Rep. Harding, Republicans Push for Clean Elections

HARTFORD – State Representative Stephen Harding (R-Brookfield) applauded the passage of a bill, as amended by a Republican proposal, to reform the publicly financed Citizens’ Election Program (CEP). This program, originally passed in 2005, has been the subject of many controversies.

The CEP, which funds gubernatorial, statewide and state Senate and House races, is a publicly-financed program that provides candidates with campaign funding after achieving specific private contribution thresholds. Since 2008, the 1,185 taxpayer-funded CEP campaigns have cost $80.7 million, according to the nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis.

Unfortunately, money tends to circumvent this program through various “loopholes.” For example, in the recent election cycle, it was found that state contractors, who can’t donate to candidates by Connecticut law, were donating to federal party accounts. Though not meant for it, this money was used for statewide races.

The Republican-proposed strike-all amendment to H.B. 6749, which completely rewrote the underlying bill and associated fiscal impact, will prevent this from happening again. It also prohibits a candidate’s family members from being paid more than $1,000 by any candidate or candidate committee that has accepted CEP money (under current law it is already prohibited for a candidate to pay their family members anything).

The bill also includes capping organizational expenditures by state parties and reducing individual donor limits to state parties from $10,000 to $5,000. Most importantly, however, it reduces all CEP grants by 25% – an expense that cost Connecticut taxpayers $33.4 million in 326 publicly-funded campaigns in 2014 – and prevents abuse of taxpayer-funded campaign grants.

“This state cannot afford to further risk jeopardizing the trust of our constituents,” said Rep. Harding, member of the Legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. “I am happy that this bill, if passed by the Senate, could very likely save state taxpayers money and encourage transparency of taxpayer-funded campaign spending.”