House overrides vetoed campaign finance bill

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — For the second time in two weeks, Connecticut lawmakers have voted to override Gov. M. Jodi Rell's veto of a bill intended to fix legal problems with the state's campaign finance reform law. The bill now becomes law.

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives voted 106-30 during a special session Friday to re-pass a bill opposed by the Republican governor. The Democrat-controlled Senate voted last week to override her veto.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that a section of the law that provides extra public funding to political candidates, based on the spending of well-financed opponents, is unconstitutional.

Rell and other opponents were against a part of the new law that would double the $3 million base grant for gubernatorial candidates who participate in the public campaign funding program.

"The legislature today faced the necessity of making court-ordered improvements to the Citizens' Election Program ... however the majority party has seized upon this moment to transform the CEP – a set of reforms that had been considered a national model – into a welfare program for politicians and a war chest for the impending, inevitable barrage of nasty, negative advertising and 'robo-calls,'" Rell said in a statement.

"The majority party has again turned a deaf ear to the resounding cries of the public for fiscal restraint," Rell added. "At a time when Connecticut families continue to struggle to recover from a recession and the state faces the possibility of additional budget cuts to offset declining federal revenue, spending an additional $3 million on political campaigns is a difficult decision to defend, to say the least."