The Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal that has roiled Washington now appears to be causing ripples at City Hall. Although New York City has been spared any big lobbying scandals of late, Mayor Bloomberg and Council Speaker Quinn had taken the opportunity to call for pre-emptive lobbying reform. Yesterday they unveiled a five-point program. Some of their proposals are good ideas, albeit not in the way they think. Others are at best misguided. The key point to mark is that whatever are the ailments of city politics, the exercise of bedrock First Amendment rights by ordinary New Yorkers is not one of them.

Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn would block public matching funds for campaign contributions from lobbyists; the public match currently adds up to $1,000 in taxpayer money to a $250 donation. They would tighten the current $50 gift limit to an outright ban. They want an electronic filing system that will make lobbying disclosures easier for the public to access, and also would require lobbyists to disclose their fundraising and consulting activities. Finally, the mayor and speaker want to double penalties, hiking the maximum fine for violations to $30,000.

The stated goal of these proposals is to “strengthen the integrity of City Government, increase its transparency and save taxpayers money.” The mayor and speaker project that their matching funds proscription will save taxpayers $500,000 on each citywide election. Yet public matching funds for lobbyist contributions are no more corrupt than is the idea that taxpayers should be forced to subsidize candidates by matching contributions from individual donors. Lobbyists were specifically sheltered by the First Amendment, the same as other citizens, under the right to petition. The right and thrifty thing would be to stop using the power of government to force taxpayers to fund candidates with whom they disagree.

Mr. Bloomberg’s and Ms. Quinn’s hearts may be in the right place, but it’s hard to imagine that a $50 paperweight would sway any public official. Or that there are many public officials out there whose vote may be purchased by a campaign contribution worth $1,250 but not for $250. If one believes money does corrupt the process then one has to accept that cutting off the obvious channels for that money will only force it even deeper under cover. Stricter campaign finance regulations at the federal level have only succeeded in pushing “corrupting” money into so-called 527 groups that are even less transparent than a candidate’s campaign treasury. And if the money finds other legal loopholes through which to flow, tighter disclosure and penalties will only accomplish so much.

Money does corrupt government, but the corrupt cash is almost always the money the government spends, not the money citizens spend exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights of speech and petition. Some federal lawmakers understand this, such as Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who has proposed tackling the lobbying “problem” by shining the light of day on congressional pork. If City Hall has a lobbying problem, Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn would be better off solving it by restraining the government instead buying into the same anti-First-Amendment fad that’s all the rage in Washington at the moment.