Rep. Candelora and Legislative Republicans Push to Reform Campaign Finance Laws in Connecticut

Deputy Republican Leader Rep. Vincent Candelora (R-86) on Thursday, January 29, joined legislative Republicans in announcing a 2015 push to reform campaign finance laws in Connecticut.

Candelora has co-introduced a number of campaign-law reforms, including reducing grant amounts of the taxpayer-funded Citizens Election Program (CEP) and prohibiting certain political action committees from making certain independent expenditures for the benefit of a candidate. We must all abide by the law that’s in place, Candelora said, seeing that’s not the case, we need to change it.

 “Connecticut is not in a position to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars on political campaigns,” Candelora said. “We are facing nearly a $3 billion deficit over the next two years; it’s safe to say that taxpayer dollars would be more efficiently used to help us overcome our current financial hurdle.”

The CEP, which funds gubernatorial and state Senate and House races, is a public finance program that awards candidates with campaign funding after hitting a specific private contribution threshold. Since 2008, there have been 1,185 taxpayer-funded CEP campaigns, according to the nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis.

In 2014 alone, Connecticut taxpayers funded $33.4 million in publicly-funded campaigns.

 “This legislation was at first created to establish ‘fair elections,’ now that the original purpose has been tainted it’s time for us to make adjustments – ensuring that taxpayer dollars are not being misused,” said Candelora.

The 2015 proposals include:

1) Cap organizational expenditures by state parties

Currently, political parties can make unlimited organizational expenditures on behalf of participating candidates. Republicans are proposing the following limits:

• Candidate for Governor                                       $250,000
• Candidate for Constitutional Officer                   $75,000
• Candidate for State Senate                                   $10,000
• Candidate for House of Representatives              $3,500 2) Reduce individual donor limits to state parties from $10,000 to $5,000 In 2013, individual donor limits to state parties was increased along with the amount state parties could make in organizational expenditures to a campaign. Republicans are proposing to roll back donation limits to previous levels. 3) Eliminate grants to unopposed candidates Currently, candidates for state office (constitutional officers, senators, and representatives) are eligible for CEP grants even if they are unopposed.  The amount of their grant equals 30% of a full-grant. Republicans are proposing to eliminate these grants. 4) Stop state contractors from donating to a federal account to fund a state race The State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) needs to be able to enforce Connecticut’s current laws that contractors from donating to state races. Republicans are proposing legislation to help SEEC enforce this law. 5) Reduce all Citizens’ Election Program grants by 25% By reducing CEP funds across the board, the state can save taxpayers approximately $7 million in gubernatorial election years and $2.4 million in Presidential years.  

	Current Grant Amounts	Proposed Grant Amounts (25 % reduction)
Governor	$6,500,400	$4,875,300
Constitutional Officer	$812,550	$609,412
State Senator	$94,690	$71,017
State Representative	$27,850	$20,887

“We must  re-double our efforts to eliminate certain grants, reduce the money we spend on elections and curb the influence of outside groups that have been allowed over time to re-enter the field,’’ said Representative Klarides.