Connecticut Campaign Finance Reform

Dear Fellow Democrat:

Two bills regarding campaign financing – House Bill 6670 and Senate Bill 61 – are before the State Legislature right now. Both of these bills would serve to cripple local Town Committees and their activities on behalf of candidates for state offices. I hope that you will join me, in contacting your state senator and state representative, to ask that the problems with these bills can be corrected.

Please read (all are PDFs):

• the brief synopsis of the bills that was provided by State Central,
• the summary of the provisions of both bills,
• and the testimony by State Democratic Party Chair Nancy DiNardo.

There is no doubt that campaign finance reform is necessary, and the intent of the bills – to provide for public financing of state campaigns – is clearly laudable. But to place severe limits on local town committee activities, to establish limits on in-kind contributions to candidates – well, it would, for instance, probably prevent us from establishing a campaign headquarters in 2006. Both bills would also prohibit ad books, an important source of funding for our Town Committee for many, many years.

Frankly, it would probably result in the resignation of our Town Committee Treasurer, Bernie Nitkin, who has served in that capacity since (according to him) Columbus arrived in the New World. 

Here are the numbers for our state legislators:

• Martin Looney and Joe Crisco:
  800-842-1420
• Peter Villano, Brendan Sharkey and Cam Staples:
  800-842-8267

As always, if you need any further information, please call me. Thank you in advance for your support.

Thanks,
Joe McDonagh
Hamden DTC Chair