Actually, the title is a bit premature, but I will be speaking on the subject tonight at CBID (for the uninitiated, that's "Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats"). Details:

Thursday, March 24, 2011
7:00pm
Park Slope United Methodist Church
6th Avenue (Between 7th/8th Streets)

I look forward to an excellent discussion.

City Hall News is reporting that the Campaign Finance Board (CFB) now considers the for-profit company Data and Field Services, Inc. (DFS) to be "an arm of the Working Families Party" (WFP). The CFB is now going to consider all spending by the WFP on behalf of any candidate to be a direct campaign expense, rather than an independent expenditure.

Whether this CFB "understanding" holds up or not, in the long run the WFP will be the big loser, because even if they manage to wriggle out of this mess it is certain that new rules will be written to stop them -- or anyone -- from trying to skirt around the edges of campaign finance law.

The fallout after the jump:  read more »

Having downloaded the filings of 12 candidates* for citywide office, it is still obvious that the current campaign finance system fails in its goal of making small donations important.

Under current rules, the first $175 donated from any single donor is eligible for matching funds, while anything above that is not, so it stands to reason that $175 is the break point between "small" and "large" donations. According to data available from the Campaign Finance Board website, these candidates have raised a total of $21,659,521. As of the January filings, over 97.8% of the $21 million-plus is in the form of donations greater than $175.

Candidates whose "large donation" numbers are well below the average are generally those you would expect -- those who haven't raised that much money. The four with the lowest percentages of large donations are the same four lowest fundraisers -- in the same order! Similarly, the candidate with the highest percentage of large donations is also the largest fundraiser.  read more »

It recently occurred to me that if we had a "Clean Elections" system in place in NYC already, the term limits extension would probably have failed.

Under the bill (Intro 803-2008), participating candidates would not be allowed to begin fundraising until December 1. Since the bill was passed on October 23 and signed on November 3, nobody would have started yet. With the [very predictable] uproar following the vote (see "Bloomberg 29"), a lot of people could have raised all the $5 contributions they needed to get public funding -- and a lot of incumbents who voted to extend term limits would have been very nervous. If that had made a difference to even two second-term Council members, plus the two first-termers who switched at the last moment, that's the ball game.

Something to think about as the Clean Elections Act gains traction. Meanwhile, anyone wishing to help lobby their own Council member should let me know.

Following is the statement I sent to the Campaign Finance Board regarding proposed rule changes following the extension of term limits:

Introduction

With the passage of a bill extending term limits from two to three full terms, some people who had been subject to term limits and were planning to run for higher office may now choose to run for a third term in their current office. Under the city’s campaign finance system, however, they could have a problem. Since the spending limits that accompany partial public funding are lower for the office they currently hold than for the office they had planned to seek, some people have already exceeded, or are close to exceeding, the lower spending limits.

There are two consequences of exceeding spending limits. First, candidates who exceed spending limits are not eligible for partial public funding. Second, and more importantly, opponents of such candidates are eligible for extra public funding and are granted higher spending limits. In other words, the advantages enjoyed by high-spending candidates are greatly diminished.

In an attempt to restore those advantages, the Campaign Finance Board (CFB) has promulgated rules designed to allow those high-spending candidates to “freeze” the campaign committees they created to run for higher office, and create new committees in order to run for a third term to their current office.

These new rules are in violation of New York City Administrative Code, and must be thrown out.

Specifics  read more »