« Atlantic Yards: A Rat Tsunami | Main | Despite nearness to major transit hub, Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Center mall shows contrast with European counterparts transit hub »
June 27, 2011
U.S. Supreme Court Threatens Campaign Finance Reform in NYC
Untapped New York
by Janos Marton
New York City’s campaign finance system, often lauded as the best in the nation, has a secret. It’s under attack.
On the heels of last year’s devastating Citizens United decision that opened the floodgates for more corporate spending in elections, the United States Supreme Court may be about to severely curtail the role of public financing in elections. The case, McComish v. Bennett, involves a challenge to Arizona’s public financing system, specifically a provision granting “trigger funding” to participating candidates facing well-funded opponents. Following oral arguments in late March of this year, it appears the Supreme Court is likely to declare “trigger funds” unconstitutional, a determination that could have wide-ranging implications and affect the way we run elections here in New York.
...In the case of a massive, multi-hundred-million-dollar project like Atlantic Yards or the planned Vornado Tower, where the developers stand to make far more than their colossal investment, it becomes clear why a real estate mogul might want to drop a mere million dollars to win a Council seat, if that outlay virtually assured approval of a controversial building or complex.
Trigger funds are a key safeguard against this type of brazen manipulation of the system, because they prevent all but those with Bloomberg bucks from overwhelming the political process with money. Though certainly a robust campaign finance system is not without its cost — the CFB distributed $27 million in taxpayer dollars in 2009 — the expense is relatively small in relation to its effectiveness in limiting the power of special interests in shaping government policy and public works. If the Supreme Court rules trigger funds unconstitutional, it is likely that local candidates will find themselves trapped in a financial arms race, where the temptation of selling out to special interests for campaign cash will be increasing difficult to resist.
Posted by eric at June 27, 2011 10:52 AM