrage of ‘Angry Birds’ attacks. In a Roll Call interview, Feingold argued that he and Senator McCain “put a brick on top of a wall, and the brick is intact, but the wall was smashed.” The soft money loophole, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, allowed the political parties to collectively spend more than $170 million on campaign advertisements during the 2000 election, 55 percent of advertising spending during that cycle. Some of the top soft money donors in the 2000 election included unions, such as SEIU and AFSCME, and corporations, such as AT&T, Microsoft, and Phillip Morris, which before Citizens United could not spend directly on campaign ads.
The soft money loophole remains closed, but now, thanks to Citizens United, unions and corporations need not spend through the vehicle of a political party in order to influence the outcome of an election. In the 2010 midterm elections, the first after Citizens United, outside groups spent more than $300 million, almost a 50 percent increase (adjusted for inflation) over the amount of soft money spent on ads in the 2000 cycle. So far in the 2012 election cycle, outside spending has increased more than fourfold over the same point in the 2010 election. In many primary elections, super PACs and other outside groups using corporate and union funding have dramatically outspent the candidates. In the Alabama and Mississippi primaries, super PACs funded 91 percent of the ads.
Such a paradigm shift in how our elections are financed is clearly a symptom of an ‘Angry Birds’ style attack on our campaign laws. Citizens United overturned law that dates back to the Tillman Act of 1907 and the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. As long as there have been mass politics in the United States, there has been law to protect mass democracy from corporate influence. Until now.
But Citizens United is not the only evidence of ‘Angry Birds’ democracy afoot. The Supreme Court may overturn the Affordable Care Act by narrowing the federal government’s power under the Commerce Clause to a pre-New Deal interpretation. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker refused to negotiate reduced benefits with unions and instead dismantled the collective bargaining rights that the state innovated. On the left, the Occupy movement has responded to regressive tax policies, deregulation, and attacks on safety net programs by condemning the underlying issue of income inequality.
In an era of Angry Birds politics, political victory cannot be achieved through incremental change. Improvements at the margins are too precarious when opponents are willing to expend great political energy to destabilize the foundations. With respect to campaign finance reform, creative policymakers must restock the aviary with proposals for federal public financing that will amplify the voices of small donors. Policies that reduce barriers to voting would promote civic engagement, making it harder for special interests to co-opt people through disingenuous spending sprees.
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.
3. Bill Mahoney of NY PIRG writes in Wednesday’s Times Union that in order for a public campaign financing program to succeed in New York state, it must be accompanied by an overhaul of the state’s current ineffective system. Comprehensive campaign finance reform in New York, Mahoney writes, must also include closing the loophole on “housekeeping” contributions to party committees, setting up regular audits of candidate’s campaign accounts, and giving stronger enforcement power to the state’s toothless Board of Elections.
4. Former Bloomberg aide and convicted felon John Haggerty still has friends in New York: the DailyNews reports that three former aides to ex-Gov. Pataki have created a legal defense fund to pay his attorneys. While legal, the defense fund raises ethical questions concerning responses in Albany to illegal conduct by those working in government. Haggerty was sentenced last December to up to four years on charges of money laundering and grand larceny, for his siphoning $750,000 from election funds to buy a house in Queens.
1. The US Senate held a legislative hearing this week on the DISCLOSE Act of 2012, a bipartisan bill that would create more detailed disclosure requirements for super PACs, corporate donors, unions and other politically active organizations. In the face of Republican opposition to the bill, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) declared that the flood of spending unleashed by Citizens United “corrodes the very essence of our democracy.” The announcement of the hearing on the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration includes a webcast of the hearing, and testimony offered by the Brennan Center for Justice in support of the DISCLOSE Act can be read here.
3. The New York Times opened this week with two hard-hitting editorials on campaign finance and legislative ethics. Sunday’s Times pointed out that the floodgates opened in 2010 by Citizens United have resulted in more than $92 million dollars of outside spending during the current election season—more than double the amount spent by outside groups during the same period in 2008, and six times the amount spent in 2004. The misguided ruling has not only “allowed wealthy organizations and individuals to drown out other voices in the campaign,” but has also set a dangerous precedent by narrowing the definition of corruption to include only bribery, a characterization that is “intellectually dishonest,” since “the broader problem is the ability of moneyed interests to put into office those who support their political agendas or financial interests.”
4. Monday’s Times called attention to a related problem: super PAC spending may allow some federal government contractors to indirectly contribute to political campaigns, which would violate a ban on contractor contributions that has stood since 1940. Although many super PACs still adhere to the decades-old ban, the Times reports that Mitt Romney’s super PAC has accepted donations totaling nearly $900,000 from at least five separate government contractors, a decision whose legality is uncertain given “the new unregulated, unlimited jungle of campaign finance” created by Citizens United.
6. An Associated Press review of Mitt Romney’s campaign contribution records sheds some much-needed light on the “bundlers” who have steered millions of dollars to Romney’s war chest, and whose identities the Romney campaign has declined to make public. Although federal law only requires disclosure of bundlers who are also registered lobbyists, both GOP and Democratic presidential candidates have traditionally disclosed the identities of their top fundraisers. The Romney campaign is a rare holdout.
7. Partisan gridlock and bureaucratic inertia have rendered the FEC increasingly unable to exercise its enforcement power, Politico reports, finding that the FEC’s inaction has left “campaigns and super PACs to test the boundaries of the new campaign finance world” with little fear of effective oversight by the federal government. The Campaign Legal Center compared the FEC commissioners to “the cops in the doughnut shop” for their chronic inaction.
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. The latest Newsday op-ed to call for public financing in New York state, by Make the Road New York member and community organizer Maria Magdalena Flores, explains why public financing is needed to combat apathy among working-class and minority voters. Flores offers some startling statistics: in the most recent state elections for New York assembly, state senate and governor, a mere 6% of contributions came from donors giving $250 or less, compared to a whopping 64% in the last city council elections. New York City’s public financing program has opened the door “for meaningful participation from working-class communities,” resulting in a city council that is not only more racially and economically diverse, but that is also better positioned to represent the interests of ordinary New Yorkers.
2. On Thursday, the Times Union editorial board strongly urged Gov. Cuomo to continue pushing for campaign finance reform, especially in light of its harsh criticisms of last week’s redistricting deal. New York’s campaign finance laws are “embarrassingly weak,” creating a regime that invites abuse and lets “the special interests overwhelm ordinary voters.”
4. The state report accompanying New York’s report card singles out the ineffectual State Board of Elections for special criticism. The report card cites NY PIRG’s Bill Mahoney for the view that the Board is underfinanced, understaffed, and unable to enforce its regulations, and concludes that “the 19.5 million citizens of the Empire State can agree on one thing: Albany is defined by dysfunction and corruption.” The State Integrity Investigation also highlights another anti-corruption report, jointly published in February by the University of Illinois political science department and its Institute for Government and Public Affairs, finding that New York’s number of federal public corruption convictions since 1976—over 2,500 and counting—is the highest in the nation.
5. As if to illustrate the findings of the State Integrity Investigation, the federal corruption trial of former state Senator Pedro Espada, Jr., continued this week, with Judge Frederic Block excoriating Espada’s attorney for using questionable courtroom tactics, and with Espada characterized during trial as a “puppet master” for his alleged embezzlement of funds from the Soundview Healthcare Network. The Times reports that more than a dozen witnesses testified on Thursday that Espada had paid them for personal services with funds from a subsidiary of Soundview.
National Campaign Finance News
1. A New York Times editorial this week blasted the Campaign for Primary Accountability, a super PAC that has raised nearly $1.8 million with the stated purpose of defeating long-serving incumbents in both parties. As the Times pointed out, while political entrenchment is a problem given partisan gerrymandering, this is a case where the end does not justify the means. Super PACs give corporations and the wealthy disproportionate influence: for instance, 95% of the money donated to the Campaign for Primary Accountability comes from just “four wealthy men with conservative bents.”
2. As the Republican presidential primaries continue into the spring, the remaining candidates are maxing out their donors and may be unable to sustain their current spending levels, allowing super PAC spending to drive their campaigns. For example, Mitt Romney’s super PAC Restore Our Future, which is overwhelmingly funded by just a handful of wealthy individuals, spent more than $12 million in February on attack ads.
3. Payday lending companies contributed more than a quarter of a million dollars last month to Mitt Romney’s super PAC Restore Our Future, a finding that emerged as major payday lenders are drawing heightened scrutiny from federal regulators at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Romney campaign refused to comment on the specific contributions.
4. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney fended off criticism this week that President Obama spends too much time fundraising, arguing that the President spends the “vast preponderance” of his time on official duties. The incident serves as a reminder that 2012 presidential election will likely be the most expensive in history, which creates additional costs for the voting public: less time for public officials to focus on the interests of their constituents. For reformers and public officials alike, this should suggest the growing need for public financing of elections.
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.
2. Opening arguments began this week in the federal corruption trial of Pedro Espada, Jr., and his son Pedro Gautier Espada, who are accused of using the Soundview Healthcare Network as “their own taxpayer-funded piggy bank” by funneling more than $500,000 from the organization and spending it on cars, spa treatments, and other personal luxuries. The former state Senate Majority Leader and his son are charged with theft, embezzlement, and misapplication of federal funds, as well as conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
3. Evidence introduced in the ongoing corruption and bribery trial of former Yonkers Councilwoman Sandy Annabi has cast the spotlight on another public official: state Senator Tom Libous, who, according to witness testimony, pushed a law firm to hire his son—and inflate his starting salary—in exchange for steering government business toward the firm’s practice.
National Campaign Finance News
1. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released this week shows that nearly 70% of Americans believe that super PACs should be illegal. The poll also found that broad bipartisan support for banning super PACs: the level of opposition to super PACs by Democrats (70%) and Tea Party supporters (69%) was nearly identical, and well over half of Republicans (55%) favored banning the groups as well. Additionally, of the 69% polled who believed that super PACs should be banned, over half felt “very strongly” about the issue—an indication that Citizens United is squarely at odds with public opinion on corporate campaign spending.
2. A nationwide coalition of campaign finance reform groups called this week for all presidential candidates, including President Obama and the four remaining Republican primary contenders, to reveal the names of their major “bundlers,” the fundraisers who steer millions of dollars to campaign war chests. Although federal law only requires presidential candidates to disclose the names of bundlers who are also registered lobbyists, major candidates in both parties disclosed other bundlers as well during the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections—a practice currently followed only by the President. The coalition letters to individual candidates are available here.
3. The AFL-CIO Executive Council released a statement on Wednesday that roundly condemned the flood of corporate spending unleashed by Citizens United, praised current efforts at campaign finance reform, and threw its support behind public campaign financing as an effective way to “enfranchise voters and ensure that wealth does not yield disproportionate influence.” The AFL-CIO also called for greater disclosure of corporate contributions and campaign expenditures, better contribution limits for wealthy individuals, and other reform efforts “to bring about greater fairness, openness and participation in elections.”
4. The Washington Post finds that candidate and campaign spending during the GOP primary has been cut in half since the last presidential primary, and that the influence of super PAC spending has been amplified by weak fundraising. According to David Donnelly of the Public Campaign Action Fund, traditional fundraising has been supplanted by “this new phenomenon of people writing huge checks in support of the candidates. You’re replacing excitement with those who have a huge amount of money.”
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. Amidst the media’s recent focus on independent redistricting, New York City Council member Dan Garodnick encourages New Yorkers not to lose sight of the importance of campaign finance reform, highlighting the many benefits that the New York City public matching funds system has created for small donors, candidates for public office, and the voting public. Last week, Garodnick and 26 other City Council members sent a letter to Gov. Cuomo in support of his renewed pledge to support a statewide bill for public campaign financing.
2. Former US Representative Anthony Weiner claimed in an interview late last week that in the fall of 2010, he was privy to allegations that current Representative Michael Grimm (R—NY)—who has lately come under scrutiny for accepting questionable campaign donations—was himself attempting to extort political contributions from a well-known rabbi. Grimm’s attorney promptly released a statement denying the allegations, calling Weiner’s remarks part of a “Democratic smear campaign.”
3. The Republican candidate for the vacant seat of the New York State Assembly’s 145th District, Mickey Kearns, is facing a formal complaint that he violated state campaign laws by accepting individual and corporate contributions for the upcoming special election over the legal limit. How the complaint will be handled by the state Board of Elections, whose enforcement power is widely seen as ineffectual, remains to be seen.
National Campaign Finance News
1. “Even in an age of super PACs . . . small-dollar fund-raising matters: It provides not only cash, but a way to engage volunteers, measure enthusiasm and organize get-out-the-vote efforts.” According to the New York Times, this explains a critical vulnerability of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, which has “relied overwhelmingly on his network of high-dollar donors.” By contrast, both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich enjoyed bursts of small-donor enthusiasm following their primary victories. Unlike his competitors, Romney has failed to connect with grassroots donors, in large part due to widespread perception that Romney’s wealth obviates the need for contributions from small donors.
2. The Washington Post, however, notes that far from relying on small donors, the Santorum and Gingrich campaigns have been “kept on life support by billionaire supporters,” namely Foster Friess and Sheldon Adelson, “who have taken advantage of changes in campaign law to pour millions into independent super PACs.”
In an article in the New York Review of Books, Washington Post reporter Ezra Klein discusses two recent books about corruption — one, by Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig, about how campaign contributions foster political corruption and second, by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, on how lobbying does the same. Klein argues that partisan polarization is more responsible for policy outcomes than the influence of money or lobbyists. Consequently, he suggests that campaign finance reform and more stringent lobbying rules would produce only modest changes in the way Washington works.
But it’s not clear that any set of campaign finance reforms or anti-lobbyist regulations would restore trust in government or ratchet down partisan polarization. Such policies, if they worked, would likely have more modest effects: a bit more trust in government, maybe, and a bit less of a reliance on lobbyists, hopefully.
It’s also the case that Abramoff’s form of corruption and Lessig’s theory of corruption do more to illuminate the workings of small issues in American politics than big ones. In that, they’re like quantum mechanics. Abramoff’s methods are fine for winning favors for small clients, and Lessig’s model goes a long ways toward explaining why politicians might listen when Hollywood signs up some high-powered lobbyists to tighten copyright protections, but neither is much of a help when it comes to the major clashes in American politics. You need a theory of general relativity to explain the big stuff. And that theory is partisan polarization.
Klein’s analysis narrowly focuses on the influence of money and lobbyists on legislators’ votes. In this, he overlooks the broader role of such forces in shaping the content of laws. Roll call votes represent only a fraction of legislative activity. One could imagine that money and lobbying play a much more substantive role in a committee’s markup of a piece of legislation. They also play a critical role in setting the legislative agenda, which probably impacts an industry’s bottom line more than the final up or down vote. Countless pieces of legislation never make it to the floor of either congressional chamber because of special interest influence. Still more legislation never gets an up or down vote in the Senate because of the mere threat of filibuster. Preventing legislation from getting a vote is simply a subtler approach to defeating legislation.
Lobbying reform and campaign finance reform — and public campaign financing in particular — have the ability to change the rules of the game in our democracy. Their impacts would be felt at every stage of the legislative process, not just at a final roll call vote. Moreover, while they may not singlehandedly combat distrust in government or partisan polarization, they are two among a constellation necessary policy prescriptions — including redistricting reform, voter registration modernization, and filibuster reform — that are necessary to revitalize and improve our democracy. No single reform has the capacity to fix Washington.
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. Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey has joined the push for comprehensive campaign finance reform—including the creation of a statewide public financing program—by joining the NY LEAD coalition, a group of prominent civic and business leaders committed to public campaign financing in Albany. Kerrey explained in a statement, “At the moment there is little hope that Congress will enact a Federal law that provides a voluntary system of public financing. In New York – thanks to the leadership of Governor Cuomo – it could happen. By doing so New York would give power back to small donors in State campaigns and set an example to the U.S. Congress.”
2. John Liu’s campaign treasurer, Jia Hou, has been arrested on charges of fraud and obstruction of justice. Coming a mere two weeks after one of Liu’s most prominent Democratic fundraisers was indicted on similar charges, the arrest casts further doubt on the credibility of Liu’s fundraising practices. It also highlights the crucial role that robust disclosure and enforcement provisions play in New York City’s public campaign finance program, given Hou’s failure to adequately identify donors in her filings to the Campaign Finance Board.
3. The New York Times observes that Gov. Cuomo’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year will make it more difficult for the state Comptroller to audit state contracts before they are signed, arguing that in Albany, “where waste and corruption are too often the default mode,” the value of meaningful pre-audits by the Comptroller’s office should not be taken lightly, regardless of the efficiency gains that the new audit process would achieve.
4. New York will lose two congressional seats as a result of the 2010 census, and Congressional legislators appear to have noticed: those in the greatest danger of losing their seats in the redistricting process have given a combined $169,527 to lobbyists working on the process in the New York state legislature. Representative Nita Lowey, a Democrat, gave $10,000 to the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee’s housekeeping account in November 2011, and Representative Richard Hanna, a Republican, has given $10,000 to the Senate Republican Campaign Committee since last year as well.
National Campaign Finance News
1. The New York Times finds a significant amount of overlap between presidential candidates and their super PACs, suggesting that the theoretical independence of super PACs does not work in practice. The article singles out the relationship between Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and the “Restore our Future” super PAC that supports him, finding, for instance, that both the campaign and the super PAC have both paid a single consulting firm, TargetPoint, for assistance with direct mail. TargetPoint’s founder, Alexander Gage, admitted that the situation looked “ridiculous.”
2. A Democratic state legislator in Kentucky is advocating for a public financing system for judicial candidates running for the state supreme court. State Representative Jim Wayne (D-Louisville) said: “It’s conceivable that special interests could buy Supreme Court justices and put them on the bench. We think that our system is vulnerable to this type of purchase of Supreme Court justices.” The proposal would let judicial candidates obtain voluntary public financing after raising $10,000, including $5,000 in small contributions from at least 200 donors.
4. The billionaire Koch brothers announced this week that they would donate a combined $60 million to super PACs to defeat President Obama’s re-election campaign, in what US Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) calls a “gross perversion of the political process.” Blumenauer notes that in the final three months of 2011, Obama’s re-election campaign and the DNC raised a similar amount from 583,000 separate contributors giving an average of $55 apiece, and that the Koch brothers’ multimillion-dollar threat would “cancel out the efforts of half a million American citizens.”
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