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12,000 residents muzzled
Published on August 15, 2008
The New York Sun reported yesterday that New York City's new campaign finance law, currently being challenged by Jim Bopp, will bar more than 12,000 city residents from fully exercising their political rights.
The law sets disparate contribution limits based on whether or not the contributor is a lobbyist or does business with the city. Unions and union members, however, are exempt from the law.
According to the Sun,"The aim of the law was to prevent corruption in city politics, or at least the appearance of corruption." But, Court documents in Bopp's lawsuit "have not yet turned up any evidence that campaign contributions from those on the list had been linked to corruption in the past." (Meanwhile, some officeholders elected with taxpayer subsidies continue to be investigated for funelling tax money to "phantom organizations.")
The Sun further reports:
A second provision of New York's campaign finance limits prevents the city from matching any contributions by people on the list. Campaign contributions by other citizens, up to the first $175, are matched by six times that amount by city funds. The effect is that those not on the blacklist can give $2,750 to a council candidate, bolstered by $1,050 in matching funds, for a total of $3,800, while those on the blacklist can only give up to $250.
It is the ban against matching the donations by people on the list that is most vulnerable to being struck down by a court, some legal experts say.
"That strikes me as utterly irrational and has got to go," a law professor at New York University, Burt Neuborne, said. "They're essentially saying that if you do business with the city the value of your money should be lessened. Those people get their megaphones taken away while everyone else gets government amplification."
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