More (CEP) Vegetables

by: mattw

Sat Jul 31, 2010 at 18:55:42 PM EDT

• The case will henceforth be known as Green Party of CT et al v. Lenge et al, in recognition that Mr. Garfield is retired, presumably to somewhere far away from public grants.
  
  
• The legislature took their action to update the public financing laws yesterday, obtaining a veto-proof margin in the Senate and a not-veto-proof margin in the House. There were some weird elements, such as re-allowing lobbyists and contractors to solicit funds again from now until January 1, 2011... but the big surprise was that the Senate lumped the increased grant amount into the big package, instead of allowing the technical fixes to stand alone. CT News Junkie has the quotes:

  Sen. Gayle Slossberg, co-chairwoman of the General Administration and Elections Committee, said if certain issues included in the bill aren't addressed by Aug. 11 the "whole thing crumbles."

  "So by vetoing the bill she risks eliminating the entire program," Slossberg said following the vote. [...]

  Shortly after the vote Rell sent out a statement promising a veto.

  "They have taken a program that was intended to remove the taint of special interests and corruption from political campaigns and turned it into a welfare program for politicians. When the bill arrives on my desk, it is destined for a swift and certain veto," Rell said.

  I personally think that this kind of brinksmanship is stupid and counterproductive -- especially if the votes aren't there. I'm not even sure the process will allow the legislature to get the bill back for a veto override by August 11th.
  

• This is a little spicier - it turns out that the Malloy campaign has petitioned to join the Green Party v Garfield Lenge case as defendants along with the State. (See also their the 7/25 memorandum of law prepared by the Committee's attorneys at Robinson and Cole and the 7/23 affidavit from Malloy's campaign manager.)

  One line jumped out at me (repeatedly) throughout these documents:

  Malloy is the Democratic nominee for governor of the State of Connecticut. Malloy qualified through the Committee for and received base funding for the Democratic primary election under Connecticut's Citizen Election Program ("CEP"), Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 9-702 et seq. The committee qualifies for and expects to receive a CEP grant for the 2010 general election.

  I thought that was a little hasty - perhaps like the intervention itself. The campaign is seeking to join the case under "Rule 24(a)", which (quoting from their brief) requires that "For an interest to be cognizable for Rule 24(a) intervention, the interest must be 'direct, substantial and legally protectable,' rather than 'remote [or] contingent on the occurrence of a sequence of events before it becomes colorable." I'm sure someone here could think of a "sequence of events" that stands between Malloy and a general election grant.

  In any case, there will be another conference held by the court on Monday.
  

• There's a transcript that is not yet publicly available on the docket (which may give a clue as to Beth Rotman's pessimism concerning the post-primary operation of the CEP), but there are a couple more documents to share:

  - The ACLU's response brief (and associated exhibits) on the subject of severability.

  - The State's response brief on severability (along with associated exhibits).

The new bill includes the following language, so the severability issue may be moot if the legislature can get a bill into law:

(a) Each section, subsection, subdivision, subparagraph, clause, provision or portion of public act 05-5 of the October 25 special session or any subsequent amendment to any such section, subsection, subdivision, subparagraph, clause, provision or portion of said public act shall be construed as separable and severable from all other sections, subsections, subdivisions, subparagraphs, clauses, provisions or portions of said public act. If any provision of said public act, as amended, or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect other provisions or applications of said public act, as amended.

Also, just as a matter of curiosity, the bill (SB-551) gives incumbents a little break on lawn signs (deducting a fixed amount rather than a pro-rata charge from the grants for lawn signs on hand, and seemingly allowing a town committee to store signs to prevent a candidate from being charged for them), adds having an ownership stake of 5% or more in a contracting company to the list of defined "contractors", and bans subcontractors from contributing to (and, after next year, soliciting funds for) campaigns,.