By Robert Hornak
There is nothing that spreads the Christmas spirit for Albany Democrats all year round more than spending taxpayer dollars for their political gain.
Now they have figured out how the game the state’s new campaign matching funds program to fund their political operations, in a major violation of the spirit of the law they screamed was needed to level the playing field and dilute the influence of special interests.
The state program was inspired by NYC’s successful matching funds program, which for more than two decades has provided candidates with taxpayer funds for their campaign but with very strict rules on how that money can be used. Candidates accepting public funds in NYC must agree to use the money only for legitimate campaign purposes, to adhere to strict donation limits (including the candidate’s personal contributions), to spending limits, and to return public funds that have not been spent at the end of the campaign.
The NYC Campaign Finance Board – whose members are still mostly democrats – is overseen by an independent board that takes it mission, to level the playing field for municipal races and make the money raised and spent very transparent and accountable, very seriously.
The state’s version of the Campaign Finance Board does not seem to share that same commitment, creating multiple loopholes for the states taxpayer funded system that makes the system more like a straight money-grab.
While the match is just as generous at around $8 of public funds for every matchable dollar raised, the system allows many ways for big dollars to still flood into the system and party committees can still make large committee to committee transfers (legally a transfer and not a contribution, exempt from all rules and limits), giving them undue power and influence that this new system was supposed to curtail.
And now, as if the better funded democrats in NY couldn’t already stuff enough money into the campaign of any race they targeted, they have just passed a new rule that creates a revolving door of funding for state democrats with, of course, taxpayer money.
Even though state campaign finance rules require unspent money to be returned to the treasury, Albany Democrats muscled through a new rule that at the end of the campaign candidates can now give unspent taxpayer funds to party committees, to then use however they like and in contradiction to the original rules.
While these party committees are still required to disclose their spending, there are no rules on how they will spend that money or how they might transfer it to other campaigns.
This now completely blows up the original rationale for creating this system, to level the playing field and to reduce the influence of special interests, wealthy donors, big corporations, and outside money in the political process.
Albany politicians, who for decades have used government funding for a wide variety of special interest projects to prime the donation pump from those interests, now have a way to cut out the middleman and just stick their hands directly into the public trough to fund their political machines.
Albany Democrats have shamelessly managed to take this program, which has worked well in NYC for many years, and turned it into nothing more than a sham that will use to stuff unlimited amounts of taxpayer dollars into their political committees, ensuring that their endorsed candidates will always be the most well-funded and competitive, regardless of what the voters might actually want.
They have created a very merry Christmas for themselves while leaving nothing but coal in taxpayer’s stockings.
Robert Hornak is a professional political consultant who has previously served as the Deputy Director of the Republican Assembly Leader’s NYC office and as Executive Director of the Queens Republican Party. He can be reached at rahornak@gmail.com and @RobertHornak on X.
