Rep. McCarty, Republicans Support Campaign Finance Reform

HARTFORD – State Representative Kathleen McCarty (R-Waterford) 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.

“With a vote on the state budget looming in the next day or two, I couldn’t have imagined further increasing the ambiguity of how our already burdened taxpayers’ money is being spent in this state,” said Rep. McCarty. “Our constituents need to trust that their voices are being heard in a balanced, clean election that will fairly determine a genuine representation of their interests.”

The amended bill now moves to the Senate for a vote before it can be officially signed into law by the Governor.