Mayor Bloomberg yesterday vetoed campaign finance legislation that would have altered the funding of city elections and aided challengers to the billionaire mayor.
Led by Speaker Gifford Miller, a likely candidate for mayor next year, the City Council had approved a package of bills last month to make the public financing system more generous – giving candidates $6 in taxpayer funds for every $1 they raise privately. The system currently provides a $5-to-$1 match.
The proposed increase would help increase the size of the campaign war chest of any rival to Bloomberg, who didn’t enroll in the public financing system when he ran in 2001. Bloomberg spent nearly $75 million of his own money on his campaign.
In his veto message, Bloomberg said the council’s legislation failed to curb the sleazy practice of “pay to play” – government contractors making political contributions.
The council legislation “simply ignores and even thwarts the goal of the program, which is not to benefit incumbents with still more matching contributions by those who do business but to reduce the appearance and reality of improper influence,” Bloomberg said.
Council aides pledged to override the mayor’s veto.