‘Changed the political culture’

The National Rifle Association has spent more than $300,000 on direct contributions to tri-state area State House and Senate campaigns since 2000. Only $29,000 of that spending went to General Assembly candidates in Connecticut — which stopped in 2006 —while the organization continues to spend on New York and New Jersey races. 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 pay-to-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 highranking 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.

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 specialinterest 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.

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.