On December 27, Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul vetoed a bill that would have significantly altered the state’s method of publicly funding political campaigns by raising the threshold amount that candidates needed to meet in order to be eligible. Under the current setup of the state’s Public Campaign Finance Program, candidates for state legislative office or statewide offices can receive small donations from citizens of their district in exchange for public matching funds.
While over 200 candidates have chosen to participate in this year’s election cycle, the now-dejected bill would have allowed any form of political contribution to match $250 in public money, according to various reports. Political candidates’ eligibility to participate in the program would have been enhanced if this had been done.
In a veto memo, Hochul said that the state’s finance laws were created to increase the “voices of low-dollar donors” in New York elections and to “amplify” the pool of candidates who are legally permitted to run for office. She added that increasing the number of donations for matching funds would have affected the state budget.
In June, the bill was approved by the Democratically controlled New York Senate by a final vote of 34 to 29, and by the Democratically controlled Assembly by a vote of 80 to 66. Democrats from New York, including Senator Zellnor Myrie, Assembly Member Latrice Walker, and a slew of lawmakers from Brooklyn, sponsored the bill.
It was surprising that Hochul would reject the legislation, as she joined all New York Republican lawmakers and a number of Democrats in voting against it. Joseph Burns, the Republican election counsel for the state, told Fox News that all of New York’s conservative lawmakers have always rejected public financing initiatives. According to him, these initiatives never succeed in enhancing “democracy” or New York’s election system.
Additionally, Burns stated on the conservative network that the measure exemplified the schism that exists among Democrats, both moderate and progressive. He went on to say that Hochul and the other moderate Democrats who voted against the bill with Republicans are part of a larger group that thinks the progressives’ idea was too extreme.
