The millionaires are at it again, pushing for New York state to adopt taxpayer funding of political campaigns a la New York City. Here’s betting it goes nowhere — not because of Republican opposition, but because Democrats see the dangers.
Public campaign finance would be (to steal Sen. Chuck Schumer’s favorite phrase) a dagger at the throat of democracy and the state Democratic Party.
Start with the former. Because the city’s system has taken away election decisions from the voters and handed it to the Campaign Finance Board, which administers the public-funding program — and has arguably made the last two mayors.
Look at the last race. Bill de Blasio’s path to the Democratic nomination was cleared last year when the CFB shut down the campaign of the other major left-wing candidate, then-Comptroller John Liu, by refusing to release the matching funds he’d qualified for. The excuse was the federal probe into Liu’s past fund-raising, where some crimes plainly occurred — but the feds never linked Liu himself to any wrongdoing.
Liu is an excellent campaigner and often a clever politician — and de Blasio’s rise only began once he was sidelined. If the CFB hadn’t quashed Liu, the split on the left might’ve put Bill Thompson or Chris Quinn in the lead; at the least, a runoff would’ve been far more likely. Instead, de Blasio soared to a win, passing the 40 percent line as the moderate vote split.
The CFB’s move back in 2001 was even more anti-democratic. When the 9/11 attacks pushed Primary Day back two weeks, the board pretty much ordered all candidates to stop campaigning, and refused to release the funds that would’ve let them.
The CFB deemed the time inappropriate for politics — but what does anyone’s belief about what’s “appropriate” in the wake of horror have to do with keeping elections clean?
Yes, campaigning in a city still in deep shock would have to be delicate. But a time when New York’s future seemed in peril (no one knew when the next attack might come) was a vital time to talk politics.
The attack shifted every voter’s priorities, every New Yorker’s idea of what we need in a mayor. But thanks to the Campaign Finance Board, the candidates couldn’t engage with the public about the new reality, showcasing their ideas and their personal strengths in light of the crisis.
We’ll never know how the Democratic race — or the general election that Mike Bloomberg barely won — would’ve turned out if Mark Green, Freddy Ferrar, Peter Vallone Sr. and Alan Hevesi had been able to address the city’s drastically changed circumstances.
In short, taxpayer funding gives enormous power over elections to the mandarins who control that funding. There’s no sign the board meant to choose the mayor in 2001 or 2013 — but this power is just begging for abuse, should serious partisans come to control the CFB.
Spoiler alert: That may soon happen.
But first, the threat to the Democratic Party — which, here in the city, has become a dog wagged by the Working Families Party tail.
The WFP isn’t just about left-wing politics: A more honest name is “The People Getting Government Money Party” — since it’s a coalition of 1) groups living on public grants, like ACORN and its successors, and 2) public-employee unions, whose members get paid by the city. Progressivism serves their most selfish interests, not just their highest ideals.
And while unions and nonprofits are important parts of the Democratic coalition, they’re hardly its natural rulers.
The reasons for the WFP’s rise are many — but its gaming of the public-finance system is a big one. This includes its use of a secretive for-profit arm, Data and Field Services, to provide sometimes off-the-CFB’s-books help to its chosen candidates. The well-organized party’s ability to guarantee a solid level of donations — which then get matched 6-to-1 by the taxpayers — is another huge boost.
Founded in 1998, the WFP now routinely picks the Democratic primary winner at all levels in city politics (and thus usually the winner in November, too). It plainly commands the first loyalty of three of the top four city officials — Mayor de Blasio, Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Public Advocate Letitia James.
And guess who decides who controls the Campaign Finance Board? The mayor and the speaker.
Appointments are for staggered five-year terms, so de Blasio and Viverito (and hence the WFP) don’t control the board that controls city politics — yet.
But a system’s that’s on track to hand them that power sure doesn’t look like one that any loyal Democrat would want to take statewide.