Oh...Remember when Democratic Leaders were for Campaign Finance Reform

by: jonpelto

Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 08:18:11 AM EDT

Democrats Complete the Task of Undermining the State's Public Finance Law

"Senate Democrats gave final legislative approval Wednesday to a budget bill that cuts the staffs of the three biggest watchdogs by about one-third and ends mandatory audits of publicly financed legislative campaigns."

Mark Pazniokas, of the CTMirror, reports on the successful effort by the Democrats to undermine Connecticut's landmark campaign finance law.

Karen Hobert Flynn of Common Cause responds, saying "For a minute amount of money to be saved out of the state budget, in the end I fear we have made the watchdogs far weaker and made it much harder for them to do their job."

The new state budget actually cuts the staff at the State Elections Enforcement Commission by a larger percentage than any other agency, and the budget implementation bill goes on to target the public financing program with a number of changes that will undermine the campaign finance program's ability to function.

The attack was led by people who have consistently claimed to be the program's biggest supporters.

Oh remember the days...

Back on January 27th, 2010, when then-candidate Dan Malloy spoke out after a Zogby public opinion survey found that 79 percent of Connecticut voters supported public financing and the Citizens' Elections Program.

Malloy said, "In my view, this poll should serve as proof of just how strongly Connecticut voters feel about campaign finance reform, and as a warning for those candidates who think they can brush aside the Citizens' Election Program..."

And Speaker of the House Chris Donovan was so pleased with the passage of the landmark campaign finance bill back in November of 2005 that he wrote "Almost 230 years ago, the founding fathers took a huge risk when they signed the Declaration of Independence and set the wheels in motion for the world's greatest democracy. Today, this historic campaign finance reform legislation reaffirms that this is a government for the people, not special interests. This campaign finance reform bill is our declaration of independence. We can look our constituents in the eye and say we created the strongest campaign laws in the United States."

Even now, Senate President Pro Tempore Don Williams' official biography reads, "Since his election as Senate President, Senator Williams has been a leading advocate for cleaning up government. He authored legislation to reform the State Ethics Commission and supported sweeping changes to the campaign finance system and the state contracting process. With the creation of a publicly funded campaign finance system in 2005, Connecticut now has the strongest reform laws in the nation."

But the legislation that passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday May 31, 2011, and then the State Senate yesterday, severely limits the oversight of the program by mandating that the State Election Enforcement Commission cannot audit more than 50% of the State House and State Senate campaigns that utilize the public financing program.

Furthermore, it also places extraordinary term limits on those who serve on the State Elections Enforcement Commission, reducing their terms from five to three years; and bars them from serving consecutive terms.  The law will ensure that no commissioner has the historic perspective to properly monitor the program.

State Senator Gayle Slossberg, the only Democrat to vote against the anti-public financing proposal was quoted as saying, "I just think that the proposal in front of us undermines the independence and the integrity of the watchdog agencies,"

Although the Malloy Administration said the cuts to the State Elections Enforcement Commission were necessary to balance the upcoming state budget, Pazniokas' story notes the irony that only a few days ago Malloy and the Democratic leaders were able to "find" the money to eliminate the $400 budget deficit in next year's budget thanks to the use of surplus state revenues.  In fact, the growing revenues have allowed Malloy to propose using cash instead of borrowing over $600 million dollars for this budget.

A new billion dollars in revenue; but the massive changes to the public financing program were still needed...

At least, that is the situation according to Malloy's primary advisor, Roy Occhiogrosso, who said "There are difficult decisions. There are difficult spending cuts. There are difficult tax increases...That's what happens when you have a $3.5 billion deficit."

But Occiogrosso added that the changes would make government "more efficient and cost effective."

For the CT Mirror story, go to: http://ctmirror.org/story/1278...