The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
NRA campaign contributions dwindle in State
Still able to maintain a presence
STAMFORD — State Rep. Caroline Simmons, an outspoken advocate for gun control in recent weeks, and her husband Art Linares, a Republican state senator, have said they have differing views on policy, and gun control may be chief among them.
While Simmons in March roused a crowd of nearly 3,000 gun-control supporters at a student-led rally in Stamford and argued for the “strictest gun laws possible” during a visit to an eighth-grade classroom last week, Linares is one of only two General Assembly members in Hartford to receive support from the National Rifle Association in recent years. The political odd couple — Linares rated 93 percent approval by the NRA and Simmons rated 7 percent, according to VoteSmart.org — who made headlines last year for their marriage, appear to highlight the NRA’s tepid interest in
Connecticut.
The powerful gun-rights lobbying group, which spent nearly $413 million in 2016, according to tax filings, has spent very little here, especially after 2006, and even then just a fraction of spending in neighboring New York and New Jersey. However, the support for Linares underscores the group’s presence in Hartford, and, though careful to adhere to strict state campaign finance laws, it’s still interested in keeping a footprint in a state where each dollar it spends must be reported.
In 2016, the NRA spent about $2,000 on endorsement postcards for the Linares campaign for state senate. However, the unsolicited expenditure was “independent” of his campaign, and Linares did not coordinate it.
Linares and Simmons did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Connecticut, which enacted sweeping campaign finance reforms in 2006, is one of a handful of states to fully require reporting of that spending. That law and others, experts said, was prompted by the payto-play scheme that jailed former Gov. John Rowland.
The only way to compare with other states, like New York and New Jersey, is where the reporting is the same, in direct contributions to candidates.
In that category, the NRA, which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of candidates for state and federal offices in recent years, has hardly touched Hartford.
It hasn’t given a dollar directly to a General Assembly campaign since 2006. Meanwhile, in Trenton and Albany, the group is still spending on candidates, mostly Republican, in efforts to influence state policy.
Before 2006, the group was spending in Connecticut, and backed several candidates, including Democrats, who are still in office. State Sen. John Kissel, R-7, got $2,075 in four races, and state Sen. Tony Guglielmo, R-35, received $2,000 from 1996 to 2004.
The NRA also contributed to campaigns of now high-ranking Democrats, including Deputy House Speaker Emil “Buddy” Altobello, D-82, who got $500 in 2006 and $250 in 2000, and House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-30, who received $250 in 2006.
‘Changed the political culture’
Connecticut’s State Elections Enforcement Commission said the drop in NRA contributions is likely attributed to the post-Rowland reforms.
“The success of Connecticut’s campaign finance reforms and its Citizens’ Election Program is exemplified by the fact that
special-interest groups such as the NRA no longer make direct campaign contributions to legislative and statewide candidates who participate in the public financing program,” SEEC Executive Director Michael Brandi said. “The inability of special interest groups to control the agenda of individual office holders has, without question, changed the political culture in Connecticut.”
Even then, Connecticut and other nearby states didn’t see much money from the NRA. The group spends far more in battleground states.
In direct contributions to General Assembly races in 2016, the NRA spent $64,000 in Washington, $22,000 in Oregon, $20,000 in Wisconsin and even spent big in New York with a total of $13,000.
One outlier is Massachusetts, which has not seen an NRA dime, according to the Institute of Money in State Politics, which tracks campaign financing in all 50 states.
There, a 200-year-old law that prohibits political contributions from groups that take money from businesses has curbed the spending ability of many special-interest groups, said Jason Tait, spokesman for the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance.
According to the institute, the NRA does most of its spending outside of direct contributions. For
example, it spent $55 million on independent expenditures, and only $1.15 million directly to campaigns in 2015 and 2016. Independent spending, unlike direct contributions, has no limits after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010.
Data on independent spending in New York and New Jersey is not available from the institute, said Pete Quist, the institute’s research director. The two states also don’t require reporting of nearly as much information as Connecticut, which is among the best in the nation in terms those requirements.
All of the NRA’s independent spending in Connecticut came in 2014 and 2016, when the group spent several thousand in support of Linares, who is now running for state treasurer, and John French’s failed state senate bid. It also spent in support of state Rep. Tami Zawistowski, R-61, in her winning effort in 2014.
But the group’s biggest independent spending came in opposition of a candidate. The group spent nearly $9,000 in 2014 on a phone bank, bumper stickers and staff wages in opposition to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, according to the institute’s records.
Connecticut’s strict gun laws — rated as the third toughest in the U.S. by the Gifford’s Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence — owe some success to the
NRA’s lack of interest in the Nutmeg state, said Gary Rose, a Sacred Heart political science professor.
“But despite the overall thrust of the state, there are some areas where the NRA message means something,” he said.
The NRA likely tries to “keep a footprint” in states like Connecticut that many might consider a “lost cause,” he added.
The NRA did not respond to requests for comment.
Scott Wilson, president of the gun-rights group, Connecticut Citizens Defense League, said he appreciates the NRA’s work in the state, although the CCDL has taken a different approach to gun-rights advocacy.
In recent years, it spent most of its money on legal fees, according to tax records, much of it on a case, Shew v. Malloy, that went all the way to an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“A lot of work and fundraising went into raising those funds,” Wilson said. “A lot of people dug their heels into that to try to make that happen...to try to win back our rights.”