The 2 lives of public financing
Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court and a Connecticut political class that puts the “sin” in cynical, it’s time to say that after three quadrennial election cycles and more than $20 million, public financing in races for governor has failed, spectacularly.
In the General Assembly, however, it’s the name of the game. The vast majority of state House and Senate races are run with candidates and incumbents raising threshold levels of $250maximum contributions, to leverage the voluntary — remember that word — Citizens’ Election Program. Unclaimed property in the State Treasurer’s office, mostly the forgotten bank accounts of dead people, is the source of the money.
Senate candidates must raise $15,300, while House hopefuls need $5,100. For that they are eligible for $35,000 and $10,000 for Senate and House primaries, respectively. In the general election, they get another $75,000 and $25,000 to run their campaigns, which mostly feature eponymous lawn signs and relentless piles of glossy mailers.
The whole point of the CEP — signed into law by Gov. M. Jodi Rell in December 2005 when her predecessor was still in federal prison on multiple felony charges — was to take special interests out of state politics. The unintended consequence was the festering money grubbing of municipal races in the big cities. But I digress.
Initially, lobbyists were barred from contributing to General Assembly and top-of-the-ticket races, and a whole class of State Capitol denizens briefly rejoiced and breathed signs of relief. In subsequent years they were found to be people, too, and were allowed to cough up $100 per candidate, until legislative leaders quietly raised the limit to $250, in time for the 2018 cycle.
The CEP for the General Assembly began in the 2008 election, which coincidentally signaled the rise of Republicans, gaining seats every two years until they had a 18-18 tie in the Senate and a tiny minority in the House after the 2016 election. Then came to the Trump tsunami that put Democrats back in a comfortable majority, if only until the 2020 elections.
On paper, the CEP for governor looked pretty historic when it took effect in 2010. Raise $250,000 in $100 increments and a candidate could grab $1.25 million for the primary, plus $6 million for the general. Dan Malloy used the CEP in 2010 and 2014. His opponent in those races, a millionaire from Greenwich named Tom Foley, lost a close race in 2010 using his own money, then failed by a wider margin in 2014 using the CEP.
The so-called Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010, pretty much created a huge loopholes for politicians to drive through. It opened the floodgates for dark, barely traceable money. Political action committees sprung up like mushrooms after a soft spring rain in a cow pasture.
By 2014, Malloy was saying he was going to do “anything it takes” to hold his serve for a second term. So he highjacked the Democratic State Central Committee and glommed onto about $1.5 million from the DSCC’s federal account, to which state contractors, barred from direct contributions to candidates, are allowed to write checks. Earlier in the cycle, Malloy, in joining the voluntary — there’s that word again — program, pledged to limit his spending to his CEP grant. Meanwhile, the Democratic Governors Association, for which Malloy participated in fundraisers around the country, poured $10 million into the Connecticut governors’ race, as a so-called independent expenditure, but you can read that as a tawdry laundry operation.
Shortly before Election Day 2014, the under-funded and under-staffed State Elections Enforcement Commission got a complaint from Jerry Labriola, then the chairman of the state Republican Party. The SEEC tried to peel away the layers of the onion, but Democrats whined and fought every inch, until finally, in June 2016, more than a year and a half later, they agreed to a record-butmeasly $325,000 fine, with a tacit promise not to use their federal account in future governor’s races.
Around this period a federal grand jury in New Haven quizzed Democratic Party staffers. For some reason, no federal indictments resulted. Democrats never even had to pay back the entire $6.5 million for the transgressions of Malloy’s re-election effort.
This last election, Ned Lamont and Bob Stefanowski wallowed away with mostly their own money. Lamont spent about $15 million of his own cash, while Stefanowski chipped in a relatively frugal $3.25 million, about half of his campaign war chest. The rival national governors’ associations did their things.
No one made any promises that they would break before Election Day.