posted by: Hebee | October 21, 2011  2:01pm

Wow! I thought that Union contributions paid for our Democratic Legislators’ election campaigns. Silly me, Connecticut was released from the grip of corruption and pay to play scandals in 2005. Live and learn.

posted by: GoatBoyPHD | October 21, 2011  2:15pm

It smelt like there was gaming the system last cycle in its first walk through.

This notion that to eb fair I as a tacpayer ahve to fund the less affluent candidate with an unlimited amount of funding is nonsense.

Other states have addressed the flaws in CTs law and the trigger mechanism as it is currently constructed.

posted by: ... | October 21, 2011  2:21pm

Heath’s poor correlation of laid off troopers (who have been rehired weeks ago) is also extremely weak. Anyone aware of the issue would not try to make that a comparison. Maybe argue Fast Five or other big programs installed, but not a resolved ‘non-issue’.

Plus this program is an opt-in. Plenty of candidates can decide to run on their own dollars and alternative set of financing rules. It is hard to see what Heath sees in the evils of this option other than (perhaps) misguided fantasies of those who wish to abolish the program that the government is somehow fixing the candidates, and the campaigns.

posted by: NOW What? | October 21, 2011  8:21pm

The Yankee Institute is not interested in fair elections, affordable taxes and needed services for the poorer and middle classes, better public schools, or jobs for the unemployed. They’re only really interested in legislation and policy that specifically serves to preserve and increase as much privately held wealth as they can possibly get away with, everything and everyone else be damned. That’s it in a nutshell.

posted by: CitizenCT | October 21, 2011  10:32pm

Ms. Quickmire, Heath Fahle’s claim that taxpayers are forced to pay for candidates’ campaign is 100% correct. By law unclaimed property is escheated to the state.  If it hadn’t gone toward paying for Malloy’s campaign it would’ve been used to pay for state expenses, so the largest tax increase in CT could’ve been less than it was.  By any measure it’s paid by tax dollars.

posted by: Commuter | October 26, 2011  12:13am

CitizenCT is right, and wrong.

The money could be applied to other uses, but he well knows that this will not result in lower spending and taxes.  So this argument doesn’t hold any water.

Quickmire demonstrates a command of the facts, and has been in multiple leadership positions around the activist community in Hartford.  She must know better, and shouldn’t put forward this rationale.  It is obvious nonsense.

But the point she is making doesn’t suffer for it.  The cost of providing funding for qualifying candidates is peanuts in exchange for the chief benefit: it effectively levels the playing field in a high percentage of races.  In those where it doesn’t level the field, because an opponent is non-participating, it nevertheless provides enough to allow an individual of modest means to pursue public office.

Not ever citizen who might make an excellent representative or senator, or constitutional officer for that matter, is an effective fundraiser.  Any argument that suggests that this must be a requirement for holding office deserves to be ridiculed.

And Mr. Fahle, while perhaps sincere, is at best an unwitting accomplice in the project to create a ruling class in this country, controlled by those with the means and connections to participate at their own discretion in governance.

That project, to be blunt, is un-American.

posted by: Commuter | October 26, 2011  12:51am

Mr. Fahle’s pie chart “Who paid for the 2010 campaigns?” illustrates more than he intends.

This chart shows that if you remove the personal funds expended by Mr. Foley and Mr. Lamont, the CEP represented some 79% of funds expended.  His explanation alongside the chart suggests that Mr. Foley and Mr. Lamont were somehow doing us all a favor by diluting a bad thing.

But if one can resist begging that question (as Mr. Fahle cannot), he might notice that - not only did their shared opponent run (and beat them both)  on the money from small donations and the CEP - something like 70% of all state-level races were funded by the CEP.

Now, if just two individuals of means (pursuing the same office, no less) account for about 30% of the total moneys expended, and essentially everybody else ran on just 49%, I’d say that demonstrates the CEP is a damned efficient system: high opt-in, greater percentage of competitive races, greater participation in the process and - in effect - a self-imposed cap on expenditures.

If you are a fiscal conservative, you ought to be all for the CEP.

posted by: HartfordPaul | October 26, 2011  8:17am

Ms. Quickmire is doing the same thing Mr. Fahle did in his piece.  Making false assumptions to fit their point of view. 

“97% ...raised… from individuals”  Are you aware of the term Pooling?  You only have to look closer to find that many candidates raised “individual” money from employees from one or two law firms.  There was nothing individual about these donations. 

“2010 COMPETITIVE races… narrowed the margin”  Creative by sliding in the word competitive and limiting her math to just a few races instead of looking at the state as a whole.  Also this was a year in which Republicans swept most of the country thereby making it close regardless of the CEP.

The reality is that the CEP was designed as an incumbant slush fund to keep incumbants in office.  Don’t believe me… look at the results since the CEP has been instituted.  Look at the Thousands of dollars sunk into the campaigns by the “Leadership PACS” (nice loophole, by the way).
If anyone believes that the CEP has reduced lobbyist influence in our political system - they are either ignorant or naive. 
Or in the case of the author of this OP ED, has an agenda.

posted by: GoatBoyPHD | October 26, 2011  9:51am

I have many problems with the way the program is implemented. I’d prefer a program that mandates debate and print and online media inserts for all candidates including third party.

Weekly debates and media coverage. If a candidate spends more beyond that, more power to them.

One that has little qualification and guarantees ballot access with minimal effort for new parties.

The CT law was designed to address specific scenarios like the Linda scenario and to protect the two large parties.

I’d much rather CT look into real reforms like New Hampshires $200 a term non-professional, non pensioned state legislature with a rep for approx every 1000 households and elimination of the two house system and increased use of referendum.

Yes, term limits. Two terms in 20 years.

CT hasn’t proven that a professional pensioned legislature is any better than New Hamphires.I’d argue they’ve proven just the opposite.

The legislature is a home to scoundrels using their $32,500 (with expenses) P/T job as a calling card to pimp thier legal services or future careers. They should be paying taxpayers for giving them that visibility.

Im general I hate the CEP system. It’s a fraud. It’s built on wrong assumptions. Bad ones at that.

posted by: ... | October 26, 2011  12:53pm

I’m not sure I’m a fan of more regulation in the campaign GoatBoy. Controlling their spending (as we have seen with Citizens United) would be controlling their speech.

The point of the program is that they earn the CEP funds through the local and social networking that gets them a wide base of small donors.

It sounds like further mandating what the campaign must spend their awarded funds on could very well damage their ability to campaign. If the general populous wanted weekly debates, they would demand them of their candidates.

And spending money on media coverage is already what many of these campaigns try to do. You now (seemingly) want us to go in and take control of the media now during campaign seasons so they are forced to show every candidate under the sun.

Although if you’ve worked on campaigns, I honestly don’t see how you could mandate stuff like that, when it is textbook strategy to utilize events like debates, and expand your media attention in any way possible (on and offline).

It just sounds oversimplified (so spending would increase)and over-regulated (creating market inefficiencies). I figured you would be a guy for lower spending and less regulation from government programs.

posted by: Heath | October 26, 2011  1:24pm

I’m sad that I missed this post until just now. As for the post itself, there is only a couple points to add that hasn’t already been said - Common Cause has been reheating and serving the same gruel for quite some time now.

On the much-cited poll, it’s a good thing my memory isn’t short because I remember reading it - probably to the chagrin of its sponsors. Here are the topline numbers courtesy of CT Mirror: Leaving aside the usual discussion about whether an auto-dial poll of 503 people statewide is a good way to test public opinion and also dispensing with a dialogue about the whether the questions were neutral descriptions of the issue, 50% of those polled said they didn’t know enough about it. This means that the poll was really of 200 or so people that made it through the filter or half the sample kept pushing buttons after they’d admitted that they had no idea about the issue. Either way, it makes the polling evidence less persuasive.

One other thing - 97% individual contributions. If you make it difficult for groups of people interested in politics to contribute to politics, they donate as individuals. This is not an instructive statistic.

posted by: Heath | October 26, 2011  1:29pm

Hebee said:

Wow! I thought that Union contributions paid for our Democratic Legislators’ election campaigns. Silly me, Connecticut was released from the grip of corruption and pay to play scandals in 2005. Live and learn.

Live and learn, indeed. I’m sure the unions appreciate not having to pay for the legislators they own any more.

posted by: Heath | October 26, 2011  1:53pm

jonessAC12 said:

Heath’s poor correlation of laid off troopers (who have been rehired weeks ago) is also extremely weak. Anyone aware of the issue would not try to make that a comparison. Maybe argue Fast Five or other big programs installed, but not a resolved ‘non-issue’.

What part of “albeit temporary” is confusing? The point stands as argued.

It is hard to see what Heath sees in the evils of this option other than (perhaps) misguided fantasies of those who wish to abolish the program that the government is somehow fixing the candidates, and the campaigns.

The problem is this: In the zero sum world of political campaigns, one candidate’s spending necessarily does harm to the other candidates. The government is choosing the type of speech it prefers - speech it pays for - and thus doing harm to speech it doesn’t like - speech it doesn’t pay for. That is a dangerous precedent and I oppose it.

posted by: Heath | October 26, 2011  2:08pm

NOW What? said:

The Yankee Institute is not interested in fair elections, affordable taxes and needed services for the poorer and middle classes, better public schools, or jobs for the unemployed. They’re only really interested in legislation and policy that specifically serves to preserve and increase as much privately held wealth as they can possibly get away with, everything and everyone else be damned. That’s it in a nutshell.

I believe you missed a point about undermining the public employees’ unions, but otherwise you hit most of the usual talking points.

I would argue a contrary view: For the last forty years, policymakers ostensibly pursued a policy agenda aimed at ensuring fair elections, reasonable taxation, combatting poverty, improving education, and creating jobs, yet the scoreboard still shows little progress on many of these issues. Incumbency is the most powerful predictor of elections above all other factors. Taxes are too high. Poverty rates are the same today in CT as they were in 1970. The education system doesn’t produce enough students ready to compete and win in the 21st century economy. Connecticut’s economy hasn’t produced a net new job in two decades - a record that is the third worst in the nation over that time period. I argue that our current policy is not working and we need to pursue alternatives. That’s it in a nutshell, but I don’t think that makes me nuts.

posted by: Heath | October 26, 2011  2:18pm

CitizenCT said:

Ms. Quickmire, Heath Fahle’s claim that taxpayers are forced to pay for candidates’ campaign is 100% correct. By law unclaimed property is escheated to the state.  If it hadn’t gone toward paying for Malloy’s campaign it would’ve been used to pay for state expenses, so the largest tax increase in CT could’ve been less than it was.  By any measure it’s paid by tax dollars.

Also worth mentioning that every time the state needs money, they raid the Citizens Election Fund. Also, if/when CEF runs out of money, the law designates funds to be drawn from business taxes.

posted by: Heath | October 26, 2011  2:45pm

To Commuter’s point about the pie chart, et al:

I would argue that Foley/Lamont self-financing actually makes my broader point about CEP - because they disagreed with the government’s preference for a type of political speech, they were compelled to invest their own resources. Were it not for their ability to do so, the effort to express that disagreement would have been dwarfed by state-subsidized speech.

Commuter thinks that I’m seeking to “create a ruling class in this country, controlled by those with the means and connections to participate at their own discretion in governance”. Its a strange jujitsu to turn my opposition to the ruling class into support for it.

posted by: GoatBoyPHD | October 26, 2011  4:41pm

In Yankee’s defense I’d argue that many of their studies can lead to a different conclusion than the libertarian spin on it.

Sure it generally supports a smaller government POV by pointing out how often increased spending and government intervention have failed.

OTOH I find plenty of ammo there for programmitic reform. Wholesale reform.

I don’t have a problem with CT spending $20 billion dollars. I simply hate the way its spent and the union blockage of wholesale programmtic reform in the public sector.

posted by: ... | October 26, 2011  4:54pm

I’m glad you responded Heath. I know you said albeit temporary. It wasn’t confusing to me, it just felt too worn out an example to me. And I figured you would pick a more substantive correlation. But it is op-ed, so you pick what works for you.

As for the second part: I’ve only read the program over a couple times, and not recently, but I didn’t think speech was a regulator of how money was awarded. I was under the impression the driving factor was from earning contributions under 250 dollars from the public that led up to 250,000 or more dollars total in a set period of time. Not ‘which candidate do we like more’. Especially considering that not all those candidates under CEP were Democrats. Although I hope your arguments and distaste are based more upon the principle than of what party benefits from the program more.

posted by: Commuter | October 27, 2011  9:40am

Heath - the program is opt-in, so the assertion that the government has its thumb on the scale simply makes no sense.  The thumb on the scale belongs to those of the kind of means who can afford to spend millions and millions of dollars in an attempt to overwhelm their opponents, and the obstacle to running for office that erects.  Nobody, regardless of ideology, believes that having a lot of money doesn’t offer many, many advantages.

posted by: Heath | October 27, 2011  9:55am

jonesAC12 said:

. . . but I didn’t think speech was a regulator of how money was awarded. I was under the impression the driving factor was from earning contributions under 250 dollars from the public that led up to 250,000 or more dollars total in a set period of time. Not ‘which candidate do we like more’. Especially considering that not all those candidates under CEP were Democrats. Although I hope your arguments and distaste are based more upon the principle than of what party benefits from the program more.

My objection has nothing to do with the political affiliation of those receiving the funds. In my report I included a table entitled, “Everybody does it but that doesn’t make it right” describing how both major parties received millions from the state.

If I have a party-related quarrel with CEP, it is that it disenfranchises minor party and independent candidacies. Thirteen different political parties were represented on the ballot in 2010 by 49 candidates (plus another 23 write-in candidates), yet none received CEP funds or won their election.

As I noted before, election contests are a zero sum world. When the state expresses its preference for one type of speech over another in that venue, it necessarily harms the other candidate. That is the problem with state-subsidized speech.

posted by: Heath | October 27, 2011  10:22am

Commuter said:

Heath - the program is opt-in, so the assertion that the government has its thumb on the scale simply makes no sense.  The thumb on the scale belongs to those of the kind of means who can afford to spend millions and millions of dollars in an attempt to overwhelm their opponents, and the obstacle to running for office that erects.  Nobody, regardless of ideology, believes that having a lot of money doesn’t offer many, many advantages.

But the obstacle doesn’t exist, at least not in the way you fear it does. Go back and look at the Top Spenders chart in my original post - Six of the top spenders, representing 59% of all funds spent in 2010, didn’t win. So for all their millions spent, the voters sized them up and chose someone else. This suggests to me that the upper bounds of campaign spending matter far less than the lower bounds beyond which candidates must get in order to have a chance at being successful.

Common Cause argues that a taxpayer-funded system is the best way to get over that hurdle. I argue that the privately-funded system is the best way to get over that hurdle because the cost of getting over that lower bound is set by the marketplace, not by divinity nor government, and that the state subsidies do harm to those privately-funded candidates trying to make it to that point, and that voters shouldn’t be forced to subsidize the campaigns of candidates they oppose.

It’s a reasonable disagreement that your misconceptions obscure.

posted by: Commuter | November 11, 2011  8:59pm

Heath here employs a clever rhetorical tactic: arguing a point different from the one I made.  What Heath refutes is the argument that money is DECISIVE.  That of course is not what I said.  What I clearly argued is that _enough_money_is_necessary_.  And if one has _enough_ money, he can be a viable candidate, even victorious over much better funded opponents (which Heath proceeds to restate in slightly different terms, thereby conceding my point).

Heath is then hoisted by his own canard when he pivots and argues that the market place will set the lower bound.  The fact, as he well knows, is that a well-funded candidate drives competitors from the field, as Mrs. McMahon did two years ago.  That is the marketplace at work, and it is technically known as a market failure.  (This might be called the “market-based” argument for CEP.)

Thus, Mr. Fahle’s position is circular. Irrespective of whether or not individual data points are valid or his constituent arguments are or are not valid, his overall position is fatally flawed because the premise assumes the conclusion.

Or, in plain english, b*llsh*t, Heath!