CRACKING
THE CODE
minority neighborhoods. Observers have pointed to Bill de Blasio’s
victory in the Democratic mayoral
primary this year as another success of the system.
Previous reform efforts sought
to eliminate or severely limit private money in elections. In the
“clean money” systems pushed at
the state level in the mid-1990s
through the mid-2000s, candidates would receive a lump-sum
payment of public funds to cover
the cost of the campaign, in exchange for renouncing nearly all
private funding.
The presidential public funding
system provides a 1-to-1 match
on the first $250 of all contributions during the primaries and
a lump-sum $91.2 million payment for the general election.
Candidates are required to abide
by spending limits in both the
primary and general elections to
receive the public funds.
But a series of Supreme Court
decisions between 2008 and 2011
gutted provisions in both the federal campaign finance laws and
clean money systems, and the
Citizens United decision ensured
that outside money could not be
kept away from elections. The
lump sum provided in the presi-
HUFFINGTON
10.27.13
dential system eventually became too small for general election candidates. In 2008, Barack
Obama became the first candidate to not participate in the program during the general election,
and in 2012, neither Obama nor
Mitt Romney took part.
Unlike other campaign finance
reform efforts, the New York C ity
REFORMERS BELIEVE THEY
HAVE FINALLY CRACKED
THE CODE FOR CHANGING
THE WAY POLITICIANS
RAISE MONEY.
model accepts the role of private money in elections. In 2001,
progressive writer Mark Schmitt
called the city’s system “an evolutionary leap,” because it acknowledges that loopholes in campaign
finance laws will always exist and
that there is no way to completely
prevent private money from finding its way into elections.
Democracy 21 President Fred
Wertheimer, the dean of the
Washington-based reform community, embraced the New York
City model as an answer to the
broken presidential financing system following the 2008 election.