America’s Worst Democratic Party

This is a few weeks old now, but it’s always worth remembering just how bad the New York Democratic Party remains.

For generations, deep-pocketed donors have called the shots in New York State politics, leaving ordinary voters with less power and less of a voice in their government. Incumbent lawmakers are bankrolled by moneyed special interests and are routinely re-elected with little competition, and there has been no real alternative to the traditional system of big campaign contributions influencing candidates and politics. One recent study by the Brennan Center for Justice showed that just 200 people contributed $15.9 million to candidates in New York state elections last year, outspending the 206,000 people who donated $13.5 million in amounts of $250 or less.

A law passed in 2019, one of the most promising New York campaign reforms in decades, was supposed to change that: It created a public financing system that encourages small-dollar contributions to political candidates and promotes competition for legislative seats that are often viewed as sinecures for incumbents. This new system was intended to give voters a wider choice of candidates, improving the democratic process by giving voters a better chance of electing people to state office who represent their interests and raising the mediocre quality of governance in New York. But this week, in the final days of the legislative session, the Democratic lawmakers who dominate the capital are preparing to severely weaken those reforms.

The changes proposed by lawmakers would protect incumbents and discourage challengers — the opposite of the program’s goal. Suddenly a program that would have encouraged small donations would no longer do anything of the sort; in fact, it would supplement donations as large as $18,000 with matching funds from taxpayers, a complete turnabout from the original intent of the system promised to voters by reformers elected in 2018 and a perversion of the promise of most other public financing programs, including New York City’s. Lawmakers are likely to vote on the bill on Friday; if it passes, as expected, Gov. Kathy Hochul should veto it and preserve a system aimed at empowering ordinary New Yorkers.