No one who has ever been involved with any New York City campaign has nice things to say about the Campaign Finance Board. It is a pain in every conceivable body part, its staff is maniacal and prone to unreasonable demands, it fills the lives of campaign staffers with endless paperwork and never-ending stress. It is awful, it is burdensome, it is frustrating.
But it is also the guardian and sole arbiter of millions of taxpayer dollars that people can use on behalf of their own political advancement, provided those people reach some minimum thresholds and live up to some very basic rules. Designed to ensure fairness and equality, these rules are, not surprisingly, often the target of political players looking to exploit them for the sake of their own enrichment and empowerment. Such is almost always the fate of rules: They are a drag on those who follow them, and are turned into mockeries by the people who evade them.
As recent reports published by City Hall show, that seems to be exactly what is going on: Some candidates are living up to the rules, while others, such as those entangled in the hazy relationships with the Working Families Party and its for-profit but not-at-all-separate corporation, seem to be pushing the rules’ limits. There are reasons to be skeptical, given the lack of clarity from the financial disclosures, contradictory answers provided to explain them and the remaining questions about whether candidates are paying fair market value for the services provided (such as when a Manhattan district attorney candidate has already been charged much more than a public advocate candidate running citywide for what is supposed to be similar work). At the very least, candidates involved appear to have tried to squeeze every last bit of spirit out of what should be the nation’s top system for promoting democracy. And there is reason to fear they have done much worse than that.
This behavior is, to put it mildly, unfortunate, and the kind of thing voters should have on their minds as they make their decisions in the Sept. 15 primary, in the potential run-offs and in the general election. Rules exist not to be bent to their brink, but to be followed in good faith. Sure, the campaign finance laws might—might—just barely allow for what has happened here and in other similar instances, much as the City Charter just barely allowed for the mayor and 29 Council members to slip in a term limits extension which was not at all the intention of the voters who twice approved referendums barring their officials from having more than two terms. We have reached a sad day in city politics when these are the sorts of arguments brandished by people who are already or want to become New York’s leaders.
The call for better leadership should ring out louder and more widely than just the people involved in this latest situation. Though there is good reason for the Campaign Finance Board to be wary of publicizing its investigations into candidates’ questionable behavior in the middle of the election cycle for fear of affecting outcomes, there is even better reason for it to let people know when behavior has set off internal alarm bells. Waiting until after the elections are held and results are in sounds noble, but the reality is that slapping a candidate with a fine and reprimand after he or she is in office severely limits the efficacy of the Board and the rationale for candidates to obey its rules. Just look at Miguel Martinez, the top CFB scofflaw, who racked up his penalties while sitting calmly in his Council seat for years—and would likely have won a third term if the unrelated charges which he pled guilty to had not caught up with him. Once they win, politicians are very hard to remove from office.
CFB investigations certainly could affect the outcome of elections, and they should. Candidates who break the rules or who raise significant enough questions with the Board about breaking the rules should lose. There is little consolation for upstanding candidates to know, as they give their concession speeches, that one day, the cheaters will have to pay several-thousand-dollar penalties. On the contrary, they might feel compelled to give up on following the letter and spirit of the laws themselves.
This is not some minor issue. More needs to come out of the CFB, and more needs to come out of the Council and the mayor to give the board the tools necessary to be more effective. That means new powers and new impetus to use them. That means more attention to these issues and more seriousness in dealing with how much they mean. This referee needs more than a whistle that gets blown after Election Day.
New York should have a campaign finance system that does a lot more than this. We should have a system that rewards the people who take extra steps to do what is legal, moral and ethical. Instead, the city has one that is the other way around. That is something every voter, but especially every elected official, should make a priority. Without this, everything else is at stake.
But it is also the guardian and sole arbiter of millions of taxpayer dollars that people can use on behalf of their own political advancement, provided those people reach some minimum thresholds and live up to some very basic rules. Designed to ensure fairness and equality, these rules are, not surprisingly, often the target of political players looking to exploit them for the sake of their own enrichment and empowerment. Such is almost always the fate of rules: They are a drag on those who follow them, and are turned into mockeries by the people who evade them. As recent reports published by City Hall show, that seems to be exactly what is going on: Some candidates are living up to the rules, while others, such as those entangled in the hazy relationships with the Working Families Party and its for-profit but not-at-all-separate corporation, seem to be pushing the rules’ limits. There are reasons to be skeptical, given the lack of clarity from the financial disclosures, contradictory answers provided to explain them and the remaining questions about whether candidates are paying fair market value for the services provided (such as when a Manhattan district attorney candidate has already been charged much more than a public advocate candidate running citywide for what is supposed to be similar work). At the very least, candidates involved appear to have tried to squeeze every last bit of spirit out of what should be the nation’s top system for promoting democracy. And there is reason to fear they have done much worse than that.
This behavior is, to put it mildly, unfortunate, and the kind of thing voters should have on their minds as they make their decisions in the Sept. 15 primary, in the potential run-offs and in the general election. Rules exist not to be bent to their brink, but to be followed in good faith. Sure, the campaign finance laws might—might—just barely allow for what has happened here and in other similar instances, much as the City Charter just barely allowed for the mayor and 29 Council members to slip in a term limits extension which was not at all the intention of the voters who twice approved referendums barring their officials from having more than two terms. We have reached a sad day in city politics when these are the sorts of arguments brandished by people who are already or want to become New York’s leaders.
The call for better leadership should ring out louder and more widely than just the people involved in this latest situation. Though there is good reason for the Campaign Finance Board to be wary of publicizing its investigations into candidates’ questionable behavior in the middle of the election cycle for fear of affecting outcomes, there is even better reason for it to let people know when behavior has set off internal alarm bells. Waiting until after the elections are held and results are in sounds noble, but the reality is that slapping a candidate with a fine and reprimand after he or she is in office severely limits the efficacy of the Board and the rationale for candidates to obey its rules. Just look at Miguel Martinez, the top CFB scofflaw, who racked up his penalties while sitting calmly in his Council seat for years—and would likely have won a third term if the unrelated charges which he pled guilty to had not caught up with him. Once they win, politicians are very hard to remove from office.
CFB investigations certainly could affect the outcome of elections, and they should. Candidates who break the rules or who raise significant enough questions with the Board about breaking the rules should lose. There is little consolation for upstanding candidates to know, as they give their concession speeches, that one day, the cheaters will have to pay several-thousand-dollar penalties. On the contrary, they might feel compelled to give up on following the letter and spirit of the laws themselves.
This is not some minor issue. More needs to come out of the CFB, and more needs to come out of the Council and the mayor to give the board the tools necessary to be more effective. That means new powers and new impetus to use them. That means more attention to these issues and more seriousness in dealing with how much they mean. This referee needs more than a whistle that gets blown after Election Day.
New York should have a campaign finance system that does a lot more than this. We should have a system that rewards the people who take extra steps to do what is legal, moral and ethical. Instead, the city has one that is the other way around. That is something every voter, but especially every elected official, should make a priority. Without this, everything else is at stake.
