Press Release
DeRosa for CT Secretary of the State

THE INCONVENIENT FACTS ABOUT CT’s CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAW
BY Mike DeRosa


The recent reversal of Count 1 of Federal Judge Underhill’s decision in the case of Green Party vs. Garfield by the 2nd District Federal Appellate court is a disappointment to the Green Party of CT and the Libertarian Party of CT, but the real losers in this decision are the independent voters and taxpayers of CT. We assert that this reversal decision props up a discriminatory state sponsored subsidy program that increases the free speech rights of the most popular political parties while simultaneously reducing the free speech rights of smaller political parties in CT. It is important to note that the Appellate court decision was not unanimous since one of the three judges voted for Judge Underhill’s view that the CT Citizen Election Fund (CEP) violates the 1st and 14th amendment rights of CT’s minor political parties. Over 42% of registered voters in CT are not affiliated with a political party or are a member of a minor party and yet these citizens are being given short shrift when it comes to equal and fair participation in the CT Citizen Election Fund (CEP).

Recently the Green Party nominated me as their candidate for the office of CT Sec of The State (SOTS) and I am already on the ballot based on the fact that I received almost 18,000 votes for SOTS in 2006 on the Green Line. Under CEP my Republican and Democratic Party opponents have to raise $75,000 in order get a $375,000 grant for the August primary and a $750,000 grant for the general election for SOTS. Not only do I have to raise the $75,000 in small donations as my opponents, but under CEP I am required to collect over 208,000 valid signatures to qualify for a $750,000 grant for the November election. How many signatures do my Republican and Democratic opponents have to collect under the CEP to get their huge grants? The answer is: No signatures.

I am also banned from even applying for CEP primary grant money because minor parties and unaffiliated voters in CT cannot participate in any way in the CT state sponsored and state paid for primaries. I can minimally participate in the CEP by getting one third of the full grant by collecting the valid petition signatures of 10% of the people who voted in the last election or by getting 10% of the vote in an upcoming election and thereby avoid petitioning for a one third SOTS grant in 2014. This one third grant from CEP does not fulfill the constitutional requirement of equal protection guaranteed under the 14th amendment and turns me into a third class citizen.

In psychology this is called a double bind situation. The double bind is two conflicting and often impossible demands or/and messages, neither of which can be ignored or escaped from. Like the proverbial chicken or egg dilemma, minor parties can’t get access to the grants because of the draconian petitioning and other discriminatory entrance requirements of the CEP, and without upfront and timely access to the CEP they can’t effectively and fairly compete during and after the election for CEP grants.

It is a well known fact that the Green Party and other minor-party candidates have recently elected many officials in CT and have had a substantial impact on the outcome of elections and yet we are treated as a separate and unequal class under this law. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to give a subsidy to the two most popular parties and deny that subsidy to smaller parties. The unconstitutionally high voting requirements for full participation in the CEP require us to get 20% of the vote in order to avoid having to petition for a full and equal CEP grant in 2014. Parenthetically, the similar Arizona and Maine public campaign finance laws require a much smaller monetary requirement for entrance into their program but neither state requires any petitioning requirements or minimum percentage electoral results for full smaller party participation in their public financing system. The many years of experience in these states give us observable and measurable evidence that equal and fair treatment of smaller political parties does not confuse the voters, does not create political divisiveness, and does not cause the two party system to collapse. It is also crystal clear that reducing the constitutional rights and political opportunity of smaller political parties will not decrease the amount of corruption found in the two most popular parties in CT.

There are many other inconvenient facts about the CEP that have been hidden from public view. For example, the Organizational Expenditure provision of the law gives 366 political party town committees and other state wide Democratic and Republican Political Action Committees the right to spend unlimited money on state wide candidate races while banning the rest of us from having independent PAC’s. This provision of the CEP subverts the keystone principal of campaign spending caps and grants political parties the power to spend additional money on their candidates beyond their regular handsome CEP grants. Getting money out of politics in our opinion also means reducing the windfall state subsidies that are paradoxically escalating the campaign spending wars that allow tens of millions of dollars to be spent on exclusionary political campaigns rather than on creating jobs that reduce home foreclosures in CT.

Many of us in the third party movement know that the CEP in its present form is a rigged game and is a classic example of the solution being the problem. The CEP is a Democratic and Republican party protection act as presently written. If our Green Party ligation was a business monopoly lawsuit the Federal Trade Commission would probably invoke the federal antitrust laws against those who created this law.  This law is also a prevention of fair politics law that affirms the Orwellian idea that all political parties are equal but some political parties are more equal than others. 



Mike DeRosa is a litigant in the Green Party vs. Garfield lawsuit and is a candidate for Sec. Of The State on the Green Party line in November election. His website is www.mikederosa.org