NYCivic - They Preen on Our Green

Public Funding of Campaigns,
Noble Experiment in Fairness,
Abused by Greedy Politicians

By Henry J. Stern
December 9, 2003

Yesterday morning I appeared before the Campaign Finance Board at its post-election public hearing. I had signed up to testify a week ago, before the controversy erupted about doubling the match rate from 4:1 to a maximum of 8:1 for candidates opposing others who are not participating in the CFB program (i.e. spending their own money). The issue became the sandstorm of the week, with the Mayor claiming he had been blindsided, and the Chairman of the CFB responding that he and his staff had discussed the matter with the Corporation Counsel, who represents the Mayor and all city agencies.

I said that I have known Fritz Schwarz, the CFB chair, on and off for forty years. We met as partners in an ill-starred venture in 1963 to publish a weekly newspaper on Manhattan's west side. I have high regard for his integrity, and I would want him as executor of my estate, if there were enough of an estate to justify his time. I think he said at the meeting that he would be happy to serve, but I'm not sure. But even people of high principle can be victims of gaps in transmitting information, and I recall the words in "Cool Hand Luke", where Captain Strother Martin said to prisoner Paul Newman, "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

My relationship with the Mayor is shorter in duration, going back just six years to his sending me a copy of his autobiography, "Bloomberg on Bloomberg", which I regrettably failed to acknowledge. This should be a lesson for all of you, when someone sends you something, thank him or her for it, unless it is poison or some other really undesirable gift. You never know what the future will bring to you or the sender of the gift, and, anyway, it is simply good manners. I believe that Mayor Bloomberg is a man of integrity and principle, sometimes to his short-term detriment. He says what he believes, except for the polite praise which he courteously bestows on those whose name he mentions, with the temporary exception of Randi Weingarten.

On the substance of the proposal, I believe that an 8:1 ratio of public to private funds is excessive for a number of reasons.

1) It does not fully consider the non-cash contributions by public employee unions, political clubs and others with a stake in the mayoralty. Money, although important, is far from the only asset in an election campaign. Thousands of volunteers, available to whichever side promises greater rewards, make phone calls, distribute literature, and support their runaway victories. This is an important part of the political equation.

2) For the Board to suggest, or the Council to adopt major changes in the rules at this time, when the Speaker and the Mayor are two of the major opposing candidates, is tampering with a race which is already underway. To the mayor's credit, when he tried to abolish party primaries, he deferred the effective date to 2009, so he could not be accused of promoting his own election chances under the guise of nonpartisanship. The least the CFB can do is follow that example.

3) With the city in a financial crisis, the new formula would add tens of millions of dollars to the expense budget, depending on the number of candidates who run in 2005. How many police officers, teachers or park workers should we do without in order to provide more commercials, leaflets and tschotchkes for candidates unable or unwilling to pay their own bills?

4) The 8:1 figure is itself arbitrary. If it a sin for Bloomberg to spend more money than the others, why not give his rivals enough to match his spending, and abolish some of the smaller city agencies to do it. Isn't 4:1, which comes out to about fifteen million dollars per contender, or about $6.50 per voter, enough to put one's message across. I suggest bulk mail, it's cheaper than first class, but you have to mail earlier.

But the greater vice of the current system of public financing of campaigns is the way it has been misused by those who do not need or deserve its benefit.

For example, sure winners, Democrats in overwhelmingly Democratic districts, should not receive a 4:1 match to subsidize their landslides. That is simply a waste of tax dollars. In no way does it affect the outcome of the election, but it simply provides additional free advertising to incumbents, who already luxuriate in their free mailings to their districts, which they call newsletters. May I suggest that one-fifth of the cost of printing and mailing be deducted for each picture of the office-holder that appears in the newsletter. If that formula were followed, we might be able to make a dent in the real estate tax.

In addition to sure winners, there are sure losers, people who have no chance of election, but simply manipulate the system to advertise themselves or their law or insurance business to a district-wide audience at public expense. By raising $15,000 from friends, clients, relatives, etc., these people latch on to $60,000 in public funds for self-promotion at your expense. They lose the election, but we lose the money they spend on their egos.

Another type of candidacy is the spurious one, where people of a particular ethnic group or gender are placed on the ballot by major contenders in order to split the vote their opponents would normally receive. This is not an uncommon practice in local politics, it is part of the game. However the idea of any of these Trojan horses or straw men or women receiving public funds for their charade of a candidacy is ridiculous.

The most egregious misuse of public funds this year was by Abraham Wasserman of Brooklyn, a candidate for the Council seat tragically vacated by the murder of James Davis. Wasserman ran on the Conservative Party line and received a total of 368 votes, but received $62,700 in public funds, which is over $170 for every vote he got. He raised $15,958 on his own, largely from family members. He rewarded his wife and three sons with a total of $13,000 in fees as campaign consultants. The story was first reported in City Limits weekly and by David Seifman in the New York Post on November 24. Read the links for the juicy details. It's comparable to The Smoking Gun.

What Abraham Wasserman did is a scandal. To call it an abomination is too strong. But a campaign finance law that allows such obvious chicanery is, as Wasserman's own Conservative Party County Chairman said, "severely flawed." Let the CFB clean up outrages like the Wasserman case and prevent them from happening again.

The Board pleads that all the abuse is carried out according to the law, and they cannot help but obey the law. There are a number of able lawyers on the CFB staff. The brightest of all is their chairman, Mr. Schwarz, Harvard Law School LLB '60, magna cum laude, former Corporation Counsel of the City of New York (under Mayor Koch), and longtime senior partner at Cravath, Swaine and Moore (a first-tier law firm if you didn't know).

If anyone can find a legal way out of this mare's nest of conceit and deceit, Fritz Schwarz can. And he should.