Campaign Finance Test Tops Hurdle

A federal judge has rejected the state’s efforts to dismiss a landmark challenge to the 2005 campaign finance law brought by the ACLU-CT and others. Ruling for the challengers on most of the counts before him, Judge Stefan R. Underhill said the challenge can go forward.

(A second part of the ACLU challenge, to that part of the law barring lobbyists from all campaign giving, is to be considered separately.)

Before Judge Underhill at this stage was the argument on behalf of the Green Party of Connecticut that the new law, which has yet to be implemented in a state election, is unfair to third-party and petitioning candidates. It would provide public financing to major parties, but make others scale a high hurdle of votes or petition signatures to qualify for funding.

While not ruling on the merits, Judge Underhill concluded that the challengers have sufficient standing to be heard – rejecting most of the state’s motions to dismiss.

The judge said the challengers deserve a full hearing on the argument that in “one-party-dominant” districts the new law would “crowd [third-party candidates] out of races,” and would be “effectively a subsidy to major party candidates.”

“Plaintiffs argue,” the judge wrote in a 59-page ruling, “that it is unfair to impose additional qualifying requirements only on minor party candidates because, in one-party-dominant districts, the minor party candidate’s chances to win the general election are as good as, or better than, the token (or nonexistent) major party candidate, yet the token major party candidate is presumptively entitled to the full complement of public funds, whereas the minor party candidate must show additional ‘modicums of support.’

“That argument is persuasive,” Judge Underhill wrote.“Indeed, in those districts, major party candidates have proven to be just as capable of running hopeless candidacies, or no candidacies at all, as minor party candidates. Defendants [the state]have suggested no good reason why the legislature sought to protect the public fisc [the public treasury] from hopeless minor party candidacies, on the one hand, while spending significant sums of money on hopeless major party candidacies, on the other.”

Read the entire opinion: Green v Garfield ruling

Support our work: Click on DONATE in the upper right-hand corner. We need and appreciate your help!