At a meeting on Monday, a commission created to implement New York’s public campaign finance system voted to pass a proposal that would make it significantly more difficult for alternative political parties to operate in the state. The proposal would change party qualification rules and, combined with an earlier measure to end fusion voting, is seen as part of a larger set of attacks by state Democrats, led by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on Cuomo’s nemesis: the Working Families Party.

In doing so, state Democrats go against national party leaders, who have spoken out against attempts by the state party to end the WFP’s ballot line. Both party leaders and the WFP say the change would also build a structural advantage for Republicans in swing districts across the state by eliminating the WFP’s margins and boosting numbers for the state’s biggest minor party, the right-leaning Conservative Party. New York Democratic Party Chair and Public Campaign Finance Commissioner Jay Jacobs’s change would increase by threefold the number of votes political organizations need to qualify as a party. Currently, a party has to petition to get on the ballot, and then receive 50,000 votes in a gubernatorial election in order to qualify as a party for the next four years, without having to go back through the arduous petition process. Jacobs’s latest proposal would raise that threshold to 2 percent of total voter turnout every two years in a gubernatorial and presidential races, or 130,000 votes, whichever is higher. In a typical gubernatorial election, that’s around 130,000 to 150,000 votes. In a presidential race, that’s around 160,000. The new proposal would go into effect in 2020, which would keep WFP off the ballot in 2022 if they don’t reach the new threshold in 2020. Cuomo is up for reelection in 2022. In that case, the WFP says, it would continue to focus on primary challenges and organizing in the state.

According to the WFP, the move could jeopardize a handful of blue seats in Congress and the state Senate.

WFP New York state director Bill Lipton called the Monday vote a “power grab” and said that “Cuomo and Jay Jacobs were hell-bent on punishing the WFP for our independence.” “The party qualification changes happened only because Cuomo and Jacobs threatened to blow up the public financing proposal altogether if they were not able to extract a pound of flesh from WFP.” The only party that is likely to make the new cutoff is the right-leaning Conservative Party — the state’s third largest party, and the only one of six minor parties that consistently gets more votes than the WFP. The Conservative Party would likely maintain its status under Jacobs’s proposal. That means it would be able to shrink its margins in areas where the WFP had previously taken a larger share of votes. According to the WFP, the move could jeopardize a handful of blue seats in Congress and the state Senate. WFP national campaigns director Joe Dinkin told The Intercept the proposal by Jacobs would “just be spitting in the eye of progressives,” and that Jacobs would “also be damaging the prospects of swing district Democrats all over the state.” The commission was originally appointed to implement the state’s public campaign finance system. But Lipton has also said the commission was designed specifically to end fusion voting, a mechanism that allows candidates to run on multiple party lines. In theory, the mechanism helps minor parties stay afloat without taking votes away from major candidates, by allowing major-party candidates to be listed on a minor-party ballot line if the smaller party nominates them. Jacobs, who was appointed by Cuomo, has been open about his disdain for fusion voting and actively recruited speakers to testify against fusion voting to the public campaign finance commission, Politico reported in September. Democratic leaders in New York have also spoken out in support of the WFP and condemned the commission for trying to end fusion voting and working to dismantle the WFP’s ballot line. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted Friday that the commission should focus on campaign finance and “not ending fusion voting and the @NYWFP.” New York Democratic Reps. Grace Meng, Antonio Delgado, and Anthony Brindisi tweeted their support for the WFP as well, saying the commission’s proposal would disenfranchise voters and help special interests, and effectively handicap the state party. All have run on the WFP party line as well as the Democratic line. “This plan helps conservatives and hurts Democrats and progressive policies,” Meng wrote.