Alec Macgillis explains how the financial industry would wield much more influence in New York’s mayoral race if it weren’t for the city’s uncommon campaign-finance system:
The city caps individual contributions to mayoral candidates at $4,950. More significantly, the city is one of very few jurisdictions in the country with a public campaign financing regime. Each dollar that a donor gives to a candidate for city office, up to $175, is matched by six dollars in public funds. The obvious effect of this is to greatly magnify the role of small donors. If a candidate can get 20 people in his or her neighborhood to give just $100 each, that translates into a total of $14,000—far more than the candidate could get from getting one or two wealthy New Yorkers capable of writing a check at the maximum level.
And this is no mere hypothetical. The incentives of public financing have transformed campaign funding in New York into a much more egalitarian affair than we are used to in our political system (that is, at least in the years when one of the world’s richest men isn’t paying for his own campaign). A study by the Brennan Center at New York University found far higher participation in campaign giving to City Council candidates in New York than to candidates for state office, where matching does not apply.
The Dish 