Politics and N.Y. matching funds: Bruce Blakeman must be approved for public dollars |
The New York State Public Campaign Finance Board is providing matching funds for statewide offices for the first time this year and the seven commissioners have to decide whether it succeeds by emulating the highly successful nonpartisan New York City Campaign Finance Board or fails by engaging in the standard partisan snipping of the state Board of Elections and every local Board of Elections, where Democrats and Republicans always fight.
The test will be whether the PCFB allows the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, to be eligible for matching funds, up to $3.5 million should there be a GOP primary and up to $3.5 million in the general election against Gov. Hochul, who, to her shame, is bypassing the voluntary program.
Blakeman must be approved; to deny him on a partisan basis will kill this program that was first crafted by a special commission in 2019.
The NYC CFB has worked superbly from the beginning, starting with the 1989 elections as the first board members set the example of always acting in the public interest to have candidates join the program and receive matching funds. One of the original board members was a lawyer named Sonia Sotomayor, who would later sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. The first chairman was Father Joseph O’Hare, the president of Fordham University. He remained chair for 15 years.
The board ended up fining every mayor who joined the program, Ed Koch and David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani and Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams. The board has always acted unanimously and has been unafraid to stand up for the taxpayers and face down the most powerful man in the city.
However, four of the commissioners on the state PCFB are also the highly partisan commissioners of the state Board of Elections, Democrats Essma Bagnuola and Henry Berger and Republicans Anthony Casale and Peter Kosinski. The others are Brian Kolb, appointed by GOP legislators, and Keesha Gaskins-Nathan, tapped by Dems lawmakers. The chair Barbara Lifton was named by Hochul.
On a party count, that is 4-3 for the Dems and the one-for-you, one-for-me bipartisan staffing copies the Board of Elections. But if the commissioners act as partisans, they will kill PCFB in its cradle. They should act like Justice Sotomayor and Father O’Hare and vote to approve Blakeman together.
At issue is not the law, written in 2020 (§ 14-203) which talks about “a candidate” being eligible for matching funds. However the PCFB regulations are self-contradictory. The regulations say “Candidates running jointly for Governor and Lieutenant Governor shall be considered to be a single candidate for the same elective office.”
Thus Blakeman and his running mate, Madison County Sheriff Todd Hood, are a “single candidate.”
And the regulations say that “Participating candidates running jointly for Governor and Lieutenant Governor shall have one authorized committee. Such authorized committee shall be controlled by the candidate for Governor, provided, however, that the candidate for Lieutenant Governor shall remain subject to all rules under this part not otherwise inconsistent with this section.”
However, the regs also say “To be eligible to receive funds both candidates running jointly for Governor and Lieutenant Governor shall jointly submit an application/certification prescribed by the PCFB. Such application/certification shall be jointly filed by the deadline” of Feb. 23.
Blakeman did all the paperwork on time. Hood hasn’t. That shouldn’t matter, as they are a team. This is the first outing for candidates and for the PCFB. The board should want it to work and it’s not the fault of candidates that the regulations are at fault. Blakeman/Hood is a single ticket and the board should approve them. That is what Sotomayor and O’Hare would do.
The seven commissioners meet tomorrow morning. The choice is theirs.