Here’s a report from MetroJustice on how their trip to Albany went. Fundamentally, reforming NY will not take root until we get full public financing of elections. Otherwise, votes on legislation go to the highest bidder. And that ain’t you and me.

Perhaps you heard Governor Paterson saying on WXXI 1370am that he doesn’t think NY State can’t afford full publicly financed campaigns right now.

Argh!!!

He said that right after our press conference in which we announced the results of the Zogby poll (79% support for Clean Elections).

Of course, the Governor is being disingenuous. The reality is that New Yorkers will save money by taking big money out of politics (if politicians aren’t beholden to special interests they are less likely to support costly boondoggles and tax breaks for special interests). In fact the poll showed that New Yorkers think that Clean Elections will save them money.

On Tuesday activists gathered from around the state in Albany for Reform NY Day. We heard advocates talk about various necessary good government reforms (including Clean Elections) and split up into groups to lobby our legislators.

After lobbying, the Metro Justice crew joined the Citizen Action crowd on the second floor of the Capital to confront the Governor about his announcement.

We read a letter to the Governor explaining how clean elections will create savings and pointed out that the costs wouldn’t be incurred until 2012 anyway (and we don’t know what the state’s budget situation will be then).

The Governor said that he still supports the goal of full publicly financed elections (he didn’t mince his words either). But what he went on to say that he was going to ask the Legislature to go back and trim the budget and he’d be undermining himself by asking for new spending on elections (Clean Elections would cost $30 million a year- that’s $1.50 per New Yorker).

We got him to agree to “talk to Speaker Silver” about it. I think he budged several steps toward us on this issue. I think it was a good action, with a good outcome.

Pic courtesy of MetroJustice.

I appreciate Gov. Patterson’s situation. He knows better, but he’s in the thick of a bunch of bad stuff economically, etc. But I expect a lot from my electeds, since I’m paying their salary. $1.50/New Yorker seems a small price to pay for having unbought, unbossed
representation that actually represents me and the rest of us ordinary people.