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When candidates stray, make 'em pay
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Candidate
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| Contributor | mikedem |
| Last Edited | mikedem Oct 05, 2003 10:04am |
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| Category | Op-Ed by Candidate |
| News Date | Friday, September 5, 2003 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | When candidates
stray, make 'em pay
By MICHAEL N. GIANARIS
Accountability is as important a principle in campaigns for public office as it is in government. After all, campaigns provide the public with a first glimpse into the character of candidates as well as a preview of what an administration would be like.
Recent history has given us a number of alarming examples of the need to hold candidates accountable for their campaigns' actions. The incidents underscore the need for legislation that sets new standards of political conduct.
During the 2001 mayoral election, payments of more than $240,000 were made by Mark Green's campaign to a Democratic Party organization, reportedly for Election Day operations. For a campaign that received more than $4.5 million in public financing, the payments raise serious questions that the Campaign Finance Board must ultimately answer. Yet after almost two years, the Green campaign has yet to explain into whose hands this money went.
During the same campaign, an anonymous flyer was distributed that disparaged Green's rival, Fernando Ferrer, using disturbing racial code. Since the law does not require campaign material to say what entity paid for its production, the source of the controversial flyer remains clouded to this day.
Such activity is not limited to Democrats. The Federal Election Commission fined the state's Republican Party more than $100,000 for its failure to adequately disclose where Election Day money was spent in 1994 and 1996.
The incidents from the 2001 mayoral campaign are being investigated by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, but it should never have come this far. Better legal safeguards would discourage such activity before it happens.
That is why I plan to introduce the Candidate Accountability Act in the Legislature. It is a measure that would make it clear that in a campaign, the buck stops at the top.
The legislation would hold candidates personally liable for any illegal actions taken by their campaigns, imposing a stiff fine to be paid by candidates themselves, not by their campaign treasuries.
Further, the legislation would make it difficult to conceal the final destination of so-called street money - cash handed out for use on Election Day - by requiring campaigns to reveal who ultimately receives the dollars. Campaigns also would be required to disclose within 24 hours when large expenditures for Election Day operations are made in the final days of a campaign.
And the bill would bring back the disclaimer rule. This provision, required in federal campaigns, would end the distribution of anonymous literature by requiring campaign material to clearly identify who paid for its production.
New York's leading good-government groups, including the New York Public Interest Research Group, Common Cause/NY, the New York League of Women Voters and the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, support this legislative package.
Imposing strict liability standards would force candidates to rigorously manage the activities of their campaigns. Those who violated laws would be held accountable. Honest candidates would put in place structures to ensure their campaigns acted legally and responsibly.
Either way, cleaner and fairer campaigns would result, and democracy would come out ahead.
Gianaris, a Democrat, is an assemblyman from Queens.
Originally published on September 5, 2003
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