2013 NYC Races and Super PACs

The growing prospects that Super PACs may enter the 2013 New York City races has enormous implications for the framework of the city’s politics, beginning with the fact that the timeline for the race has now been completely shaken up.

Under the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, Super PACs may collect unlimited donations for use in political campaigns as long as they do not coordinate their efforts with the candidates they are supporting.

This undermines the New York City’s campaign finance system, which uses taxpayers’ money to match small contributions, usually with a 6-1 ratio, while imposing strict limits on how much donors can give and caps on how much a candidate can spend.

Donations by businesses doing business with the city are even more stringently regulated, although labor unions aren’t similarly hamstrung. This means more well known politicians have an enormous advantage, as long as they can raise the maximum, which serious candidates do.

The only way for an outsider to challenge the system was the Bloomberg method, which calls for a wealthy individual spending as much as they need from their own resources on advertising to overcome the entrenched political establishment. Now, it is possible for someone who is not a billionaire or even a millionaire to run and raise some money within the city financing system and be backed by a Super PAC funded by a relatively few individuals. It wouldn’t take the $100 million plus that Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent last time; a more manageable $50 million would make such a canddiate viable.

It isn’t clear that the business leaders who could fund such a PAC are ready to commit such large sums. Nor is it clear who the candidates will be. But a Super PAC means a campaign could be launched as late as a next spring if the worry level rises and an alternative emerges to any existing candidates.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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