DiNapoli: SEC should mandate disclosure
Comptroller Tom DiNapoli joined a national effort to pressure the Securities and Exchange Commission to mandate that corporations disclose their political spending. The federal entity, which oversees...
View ArticleShelly Silver’s anti-scandal proposal (video added)
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and dozens of the the Democrats who dominate that chamber are re-upping their push for publicly financed campaigns, and also unveiled a suite of other electoral reforms...
View ArticleCuomo won’t give AG election enforcement powers
Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to appoint someone to oversee the state’s elections, saying recent scandals have demonstrated the bipartisan State Board of Elections is ill-equipped to police campaign finance...
View ArticleReport catalogues NYC campaign finance violations
I reported this morning about Republicans increasingly arguing against a system of public financing, and spoke to Syracuse Sen. John DeFrancisco. “There’s been many abuses of the New York City system,”...
View ArticleEverything you ever wanted to know about the potential cost of public...
Warning: There will be math. The basic question: How much would it cost to implement a public financing system for statewide and legislative elections? The Senate Republican conference, which opposes...
View ArticlePushing CampFin, raking in cash
I noted in the “Week Ahead” column of today’s print edition, a spring tradition is alive and well at the Capitol: political fundraising. This is nothing new, but it seems not to have abated one bit...
View ArticleOne strategy for getting campaign finance done
I was chatting recently with a fairly prominent advocate for creating a system of public matching funds for political campaigns who laid out a strategy for its enactment this year: the way to force it...
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Mailer will target Hugh Farley
As I reported this morning, public campaign finance advocates will target Sen. Hugh Farley with a mailer that suggests a connection between a bill he introduced to allow check cashers to make loans...
View ArticleNYPIRG finds over 100,000 campaign violations
The New York Public Interest Research Group has documented over 100,000 violations of the state’s campaign finance laws — 103,805, to be precise — that occurred over the last two years. Bill Mahoney,...
View ArticleGooGoos complain about lack of access
They are still grinding on and a group of good government groups has filed a protest over their inability to get into a hearing on campaign finance reform. It’s unclear why the hearing was in Room 124...
View ArticleElections hearing under siege
While senators asked a string of officials and advocates questions about systems of taxpayer financed elections, several dozen protesters with dollar-bills symbolically taped over their mouths shouted...
View ArticleCuomo: Moreland Commission an option if legislators don’t act
Gov. Andrew Cuomo suggested he might convene a special prosecutorial panel to investigate problems in the state Legislature if lawmakers don’t act on something — something — to respond to a recent...
View ArticleTransparency goes only so far for Sens. Sampson and Adams
Sen. Eric Adams and Sen. John Sampson do not want to talk about their trip to South Korean in 2011, now or then, according to the Times Union. Here are some of Adams’ campaign’s expenses: Koreanair...
View ArticleDiaz: Don’t count on me as a yes for public financing
Today’s sense of what Ruben Diaz thinks you should know is that he doesn’t plan to vote for public financing of campaigns during a period of austerity — a declaration that adds this aspect of campaign...
View ArticleCommon Cause decries ‘soft money’ housekeeping ‘slush funds’
Good-government groups are blasting the use of “soft money” in political housekeeping accounts, which they say have sucked in $58 million between 2006 and 2012, according to a new report by the group...
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GOP campaign chief: Chris Gibson ‘an incredibly hard worker’ whose challenger...
Chris Gibson on the campaign trail in 2010. (Times Union photo) Capital Region congressman Chris Gibson could face a well-financed Democrat in a politically competitive district, the chairman of the...
View ArticleVideo: Money on the Senate floor
Here’s video of the latest stunt by advocates of public campaign finance: they showered Republican members of the State Senate with fake money, making the point that there’s too much money in politics....
View ArticleCampaign finance advocates turn up heat on IDC
Advocates for reforming the state’s campaign finance laws are pressuring the Senate Independent Democratic Conference to act before the legislative session ends June 20. In a full-page advertisement in...
View ArticlePetition: Tell Paul Simon to tell Cuomo to push election reform
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has launched what might be called a bank-shot advocacy effort: An online petition calling on sing-songwriter Paul Simon to press Gov. Andrew Cuomo to press...
View ArticleIs Cuomo really pushing?
As the legislative session closes, some advocates are wondering whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo is wholly committed to pushing through some of the marquee agenda items he introduced in the last two weeks. In...
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