The Honorable Andrea Stewart-Cousins
President Pro Tempore and Majority Leader, New York State Senate
The Honorable Carl E. Heastie
Speaker, New York State Assembly
Via Email
March 7, 2024
RE: Fair Elections for New York Coalition Supports FY 2025 Executive Budget
Dear Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins and Speaker Heastie,
The Fair Elections for New York Coalition writes in enthusiastic support of the FY 2025 Executive Budget’s provision of $114.5 million in funding for the New York State Public Campaign Finance Program. We urge you to match this amount in your respective one-house budgets and ensure the full amount is included in the final state budget.
Fair Elections for New York is a coalition of more than 200 organizations across New York State. For more than two decades, our members have fought to counter the outsized influence of wealth in our politics. Our members include organizations dedicated to labor, voting rights, racial justice, housing, education, and healthcare. We are committed to the success of New York’s public financing program because a democracy that is responsive to the needs of everyday New Yorkers, and not just the wealthy few, is vital to all of the many issues for which our members fight.
We applaud your leadership in securing the passage of the Public Campaign Finance Program in 2020. This groundbreaking program is the strongest response enacted anywhere in the country to counter the corrosive effects of unlimited wealth in our political system. At a time when Americans across the country are fed up with the role of big money in politics and are eager for change, New York is leading by example and providing a robust model for the rest of the nation to follow.
We are heartened that more than 300 candidates from across the state – including many sitting officeholders from rural, urban, and suburban counties – have registered for the program for the 2024 legislative elections. This momentum is a testament to the program’s popularity among voters and candidates alike.
When you delivered this reform to the people of New York, you promised to ensure “a government that is accountable to all of the voters of the state regardless of wealth or position.” In this pivotal year, we urge you to ensure full funding for the Public Campaign Finance Program, a laudable investment in the inclusive, representative democracy that New Yorkers deserve.
Respectfully,
The Members of the Fair Elections for New York Coalition
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