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Governor Rell has vetoed the legislature's attempt to bring Connecticut's public campaign financing law into compliance with a recently-issued order from the US Supreme Court. That order arose in an Arizona case, and the Court essentially said you can't have public campaign grants designed to match the spending of other candidates (if I understand it correctly). The Connecticut legislature decided to bring our plan into compliance by raising the initial grants to candidates. In the case of governor -- from $3 million to $6 million. They also changed the restrictions on lobbyist contributions to candidates, but that's not my immediate concern. I'm worried about a scenario under which Rell's veto stands, the matching grants are disallowed in a court, and the Democratic nominee for governor has half the funding he was expecting, finding himself at a 3- or 4-to-1 spending disadvantage in the general election.
After Tuesday's primary, we will know the nominees of each party for governor. I do not think a Fedele win is very likely on the Republican side; Tom Foley will be the GOP nominee. I admit that I have a very poor read on the horse race on our side. I am assuming Ned Lamont is still leading, but I haven't seen any valid polls lately, so I have a hard time assessing changes in the race as the election approaches. Dan Malloy could very well pull out a late rally win. And if he does, I think we face the potential for a very, very bad fall campaign.
If Rell's veto is not overridden, Malloy would be campaigning in the general on $3 million. I believe Foley will spend many multiples of that. If Malloy applies for a matching grant, Foley will sue. He already sued to block the grant to his primary opponent, a guy he was beating by 25 or 35 points at the time. Of course he will sue Malloy, who would be well ahead of Foley on August 11 if both are the nominees. I don't see how the court ignores the US Supreme Court's order in the Arizona case. Maybe there is some significant difference between their law and ours, but from what I've read it seems clear that there will be no matching grant. From WTNH's story on the topic: "If Democrat Dan Malloy wins their primary and faces millionaire Tom Foley in the final election, Malloy won't get any extra public funds to be competitive."
How likely is an override? A post here a few days ago makes the case that it is pretty unlikely. In the House, 75 Democrats (and no Republicans) voted for the bill. Twenty-one were absent. Let's say all 21 now vote for the override. You'd have 96 votes. That falls six short. So you need six of the eighteen Democratic "no" votes to switch (and run the table on all 21 who didn't vote originally), assuming no Republican votes "yes" to double Malloy's campaign funding.
So here's the nightmare scenario: The legislature can't override the veto. Malloy and Foley prevail in the primaries. Foley sues Malloy to block the matching grant. Malloy's strategy goes out the window, because he now has half the money he was planning on. Foley can define Malloy with ads questioning Stamford's success and misrepresenting any little thing in Malloy's lengthy public record. Our governor candidate can't fund his own Get Out the Vote effort statewide. Meanwhile, Linda McMahon is funding one. An electorate already inclined to vote Republican for governor shows up and does so again, and we have Governor Foley. Not incidentally, those voters don't vote for Himes, Courtney or Murphy while they're there.
This whole business of arguing over whether public campaign financing SHOULD be able to offset independent expenditures is not really important (in my opinion) now. Yes, it is an important issue. But not now. We have twelve weeks to elect a new governor. This is not the time for Democrats to step forward and argue that because money was appropriated, we should spend it (on our candidate, by the way). I don't get the sense that argument will move a lot of voters our way.
I have yet to see really compelling differences between Lamont and Malloy on policy. Transportation, education, taxation and budgeting, social services, etc... they are much more alike than different. I really think that even if you're 100% happy with candidate X, candidate Y should make you at least 88% happy, too. OK, now get out the knives and fight it out in the comments. But I suggest the differences between Malloy and Lamont are really about style and past experience, not proposed policy. And style and past experience matter somewhat, but either of these men would be far, far better for the state than Governor Foley, wouldn't they?
I see three cases where the nightmare scenario doesn't come to pass: 1) Fedele is the GOP nominee 2) The legislature overrides the veto or 3) Lamont is our nominee. Items 1) and 2) don't seem likely. Only 3) is within our power. We haven't won a gubernatorial election in twenty-four years. What do you say we end that streak now and vote for Lamont.
cross-posted with some minor changes from newcanaandems.info |
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