New in New York State - Public Match for Candidates

2024 will be the first year New York will have publicly funded elections, thanks to a law signed by Kathy Hochul in 2022. It gives matching funds for small donors from $5 up to $250 and reduces the amount that any individual donor can make in Statewide, Senate and Assembly races. The previous amount that individual donors could make to a statewide candidate was $69,700 over the course of the election cycle. To put that into perspective, the federal contribution limit stands at $2,900, even for President. That is now a maximum of $18,000. People running for state Senate can now only accept $10,000 over the course of the primary and general elections, down from $19,300 previously. Assembly candidates have a new limit of $6,000, a decrease from the past election’s $9,400.

Only small dollar donations get matched. For statewide office, candidates have a 6-to-1 matching ratio, meaning that $250 will become $1,750. The matching system for legislative candidates is a little more involved, with a tier system going from 12-to-1 for the first $50, 9-to-1 for the next $100, and ending at 8-to-1 for the final $100. That means that a $250 donation will result in $2,550 for a candidate. Statewide candidates can get a maximum of $7 million in matching funds combined for the primary and general election, state Senate candidates max out at $750,000 and Assembly candidates can receive up to $350,000. Candidates must also get a certain number of small donor donations from district constituents to demonstrate they have enough support to be viable candidates.

An analysis of New York candidates’ 2022 fundraising by the Brennan Center and OpenSecrets shows the program could increase the financial power of small donors to legislative candidates six-fold, from 11 percent of overall donations to as much as 67 percent. For statewide candidates, small donors’ financial power could increase nearly seven-fold, from 6 percent to 41 percent. The cost of this program in the budget is $114.5 million — less than 0.001 percent of the state’s budget. It’s an investment that allows voters to compete with the special interest groups that seek to influence legislation.

Unfortunately, it does not ban Super Pacs - due to the Citizen United decision.