Campaign finance reform not exactly on hold

Hartford - As the fate of Connecticut's historic campaign finance reform law hangs in the balance in federal court, state lawmakers Monday dived back into the debate over how to revise the law to address legal challenges.

In a public hearing of the Government Administration and Elections Committee, legislators weighed proposals:

• To lower thresholds by which minor parties qualify to receive grants for campaigns.

• To reduce overall grant amounts to address concerns that they constitute "windfalls."

• To repeal a provision that could trigger the all-but-certain dissolution of the five-year-old law in the event of a negative ruling by the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

"The eyes of election law practitioners and policy makers around the country and in Washington, D.C., are watching what happens in Connecticut," said Rep. James F. Spallone, D-Essex, the co-chairman of the committee, "because we have the strongest, most comprehensive public financing law ever passed in this country, and it's very important that we respond appropriately to the challenge that we're facing."

Lawmakers are considering the uncertain future of the Citizens Election Program, which uses unclaimed financial receipts to fund election grants for legislative and statewide office-seekers who agree to limits on campaign spending and fundraising.

The program was struck down as unconstitutional last summer by a federal judge. Both that ruling, and another that upheld the state's bans on campaign contributions by lobbyists, state contractors and their families, are before the appeals court.

Lawmakers are trying to address some of the flaws identified by Judge Stefan Underhill, even as the ultimate resolution of the federal appeal remains an uncertainty.

"Rather than fluttering in the wind ... we want to be prepared to address any ruling that the Second Circuit may hand down," said Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, the co-chairwoman of the committee.

The public hearing served to reopen old wounds from 2005, when Gov. M. Jodi Rell reversed the policy of her predecessor, former Gov. John G. Rowland, and embraced the concept of publicly financed campaigns and strict exclusions on contributions from lobbyists and contractors.

After numerous attempts to strike a compromise on a reform package in the regular legislative session in 2005, the law was finally passed in a special session later that year.

But the law has had a mixed reception in the courts.

Underhill upheld the state prohibitions on contributions by lobbyists and contractors in a suit brought by members of those industries and their spouses. But last August he struck down the Citizens Election Program in a strongly worded decision that questioned the amounts of campaign grants and suggested that the steps required of minor political parties to qualify for the ballot and for public funds represented an infringement on their constitutional rights and an unacceptable benefit to incumbents and to the Democratic and Republican parties.

The two suits were heard jointly by the appeals court, which also agreed to stay Underhill's ruling pending the outcome of that appeal.

Since Underhill's ruling, backers of the bill, including Beth A. Rotman, the director of public campaign financing for the State Elections Enforcement Commission, have urged swift legislative action to preserve the program.

In particular, Rotman urged quick action on a provision of the law that could gut the entire program upon an injunction by the court. That provision would kick in if the legislature was not able to amend the law within seven days of an injunction.

"By repealing that provision, the legislature eliminates the most imminent threat to the program's survival," Rotman said.

Opponents of public financing used the forum as a chance to revive doubts about the underlying premise of the 2005 reforms in general and public financing in particular, which Connecticut Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy called a "taxpayer-subsidized fraud."

Incumbents generally begin reelection campaigns near the 50-yard line, Healy said, but the tilt of the existing system toward the interests of incumbents puts them "near the goal line."

Healy's testimony elicited a testy response from Spallone, who got the Republican chairman to concede that the public system's grants don't actually come from taxes - the fund is supported by escheats, or revenue from unclaimed property that has reverted to control of the state treasurer.

Spallone also wanted to know about the Republican candidates who used the public financing system in its debut election cycle in 2008: "Would you say that those members of your party were participating in a taxpayer-subsidized fraud?" he asked.

"I think they were playing under the rules they were given," Healy replied.

Healy's fellow Republicans on the committee were unanimous in their skepticism of the proposed solutions to the potential constitutional flaws in the public financing program, a program they have repeatedly attempted to eliminate in recent months, in order to apply the revenue to balancing the state budget.

On Monday, they had an unlikely ally in a staunch Democrat: Sen. Edith Prague of Columbia, who said she supported the goals of the campaign finance system but not in times of spiraling state deficits.

"This is not the time, in my opinion, for us to spend $43 million of taxpayers' money on politicians' campaigns," Prague said, and asked lawmakers to temporarily suspend the program.

Proposed revisions of the existing campaign finance law submitted by Rell (HB 5021) and drafted by the committee (HB 5022) are available at www.cga.ct.gov.