RSS
Home
Campaign Forums & Debates: Government is paying, but not everyone is playing
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
While most people were focused on Wednesdat night's mayoral Primary debate, the final opportunity for the public to hear from Democratic candidates William C. Thompson and Tony Avella before Tuesday's Democratic Primary election, another candidates' forum, this one in the Public Advocate race at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York in Brooklyn raised some interesting questions regarding the fairness of such events.
The forum at Medgar Evers College was part of the premiere of a weekly television and radio show called Urban Focus hosted by former New York Times political reporter Jonathan Hicks at the school's Bunche Center for Public Policy, a think tank dedicated to forging solutions to the challenges confronting people of color living within urban communities in the United States and throughout the African Diaspora only featured Democratic candidates Bill de Blasio, Eric Gioia, Mark Green and Norman Siegel. Democratic candidate Imtiaz Syed, Republican candidate Alex Zablocki and a few third party candidates.
"The four candidates that [appeared] on the program [were] the only fondidates who had secured enough financial support to have received any public matching funds," said Medgar Evers College spokesman Christopher Hundley. He called that criteria "A yardstick generally considered to be tantamount to being a major candidate." But should the government be dictating how a candidate has to run their campaign and how much they have to raise in order to have access to a publicly funded debate? Doesn't the public have a right to know about all of the candidates whose name appears on the ballot.
According to New York City Campaign Finance Board Spokeswoman Amanda Konstantini under the law there are strict financial thresholds for participation in the CFB public debates. "It's a measure of whose a serious candidate and who isn't," she said TIn order to participate in the first debate a candidate for New York City Public Advocate must have raised at least $25,000 raised and spent at least $25,000. For the second debate, the candidate must have raised and spent an additional $200,000.and meet a "leading contenders" criteria, in the case of this year's elections that will be polling at least 10 percent in a Marist, Quinnipiac or NY1 News poll.
Syed was initially scheduled to participate in the first Primary debate on August 30, but says that just five hours before the debate the Campaign Finance Boarrd informed him that he was just short of the requirement.
"In that specific situation it was at first glance it had seemed that he had met the criteria, but upon further review we cam to the realization that he had not," said Konstantini. "he law is very clear on this and there is no flexibility there whatsoever."
Syed didn't qualify to participate in the second Primary debate, held this past Tuesday.
But is fundraising an appropriate means of measuring a candidate's viability?
The answer is no, according to Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause
"nfortunately this country is a, fast moving society and people tend to have short attention spans, so we do need to draw a line, but money should never be the sole metric," said Lerner. "The French have an entirely different system that I love and it works incredibly well, there's equal time for all candidates on th\e ballot., but that would likely never work here, particularly in local races."
There are equal time laws in the United States, but they apply to federal elections
"Just being a great fundraiser should not be determining elections," added Lerner. "Just because you have rich friends who will write you checks doesn't make you a viable candidate, but sadly our system allows candidates to sink or swim on fundraising. That's why we support public financing for elections. There are other metrics that are infinitely more effective, such as polling data or number of petition signatures collected."
Manhattan Young Democrats President Al Benninghoff, who is no stranger to debate controversies agreed.
He'd like for New York City to consider something like what Arizona recently instituted; a program where debate participation is based on how many small contributions a candidate gets, not their aggregrate fundraising total.
"I think that it's fair to say that candidates who have the potential to be viable candidates lose any chances of winning or even attaining the standards for becoming viable if they never get the opportunity to get their message out," said Benninghoff. "I think that the government needs to seriously reexamine their criteria so that candidates are not excluded.
Zablocki and Syed issued a joint statement earlier this week calling on the city to abolish what they called an "entry fee" for publicly funded debates.
In Tuesday's Mayoral Primary, Democratic candidate Ronald Rogers was also excluded from participation in publicly funded debates because he failed to meet the even higher Campaign Finance Board thresholds for that office.
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
