Today, a national group that seeks to lessen the influence of big campaign donors plans to unveil a $1 million advertising campaign aimed at promoting New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's public financing plan. The group hopes that the effort will help persuade the governor and lawmakers to keep it in the spending proposal, which must be approved by April 1, as they negotiate in the coming weeks.
The public financing measure is a top priority of government watchdog groups and liberal activists, who see it as a powerful way to diminish the sway of deep-pocketed donors over New York’s government.
The advertising campaign is being financed by Public Campaign Action Fund, which plans to broadcast a television commercial in targeted areas around the state beginning Monday, and will also advertise online and on mobile devices.
It's time to clean up Albany and raise the voices of everyday New Yorkers.
“The goal of the advertising is to rally the public to support passing comprehensive reform,” said David Donnelly, the executive director of Public Campaign Action Fund. “It’s clear that Albany is broken. Everyone knows what the answers are, and they could just simply pass something in one day.”
Advocates for a public financing system include government reformers, labor unions and the Working Families Party as well as a number of wealthy individuals, including Jonathan Soros, a son of the billionaire financier George Soros. Although they are ultimately seeking to reduce the impact of money on politics, they have spent considerable sums over the past two years promoting their proposal in New York.
In his budget, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, proposed setting up a public financing system based on the one used in New York City, where individual contributions of up to $175 are matched at a rate of $6 to $1. The public financing measure is part of a package of ethics and campaign fund-raising measures Mr. Cuomo included in his budget in an effort to address a series of recent corruption scandals in Albany.
In an interview after he introduced his budget, Mr. Cuomo did not sound optimistic about the chances that the public financing plan would be part of the final spending plan. He predicted that it would be an issue in the re-election campaigns of state legislators later this year, but said he wanted to draw attention to the issue in the meantime.
New York’s campaign finance system is broken. Too often big money interests drown out the voices of everyday New Yorkers. It’s time to change the way politics works in Albany. It’s time for Fair Elections for New York.
CLICK HERE to learn more about the campaign.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
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