Press Release
DeRosa for CT Secretary of the State

Connecticut Campaign Finance Court Challenge

The following is a transcript of a joint press conference held on July 06, 2006 in Hartford CT.  The press conference was held in the legislative office building by the CT Green Party, the CT ACLU and other plaintiffs.

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July 06, 2006

My name is Mike DeRosa and I am the co-chair of the CT Green Party.

Today the Green Party of CT, the ACLU-CT, and numerous other plaintiffs are challenging the recently passed CT Campaign Finance Law in the U.S. Federal Court. Under this law, no third party candidate can qualify for campaign funding unless the party candidate for the same office won at least 10% of the vote in the prior election, or the candidate gathers the signatures of 10% to 20% of the people who voted in the last election. The major parties are exempt from this requirement under this law. The major parties also receive substantial funding for primaries whereas third parties receive none. Under other provisions of this law, the Green Party, along with all the other major and minor parties, would also have to gather a large number of small donations in order qualify for funding under this law. The two requirements that third party candidates must meet are too high.

We consider this law an act of blatant discrimination against third parties and independent candidacies. We believe that this law is unjust and unconstitutional. It violates the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the 1st amendment, and many other rulings by U.S. courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. To put another way: The two major parties in CT believe that all parties are equal in CT but some parties are more equal than others.

The onerous requirements in this law stack the deck against third parties and make it almost impossible for Green party candidates to receive campaign funding. The CT legislators who drafted this law in the dead of the night knew that they were creating a law that would create two classes of political parties that were separate and unequal. They also knew that it would protect incumbency by giving a virtual monopoly of campaign funding to the two party system. That is why some of us in the Green party call this legislation the No Incumbent Left Behind Law. 

Elections in our opinion are supposed to increase political discourse, give voters more choices, and introduce new ideas into the political system. That is what politics and campaigns are all about. In our opinion this CT law is not campaign finance reform, it is campaign finance deform. Some would even call it the Prevention Of Politics Law. 

We call upon voters of all political persuasions and the U.S. Federal Courts to help us in this important effort to create a fair and truly constitutional campaign finance law in the Constitution State.

More Information: 
acluct.org/aboutacluct/pressroom/acluchallengescampaignfina.htm 
CFRComplaint.pdf