New York is one of America’s most Democratic states. And its least democratic.
Its governor more powerful than any other. Can put almost any policy into the state budget that must either be accepted or rejected in toto by legislators. Almost neutering them.
There’s also an incumbent protection racket, including an onerous petition system hampering outsider candidates’ ballot access. A few years ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to screw the Working Families Party, spearheaded greatly increased signature requirements, to keep third parties off the ballot.
This is also the least business-friendly state. With not only high taxes but suffocating regulation. A few years ago we legalized cannabis — long overdue — but then created a regulatory nightmare. Accompanied by a weird policy of preferential licensing for people previously convicted of illegal pot sales, while cracking down now on illegal sales. Huh?
Oh, and pot stores were banned within 500 feet of schools. Fair enough — until regulators rewrote the rules for measuring that. Making scores of existing stores suddenly illegal. What a stupid mess.
But back to politics. New York’s long had a deeply corrupt “pay to play” system. Exemplified by the State vastly overpaying ($637 million) for 52 million Covid test kits (way more than conceivably needed) — the supplier just happened to be a major donor to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s campaign. Then too she’d lavished around a billion in state funds for an economically ridiculous boondoggle of a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills football team — owned by politically connected plutocrats — and also benefitting her husband’s business interests.
Now the state has a campaign finance reform. With matching funds for small political contributions, to incentivize those and reduce the importance of big donors, while giving a leg up to shoestring candidates. Good in concept (like the cannabis reform). But then the legislature tried to tweak it with matching for bigger donations. Gov. Hochul vetoed that, but they tried again, and this time she signed the bill. Totally compromising the scheme’s small donation rationale.
Meantime, the matching formula was always kind of extreme, giving a candidate up to 12 times what someone donates. So with all that money floating around, our mailboxes were flooded with slickly printed campaign brochures. But the program was also an obvious opening for chicanery, inviting candidates to phony up contributions in order to cash in on matching funds. One enterprising state senate candidate bribed homeless people to falsify paperwork attesting to nonexistent donations. Seems he was running not for the Senate but for the money. One suspects this is the tip of an iceberg, with the state election authorities ill-equipped to discover such frauds.
But they’re otherwise sticklers for enforcing the rules.
Enter Bruce Blakeman, Republican nominee for governor. A big Trump lover. His search for a running mate went from one local sheriff to another, presumably because last time, GOP candidate Lee Zeldin (now Trump’s head of the Environmental Destruction Agency) came close to winning with a campaign centered on crime fearmongering. Though crime is now down and less of an issue.
Anyhow — Blakeman filed for the campaign finance matching program, qualifying for several million. (Hochul, having a far bigger warchest, opted out.) But the Democrat-controlled State Elections Board nixed Blakeman’s application. Because of a new requirement for separate paperwork for his running mate. (Shades of the cannabis 500-foot rule.)
Blakeman quite reasonably requested an opportunity to fix this nitpicking paperwork issue. You know — the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law — well, not law, actually, but a bureaucratic rule, newly promulgated under the radar. Indeed, the Board did its darndest to keep it secret. Yet loudly insists they had no choice but to apply the rule and deny Blakeman the funds.
This battle is now in court. A judge has just ruled in Blakeman’s favor; the story in today’s paper is silent about whether that will be appealed.
I’m no Blakeman fan. But what the Election Board did stinks to High Heaven. Blatantly partisan and flouting the intent of the matching program. While doing almost nothing about the likely true problem of fake contributions.
This fall’s gubernatorial election will be for me a real Hobson’s choice. I can’t vote for Trump-loving Blakeman. Nor for Hochul (for reasons I told her when she phoned me for a donation). Maybe I can vote for Libertarian candidate Larry Sharpe — IF he can get on the ballot — overcoming the mentioned obstacles that Andrew Cuomo orchestrated.
