Rod Watson: Who’s looking out for you? Certainly not Albany’s Democratic majority

Rest assured that state legislative leaders Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Carl Heastie and their respective Democratic majorities in the Senate and Assembly are on the case.

Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that you, the average citizen, are the No. 1 they’re looking out for.

The blatant gutting of a campaign finance reform law last week to make it easier for Albany’s finest to keep their jobs – and harder for voters to get viable Election Day choices – makes clear who legislators consider their top priority.

News flash: It’s not you.

The only positive thing citizens can take from this slap in the face to democracy is that the Senate vote was so close. Immediately after the vote, a Senate official announced the tally as 32-31 to weaken reform, before the count was changed to 34-29.

John Kaehny, the executive director of Reinvent Albany who helped blow the whistle on what legislators were up to as the session wound down, said reformers actually had the votes to kill the rollback until some last-minute arm-twisting by Senate Democratic leaders as the vote was being taken. He said three senators, whom he would not name, changed their votes even though staffers had given assurances that they would not weaken the public funding system set up just last year.

The 2022 reform tried to lessen the impact of big money in state politics by setting up a public funding program in which small donations of up to $250 to state candidates would be matched on ratios of anywhere from 6-1 to 12-1, depending on the office and the amount raised.

The bill passed last week undercuts that reform by eliminating the $250 cap so that donations of any size are eligible for public matching funds on the first $250. It also raises the threshold for both the number of in-district donors and the total contributions a candidate must raise in order to qualify for the matching funds. Both moves will…