Piscopo Criticizes $3 Million Political Payout to Democrat Gubernatorial Candidate Malloy
HARTFORD—State Rep. John Piscopo criticized House Democrats today for voting to give their gubernatorial candidate, Dan Malloy, an additional $3 million in state-supplied campaign funds.
Piscopo said that House Democrats have overextended themselves and Connecticut, which is facing a roughly $4 billion budget hole. And unfortunately, he said, the majority party continues to ignore the problem.
“Usually, when you’re in a deep financial hole you put the shovel away,” Piscopo said. “But in Hartford, it seems like we’ve got an even bigger problem—folks in the majority have keys to a backhoe and they’re digging a hole like none of us have seen before.”
The afternoon vote capped a turbulent couple of weeks for the state’s Citizens Election Program.
The legislature convened July 31 to tweak sweeping campaign finance reform laws enacted in 2005—laws struck down recently in federal court. Court rulings declared the prohibition of lobbyist money unconstitutional as well as supplemental grants triggered through spending by a candidate’s opponent
Among the solutions offered by super-majority Democrats was a provision increasing the grant for major-party gubernatorial candidates by $3 million to $6 million. Democrats passed their plan—rejecting a viable Republican—but couldn’t gain enough support within their party to prevent the eventual veto from Gov. M. Jodi Rell. Democrats in the state senate regrouped Aug. 5, voting to override Rell’s veto and send the bill to the House for the 106-30 vote Friday.
Malloy is the lone gubernatorial candidate participating in the Citizens Election Program, and Republicans, including Piscopo, wondered whether politics played a role in the vote.
“This is a bad move in these rough financial times,” said Piscopo, a member of the legislature’s Finance Committee. “Legislators have flipped their votes to suit the needs of just one statewide candidate—a path I believe is contrary to the spirit and intent of the program.”