[From article]
The current enthusiasm for “public” financing far surpasses evidence of its merits, however. Under the city’s program, public corruption continues to be endemic, while voter-turnout levels have dropped to record lows and incumbents remain nearly unbeatable. Extending such a system statewide would waste money, overregulate the electoral process, and create new potential for abuse.
[. . .]
The current enthusiasm for “public” financing far surpasses evidence of its merits, however. Under the city’s program, public corruption continues to be endemic, while voter-turnout levels have dropped to record lows and incumbents remain nearly unbeatable. Extending such a system statewide would waste money, overregulate the electoral process, and create new potential for abuse.
[. . .]
No evidence supports advocates’ claims that public financing strengthens democracy. Even if the offer of a taxpayer match encourages more people to give money to campaigns, as some studies have suggested, donor participation remains low compared with the total voting population.
[. . .]
voter turnout—a more robust indicator of democratic participation—has been declining in New York City. Just 26 percent of voters participated in the 2013 general election, the lowest figure in 50 years. More people voted for Rudolph Giuliani’s losing bid for office in 1989, the first election with matching funds, than for Bill de Blasio’s winning one in 2013, even as New York City’s population grew by more than 1 million
[. . .]
To date, the only mechanism that ensures turnover in city offices is term limits, which went into effect in 2001.
[. . .]
Even more discouragingly for campaign-finance proponents, public financing has done little or nothing to curb corruption in city government. Many participants in the matching-funds program have been implicated in one scandal or another. Public financing has even been the source of corruption.
[. . .]
One thing is for certain: state campaign-finance reform would mean bigger government, in the form of more regulation enforced by an expanded bureaucracy.
[. . .]
Ultimately, though, Albany needs a change of culture. “The quality of people in politics was a hell of a lot higher years ago,” says former lieutenant governor Richard Ravitch. “The problem is that no good people want to run for office.” Ravitch is right. Government policy alone can’t solve the problem of public corruption.
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_1_campaign-finance.html
STEPHEN EIDE
New York’s Campaign-Finance Delusion
Public money for elections is the wrong prescription for what ails Albany.
Winter 2015
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