Too much money is spent on political campaigns

The amount of money spent on political campaigns in New York is obscene.

This election saw cosmetics heir Ronald S. Lauder spend more than $11 million to aid Lee Zeldin’s bid for governor. That’s the equivalent of someone working a minimum wage job for more than 350 years.

Gov. Kathy Hochul barnstormed her way to a campaign war chest of more than $50 million, helped by dozens of donors writing top-level checks. Recently, Long Island environmental advocates cheered the arrival of a similar dollar amount to help nine local water providers address “emerging contaminants” in drinking water that can cause cancer.

Long Island’s congressional candidates alone raised and spent millions of dollars, supported by millions more from often-shadowy outside groups. That includes two affiliates of a cryptocurrency outfit that together tried to influence races on both sides of the aisle. OpenSecrets estimates at least $17 billion was spent nationally on state and federal campaigns.

Was it worth it? Think of the miles of the Southern State Parkway that could be improved with some of that sum, or needy families fed.

The system is not working. It’s not working for candidates, stuck dialing for dollars instead of talking to everyday constituents. It's not working for the public, who get deluged with dark and dubious mailers and advertisements that sully our discourse, deflate serious policy debate, and turn candidates into caricatures.

The system can hardly even be called a system, so filled with loopholes has it become. Super PACs, built to spend money without the limits placed on individual donors, are not supposed to coordinate with candidates. Yet forms of coordination happen all the time. That includes the semi-secret parts of candidate websites — including those of Democrats and Republicans on Long Island — that contain video footage or script ideas for outside admakers. This year, the state Board of Elections is also — belatedly — investigating connections between Zeldin’s campaign and two of the Lauder-funded groups.

The money needed to win in New York can get candidates into trouble, as with Hochul, who has been criticized for state business awarded to big donors — an egregiously time-honored tradition in New York.

Attempts to reform this system are hard, and too often blocked: Republicans in the Suffolk County Legislature recently killed an inexpensive public campaign finance program. On the state level, however, we are at the dawn of such a matching-fund program to incentivize contributions between $5 and $250. It will be active for 2024 and 2026 statewide and state legislative races and includes much stricter limits on contributions in general.

That’s one tool. Another could be requirements for much more clarity, in big letters, about exactly who is paying for those dreadful ads. Campaign reporting sites should require a readable archive that keeps those ads attached to the people who paid for them. Stand behind your money.

We can’t afford to continue down this road.