Money in Politics This Week
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.