CT Progressive

If this comes to pass, then maybe I’d say that we should have trusted the Senate Democrats and all of their manuevering this whole time.

That’s a big if. But progressives are due a pleasant surprise by now, don’t you think?

I was talking with a political friend yesterday, someone who was involved in the original fight to establish public campaign financing in Connecticut. To him, Lamont’s decision to forego the CEP is momentous; to me, not so much. But the conversation is foregrounding the fact that, for a statewide race with over 800,000 eligible voters, the primary grant ($1.25 million) is simply not very much money.

On its own, the grant would probably pay for about 7 mailings to the households where eligible voters live. But staff, office expenses, consultant fees, and the like will eat into that — take a look at Malloy’s January filing. The campaign had 3 staffers for most of the fall quarter, and took on another two in December. Their fundraising operation brought in $71,000, but the campaign spent $162,000 over the same period. Operating expenses would at least double in the heat of the summer campaign, so we’re now talking about a campaign that optimistically has $900,000 to communicate with voters. At best, 5 mailings with no TV advertising and no intensive field operation. Rough.

But the bigger problem, I think, is that this grant of public money won’t even become available until candidates get nominated at the end of May. At the current rate, Malloy will run out of money near the end of March. And that’s assuming that he never actually declares as a candidate (about half of the funds he’s raised are “non-qualifying” dollars, which are the portion of any large donation above the $100 limit that declared, participating candidates can raise). If he had declared as a candidate on January 1st, the money would have run out by the middle of last week. Just when the campaign will need to ramp up (the weeks leading up to the convention), the well will run dry, the staff either sent home (problematic) or working on spec and IOUs (probably illegal). Any qualifying funds over $250,000 that a candidate raises will have to go right back to the Citizen’s Election Program as soon as the candidate applies for the grant. That is, simply put, not an acceptable or sustainable program for operating statewide campaigns.

One way to correct this problem, assuming that the CEP is allowed to stand by the courts and is fixed by the legislature, would be to move the convention dates way up. Unfortunately, that would raise real hurdles for candidates that announce in the same year as the election: a March 1 convention would make it nearly impossible for someone like Glassman (who announced recently) or Marconi and Figueroa (who don’t have strong statewide profiles) to get 2500 donations in just a few months.

Maybe the way to fix it would be to untether the candidate qualification process from the conventions entirely. The process right now is divided: qualifying as a candidate requires that you get 15% of the delegates at a convention or 5% of the voters in the district to sign a nominating petition, but the finance laws are an entirely separate set of regulations. A closer integration of the candidate laws and finance laws might recognize a candidate’s qualification for a primary from the date they submit a completed application for public financing or receive the required number of delegate votes or voter signatures. That would make them eligible for the full grant immediately; making them wait around for a formality doesn’t accomplish much apart from making it harder to participate in the program.

For candidates that have qualified, declaring someone an official candidate at the point of their successful qualification for the CEP would put an end to the ridiculous “exploring candidate” tap-dance that they’re forced to perform to keep their campaigns from completely folding in the months before the convention. Conventions would still decide who was the endorsed candidate, and could nominate candidates who hadn’t finished their fundraising.

A fix like this wouldn’t solve the “too little” problem, but it would have the double benefit of keeping the program relevant in the doldrums before the conventions while changing the law to recognize that someone (at any level) who can meet the public financing is, in fact, a real candidate. 300 donations are easily worth 1500 signatures. Let’s hope that the law (if it remains on the books after the Second Circuit rules) continues to evolve to reflect the realities of modern campaigns. Even though we’re just now seeing it in action for the first time in statewide races, it’s clear that the rules are already well behind the times.

Dick Blumenthal will be stopping by at Yale on Monday to talk with the College Democrats.

Hopefully he asks them about technology issues, since he might do some real damage to the modern internets if he wages his fight against MySpace from the floor of the U.S. Senate.

The proposed bill is online, and it’s got a lot of interesting bits:

• The grants for Gubernatorial primary/general candidates are not changed — $1.25M and $3M, respectively.
• The grants for other statewide offices have been reduced from $375k to $250k for the primaries, and from $750k to $375k for the general. The primary grant would just about cover a single mailing to the Democratic primary electorate. Those wondering why Susan Bysiewicz decided to run as a privately financed candidate now have their answer.
• The bill introduces quadrennial increases in the statewide grant amounts, linking the grant totals to increases in the consumer price index. State Rep/Senate grants will be adjusted biennially.
• State Senate grants have been dropped to $25k/$54k for primaries (party dominant / non-dominant districts), and $61k for the general.
• State Rep grants have been dropped to $7k/$18k for primaries, and $18k for the general.
• Unopposed candidates are no longer eligible for matching grants.
• The signature thresholds for minor party grant qualification remain unchanged (10/15/20%) unless the Second Circuit upholds Underhill’s decision. In that case, the thresholds drop to 3%/4%/5%.
• There’s also a trigger to change the formulas for supplemental grants if the Second Circuit bans the excess/independent expenditure grants. The change would make the maximum supplemental grant much smaller — previously, if a candidate was massively outspent either by opposing candidates or independent expenditures, the supplemental grant could be up to 100% of the original. The trigger provision would make it so the supplemental would only go up to 50% of the original grant ($625k for the Governor’s primary, $1.5M for a Governor’s general election).
• The section causing the entire program to collapse on the decision of a court (Sec. 9-717 of the statutes) is repealed.

It’s a hodgepodge, and the fact that the Second Circuit has heard arguments and is busy deciding Green Party v. Garfield at the same time that this bill is being considered makes figuring out the impact of the potential changes much more confusing. Can the Second Circuit strike down parts of the new/amended statute, which wasn’t in effect when the Green Party filed their case? What happens if the Second Circuit makes their ruling before this bill passes? I don’t know.

Does the bill provide “countervailing” disadvantages to candidates participating in the program? If you think of a participating candidate running against a self- or privately-financed candidate, it doesn’t seem like a privately-financed candidate would have too hard a time re-establishing an advantage in terms of available cash — especially since the privately-financed candidate has the benefit of knowing if and when they plan to cross the threshold, leaving their opponent unable to plan around receiving the supplemental grant.

Indexing the grants to inflation is a good idea, but will make it difficult for the legislature to fix the new grant amounts if they turn out to be too low for challengers to mount a competitive race. (Is $18,000 really enough for a newcomer to turn out an incumbent? I’m skeptical.) I personally think that the point of public financing is less about getting new people elected than it is about reducing the influence of wealthy interests, but increased competitiveness is the main purpose so far as most of the public (including Judge Underhill) is concerned. Between the reduced regular and supplemental grants, I think that this bill serves to weaken the glue that holds the program together. We’ll see what happens after the committee hearings (originally supposed to be today, but rescheduled for sometime in the near future.)

Jim Amann leaving the Governor’s race.

He endorsed Malloy in the 2006 primary, though I can’t really imagine any of the candidates looking for his endorsement this time out.

Jesus Christ.

This has been brewing for a couple of days now, and it brings a couple of points to mind:

First, what Lamont said was stupid and wrong. No doubt.

Second, I’m very impressed that nobody who’s familiar with Malloy’s history of labor relations in Stamford seems to have said a single word about how awe-inspiringly cynical his attack here is.

Third, there’s a disconnect here that repeats itself over and over again with progressive policy initiatives – a compromise is hashed out behind the scenes and introduced, but those who want to be seen as centrists don’t get the memo (or the airtime, more likely), and attack whatever bill as too liberal.

With healthcare, a national health system was compromised down to single payer, single payer activists were sold on the public option, the public option was vaporized in exchange for nothing. Advocates, who would have been thrilled at half a loaf, start getting pretty unhappy when they’re told to give back the 1/8 of a loaf that they have remaining. And now, everyone’s clucking at the clever Democrats promoting the ultra-conservative Paul Ryan healthcare bill. Of course, the Ryan bill will go down in flames, but in February 2010, some fringe Republican character will get a chance to insert items into the signature Democratic legislative accomplishment while the large and loyal progressive caucus has been frozen out for the better part of a year.

The President or the Governor is always going to tack to the center – as another example, Bush wanted the authority to invade anything and everything without giving any reason, and compromised by accepting the mere authority to invade Iraq for no particular reason. He was able to compromise with the extreme right because there was a functioning extreme that he could negotiate with.

But now, as Lamont is realizing that the bill (click here to see the draft) is already compromised to a pale shadow of what liberals wanted, it’s basically impossible to ask for any further compromises in the name of moderation and reasonableness. So he’s forced to either crap on a bill that was already pretty conservative and incremental (making it moreso), or sound like an idiot for not understanding what’s actually on the table.

Yes, what Ned said was uncool, but without a functioning left in the legislature, it’s something that’s going to be repeated over and over again no matter who winds up being Governor.

Another reason why we’ll miss Senator Dodd.

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) announced today that he will be introducing a constitutional amendment in the coming days to reverse the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The decision overturned 100 years of precedents to come to the unjustified conclusion that corporations deserve the same free speech protections as individual Americans.

“Money is not speech,” said Dodd. “Corporations are not people. And in the wake of one of the most radical decisions in the Supreme Court’s history of campaign finance jurisprudence, a constitutional amendment is necessary to fully restore the trust and voice of the American people. If corporations – foreign as well as domestic – are allowed even greater and more direct influence over our elections, our democracy as we know it will cease to exist. I won’t stand for that. I urge my colleagues, and the American people, to join me in defense of democracy by supporting this amendment and other interim steps to mitigate the damage done by this decision.”

Amending the Constitution — turns out it’s good for something other than right-wing fundraising after all.

I thought I was bummed out about the public option getting stripped out of the healthcare bill.

But that’s nothing compared to the glimpse offered over at this site into the correspondence being received by our legislators.

Holy crap.

Has anyone read Bysiewicz’ Ella Grasso book?