Cuomo To Hold Telephone Town Hall On Campaign Finance Reform

In a sign that a new push for campaign finance reform is on the horizon, Gov. Andrew Cuomo will take part in a telephone “town hall” forum on Monday with Citizen Action, according to an email invitation released this afternoon by Executive Director Karen Scharff.

The call will take place on Monday at 7 p.m.

The group is billing the event as a chance to hear Cuomo talk why he wants to overhaul the campaign finance structure in New York and give “the latest update on activity” here at the Capitol.

“We have the chance to reform the way money controls politics and increase the power of voters, instead of leaving the process in the hands of big money interests that currently dominate Albany,” the email reads.

In his third State of the State address in January, Cuomo called for a system of publicly financed campaigns based on the New York City model. The program would not be funded with direct taxpayer dollars. Instead, the governor plans to push for some form of an off-budget revenue for the matching system in order to bring Senate Republicans along on the issue.

Cuomo also wants to create an aggressive donor reporting law that would require contributions above $500 to be revealed within 48 hours.

RSVP for the event by following this link.

The call comes as Cuomo and state legislative leaders are in the midst of negotiating the finer details of his $142.6 billion budget proposal, expected to be passed early this year in order to accommodate the Easter and Passover holidays falling the final week of March.

Engaging Citizen Action is a sign, though, that the governor is employing ground-level help for the campaign finance overhaul effort in a Legislature that’s notorious for half reforms.