Opinion

No money, no speech — NYC’s ugly campaign laws

When Bill Thompson conceded the Democratic mayoral nomination to Bill de Blasio Monday, he offered a terrific argument against campaign-finance reform — even if he didn’t realize what he was doing.

The argument came in the form of a complaint about matching funds. On Thursday, the city’s Campaign Finance Board decreed a primary runoff couldn’t be “reasonably anticipated.” The decision froze Thompson out of $463,111 in matching funds that might have kept his bid afloat as votes were counted.

Thompson was peeved. “Nearly a week after the primary . . . the votes have not been counted, and it is by no means clear when they will be counted,” he said. “For all we know, the Board of Elections might not finish counting paper ballots till the date scheduled for a runoff has come and gone. Under those circumstances, it is impossible to even campaign, let alone offer a meaningful choice to Democratic voters.”

In short, his campaign was fatally crippled by an arbitrary decision by a bunch of unaccountable bureaucrats. Translation: ­Campaign funds equal political speech.

That’s similar to the finding the US Supreme Court reached in Citizens United. The only difference is that the court was talking about private campaign expenditures while Thompson is complaining about public funds. Still, the basic principle is the same: Election spending is a form of political speech.

“We can’t have what happened to me as a candidate happen to any other candidate for office in the future,” Thompson said. “There has to be some fundamental reforms.” We agree.

But in contrast to Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who wants to impose on the entire state the city model that hurt Thompson — we’d go in the other direction. A good starting point might be to eliminate arbitrary limits such as the $150,000 state cap on individual contributions to a political action committee. Open that up and New York would see more political speech overnight.

Bill Thompson may think he’s making the standard liberal push for public funding. But in tying funding to speech, he’s making the case for fewer limits, not more.