[EL] HELP NEEDED: Local Clean Election Law for NY

[Mike Ewall]

Hi all,

Is there anyone on this list who could help me design a local Clean 
Elections Law for a Town in the state of New York? The objective is 
to make it harder for a corporate polluter to take over the town in 
the election this November. We'd have a majority willing to pass the 
law soon if we can get it crafted.

Here's a little background on the situation.

First, I'm new to this list, having just learned about it from 
Richard Winger. I'm the Executive Director of a national 
environmental justice group called Energy Justice Network. We help 
communities stop dirty energy and waste industries, among other things.

In the past two years, I've been working with residents to stop plans 
by the world's largest cement corporation (LafargeHolcim) to burn 
trash from 50-70 Connecticut towns in the huge cement kiln next to a 
high school in the Town of Coeymans, New York (Albany County). We got 
that stopped in late 2017, but then the company doubled down on 
wanting to burn tires there, which we stopped when the Town hired me 
to draft a Clean Air Law, which was passed in late March 2019. It was 
passed in a 3-2 vote of the Town Board. It happens that the three YES 
votes are Democrats who are all up for election this year. The others 
are both Republicans who almost voted the right way, but did not. The 
company's stooges are trying to take over the town in this year's 
election, and they only need to win one seat to overturn our Clean 
Air Law. The sitting Dems seem willing to pass a Clean Elections Law 
if we can draft one for them quickly.

My thoughts on this so far are that we'd need something that fits the 
situation and isn't likely to get caught up in lengthy legal 
challenges. It has to be something that a local government in NY can 
pass. We should also recognize that the Town probably doesn't have a 
lot of money to be putting into publicly financing the election in 
any way. While I'm pretty familiar with an array of needed election 
reforms at various levels of government, the only one that seems 
particularly relevant to this situation right now would be something 
where the Town would make very public the campaign contribution data 
that is already having to be reported to the state/county government. 
This might mean paying for a mailing to all voters, having something 
in the local paper, and/or having prominent signs outside of polling 
locations stating who received what money from which interests.

I'm open to other suggestions, and could use help in drafting any of 
this, since I haven't written these sorts of laws before.

Please feel free to call or email me to discuss.

Best,

Mike Ewall, Esq.
Executive Director
Energy Justice Network
215-436-9511
mike at energyjustice.net
http://www.energyjustice.net


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