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Some of the suggestions from the NYT to fix the NY State Legislature:
CLEANER MONEY New York’s campaign finance system is a disgrace. When the Legislature is in session, lawmakers spend every night harvesting campaign funds, often using loopholes as big as a bank. Write “party housekeeping” on the check, and it can have as many zeros as you want. Corporate subsidiaries have a field day. And the lobbyists who write the checks then also write the laws. Public financing should be the goal, but even real, enforceable limits would be a start.
COMPETITIVE ELECTIONS Anybody who wants to challenge a party-sanctioned candidate in New York will find a rigged system. A challenger faces highly paid party lawyers whose “blood sport,” as they call it, is to make that candidate spend too much time and money in court. The idea is to challenge signatures on petitions, name by name. No ZIP code? No middle initial? Then 1,000 signatures turns into 449, one too short to get on the ballot.
Other states make it easier. California allows one state official to approve petitions, with an emphasis on allowing candidates to run, not to be forced to disappear.
Filed under: activism, campaign finance reform, election, New York State Politics
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