A few months into my campaign for NY State Senate and I’m beginning to understand — really understand — why politicians are so prone to bribery and corruption. I go to bed every night and wake up every morning thinking about how much money I still need to raise and how many hours on the phone and at fundraisers it will require, and in between I have anxiety dreams about the walls crumbling and the ceiling caving in, or about getting stuck in an elevator that just can’t make it to the top floor.
But the fact that I get why politicians succumb to corruption doesn’t make me more sympathetic when I see people cutting corners — it makes me angrier. Especially people who could be using their influence to change the stupid campaign finance laws so we won’t have to think about money 24/7.
Which brings me to the IDC, or Independent Democratic Conference in the NY State Senate. This is the group of eight elected Democrats who make sure the Senate is controlled by Republicans. Yes — that’s a thing. You can see Zephyr Teachout’s great video about it here. And Edie Falco’s video about it here.
They say they’re responsibly working across the aisle in order to get things done. But the reality is that they are raking in money in exchange for dealing away Democratic power.
Exhibit A: “Lulus” — the lovely name for bonuses NY legislators get for chairing committees or other extra duties. My opponent gets a lulu of $27,500 a year for being “deputy assistant majority leader.” Except the job doesn’t exist; it isn’t listed either on his website or the Senate’s. And he swears up and down that he’s not supporting the Senate Republicans, which would make it hard for him to be assistant to the Republican majority leader.
Exhibit B: Campaign donations. The IDC gets hundreds of thousands of dollars from NYC real estate interests and the for-profit charter school industry. A report by the Alliance for Quality Education shows “how the IDC worked to reward these charter school backers with their Republican Senate Coalition partners during the 2017-18 state budget process by delivering a larger operating aid funding increase per pupil to privately-run charter schools than to public schools. The operating aid increase for charter schools was twice as large as the per student operating aid... increase that public schools received.”
Exhibit C: The gift of running unopposed. (Until now.) The cosy IDC-GOP relationship has meant that IDC senators typically don’t have GOP opponents. So that campaign money they rake it just mounts up year after year. They have used it to scare off primary opponents, but that isn’t working out so well for them in 2018.
A bunch of us are running in IDC districts to change that whole dynamic this year. And one of our first actions when we create a working Democratic majority in Albany will be robust campaign finance reform. Please support us! Flipping the NY State Senate is within our reach, and it will give Democrats another coveted trifecta and a chance to reverse decades of inaction on progressive legislation in Albany.