New York State Campaign Finance Reform: Mission Improbable

Erika Rosenberg at Policy Wonk has a nice piece outlining the problems getting in the way of any real campaign finance reform in New York State despite Spitzer's best efforts. I've always been wary of the concept of campaign finance reform, and I'm not fan of McCain-Feingold; I don't like telling people what they can and can't do. However, it's hard to argue against some kind of change in New York. The thing I find particularly galling is the gerrymandering of districts. I don't care which side it benefits, it is an inherent conflict of interest to let elected officials draw up their own boundaries. Another major obstacle, as Rosenberg points out, is that we're expecting Joe Bruno to cooperate with Spitzer on this stuff when Spitzer has vowed to erase Bruno's delicate majority in the senate. There's been a lot of talk about an independent commission to deal with these issues, which I think would be ideal. However, questions of who chooses the commission and how independent it would really be persist. See the title of this post.