Even as the votes are still being counted in the race for the 46th Senate District, one result is already in: Fair Elections won.
Passing Fair Elections reforms, including the public financing of campaigns, was one of my campaign's core issues. I'm convinced my outspoken support for these reforms is the reason only a handful of votes separate my opponent and me thus far.
Like the voters of my district, I know our democracy is deeply flawed. I experienced firsthand the need to spend countless hours raising campaign cash against my well-funded opponent and his connections to deep-pocketed donors. As I spoke to voters in my district, I was pleased to learn that they shared my disgust with the status quo. They know that lobbyists are lining the halls of the Capitol by day and roaming the fundraisers of Albany by night.
During the campaign, I offered a real solution to that status quo: A voluntary system of public campaign finance, just like New York City's small-donor matching funds system.
Only then, I argued, could we restore fairness and increase the influence of everyday New Yorkers in the 46th District and across the state.
My opponent, George Amedore, thought he could use this issue against me: In the final weeks of the campaign he and his allies flooded the airways and mailboxes disparaging a Fair Elections system, exaggerating its cost and flat out opposing any real solutions to the problem of big money in politics. In the end, though, voters rejected his view and responded to my campaign's message.
The facts, of course, counter the rhetoric of anti-reform, public campaign finance opponents.
Fair Elections would cost less than $2 per year per New Yorker, according to the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute, led by University at Albany professor Michael Malbin. That's a tiny price to pay to get our democracy back.
Some politicians are suggesting that smaller steps are all we should or can do right now. I don't buy it.
While I fully support lower contribution limits, increased transparency and closing loopholes, I wouldn't have run on a platform that included only those reforms.
Instead, we must seize the moment and pass a full system of public financing. The working people of my district and all of New York will never catch a break in this economy until we reduce the influence of lobbyists, big banks and wealthy donors, and they know it.
As we move toward a new legislative session, I'm hopeful that I'll have the honor of serving in the Senate and the chance to join my colleagues in the Democratic conference and cast my vote in support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's campaign finance reform plan, which he wrote about last week on these pages.
And, if I do get sworn in, I'll know my support for public financing is a central reason I won the job.
Cecilia Tkaczyk lives in Duanesburg. Like the other 300,000 or so residents of the 46th District, she's still awaiting the results of the Senate election there.
