Senate Testimony on Campaign Finance Reform
 
TESTIMONY OF

Corey Ellis, Council Member

Albany Common Council Ward 3

City of Albany

TO THE SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS 

ON PUBLIC FINANCING OF ELECTIONS 

JUNE 3, 2009 

Chairman Addabbo and other members of the Senate Elections Committee: my name is Corey Ellis, and I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to testify today on this important issue of campaign finance and the need for public financing of elections, as well as welcome you to my city council district.  I am the council member for Ward 3 of the great City of Albany, which encompasses the State Capitol and Legislative Office Building in which we are presently seated and the communities of Arbor Hill and the South End that surround it.   

I am here today because I see and experience every day a system of government and a greater society that continues to leave my constituents and people of color in general, behind.  I am here today because I have experienced first hand, like all of you, a system of campaign finance that puts candidates without access to large, private donors at a great disadvantage.  And most importantly, I am here today because I believe in a system of government, of campaign finance, that can empower the people of our state, a system that offers a level playing field, for those who come from money and access, and those who don’t.  It’s a system where laws are written and passed not based on the interests of those who frequent the $500 dollar a plate fundraiser down the block, but the needs of the vast majority of the people of the State of New York.   

The irony of our current system shows so clearly when you walk down the block to the upscale clubs that often host the nightly fundraisers during the legislative session.  If you continue to walk just a block or two further, you go deeper into my district to find the hard working people I represent who often suffer as a direct result of the influence that money bears through our campaign finance system.  They cannot afford their prescription drugs because of the millions poured in by the pharmaceutical industry.  Their health insurance costs too much because of the influence of insurance companies in weakening insurance rate regulation.  They are even shut out of concerts by unregulated ticket scalpers due to the large contributions from that industry. 

If you ask the folks in my community whether or not they are interested in, or care about “campaign finance reform,” they will tell you no.  But if you ask them about many of the other concerns in their lives, you can link it back to a government unwilling to put them first.   

Obviously, unlike those of you from New York City, we have not had the experience of a public financing system for local elections like you have; or like many cities across the country have, including Portland, Oregon and Albuquerque, New Mexico, which have instituted systems of full public financing just in the past few years.   But knowing and understanding the power of these voluntary systems of public funding for candidates to use, I have always thought of them as a second and critical continuation of the Civil Rights Movement fought for by my elders and still being fought today.  

Unless we can provide a mechanism for candidates to run without having access to large amounts of money from private sources, we cannot truly have a representative democracy, nor can we expect voters to control the outcome of elections.  On top of that, we must have a system where everyone’s contribution can count, even if it’s a small donation.  A study of Arizona’s Clean Elections, or full public financing system, is one example of how more people, especially more people of color, are participating in elections through giving small donations.  

According to a report released by Public Campaign, a non-profit, non-partisan campaign finance reform advocacy organization, titled “All Over the Map,” Arizona, a state that has full public financing of elections for five election cycles, experienced a major change in terms of where candidate contributions are coming from.  The state’s large Latino population was ignored for years when it came to campaign contributions.  But analysis now shows that publicly financed candidates in Arizona collect twice as many contributions from zip codes with high percentages of Hispanics compared to privately funded candidates.  

Small donors must count in our campaign finance system.  And the way to make them count is to match them with significant amounts of public matching dollars.  I was one of many truly inspired by our new President, Barack Obama’s ability to motivate a small donor revolution during the 2008 presidential election. But wouldn’t it have been nice if he could have depended only on those forces to fund his campaign.  It is no surprise to me that while a US Senator, our President was one of the first four sponsors of the Fair Elections Now Act introduced by Senator Dick Durbin in the US Senate that would institute a voluntary public financing of elections system for all House and Senate races in the US.  Nor was I surprised to find out that while President Obama was a State Senator in Illinois’ State House, he was the primary sponsor of that state’s public financing of elections legislation.   

Maine, Arizona and Connecticut all have instituted full public financing for their statewide and legislative elections.  Other states and cities have robust matching funds systems.  But Connecticut was the latest state to do so, in 2005.  There, I hear it took a Governor going to jail on campaign finance corruption charges to make the State Legislators move to pass the bills into law, the only legislature in the country to do so.  (Maine and Arizona instituted their programs through the voter imitative and referendum process.)  Let us hope and fight to ensure New York does not wait for another scandal.  I encourage you to move to pass a strong, healthy public financing of elections system, not just through the State Senate this session, but for you to work closely with the Assembly and the Governor, the former prime sponsor of such legislation, to move legislation into law this session.  Not because of scandal, but because it is the only way to move toward a just, more equitable, and responsive government that will treat all people fairly.   

I thank you for the opportunity to testify today.