To: The New York State Senate and Governor Andrew Cuomo

Fair Elections for New York

With only five weeks left in the legislative session, we call upon you to enact comprehensive campaign finance reform including: public financing of legislative and state wide races, lower limits on and full disclosure of campaign contributions, and strong enforcement. New Yorkers deserve better than the current pay-to-play culture. To change the culture, you need to change the system!

Why is this important?

New York is in the grip of a political crime wave. In the last 7 years, 32 New York State elected officials have been arrested, indicted, convicted, jailed, censured or resigned in disgrace. New York's legislators are more likely to lose their seat through arrest than at the polls. Regardless of party or ideology, these wrongdoers share one thing: they abused their positions of public trust and perverted our democracy to pursue personal gain. We must change this culture of corruption by changing the system. This requires public financed Fair Elections to attract candidates who will not be beholden to special interests, but will work for the public good. And we have only six weeks left in the session to do it!

Maine, Connecticut, Arizona, and New York City have public financing systems. The cost for New York State would be just $2 per voter PER YEAR, less than a cup of coffee per year! In Connecticut, 75% of candidates have chosen to run with public financing alone. This has made an amazing difference in the integrity of politics and policy in that state.

We the undersigned demand that New York's legislature and Governor enact meaningful, transparent, enforceable public financing of elections now, including limits on and disclosure of campaign contributions. We must ensure that the pay-to-play culture in Albany is eliminated.