Fedele’s Challenge
Republican frontrunner Tom Foley has tossed a complicated test between rival Lieutenant Governor Michael Fedele and his first fat wire transfer from the Citizens Election Fund. This is the first year in which the state’s Byzantine taxpayer-financed campaign funding scheme has been applied to statewide campaign. Campaigns spend an inordinate amount of time trying not to violate the slippery stew of statutes, rulings and opinions that govern the program.
The rules seem to be a moving target. The advisory opinion of the state’s election agency last month that opened the door to a Fedele-Boughton joint campaign and application for funds had politicos scratching their heads. Could a contributor who gave to Fedele donate to Boughton and have their 2 contributions count beyond the $100 limit? Allowing that would seem to breach the great bright line of public financing: the purity of the $100 contribution. The list of donors who gave $100 to both Fedele and Boughton before they made a formal alliance for fundraising purposes amounts to thousands of crucial dollars. A judge, looking to find a quick solution, could simply order that no individual’s aggregate contribution shall exceed $100 for purposes of determining qualifying contributions. Fedele would have to scramble to replace those.
Events have made it clear that Fedele was never going to make the $250,000 threshold without Boughton’s contributions and the vessel of Boughton’s campaign to funnel additional donations from Fedele supporters. He found a way to manipulate the system and now he’ll get his chance to defend the campaign finance law he supports.
And still they insist on calling this reform.
8 comments
Kevin, as much as the double-dipping appears wrong, it’s allowed under the law, 9-704(a)(1)(ii) SO LONG AS they are legally campaigning jointly under 9-709(a).
I still say Malloy had no problem raising his 250K so why couldn’t Fedele do that as well? If Fedele had raised his 250K like he was required to, there would be nothing to argue about here, no lawsuit, no nothing.
That’s the problem here, they cannot campaign jointly under 9-709(a) because Boughton is party endorsed and Fedele isn’t.
If they were both party endorsed or both not party endorsed, they would indeed be able to campaign jointly under 9-704(a)(1)(ii).
Yes is stinks to high heaven but it’s perfectly legal and this is hardly “reform” as you pointed out.
Perhaps Kevin can answer this, since he is a lawyer. If C.G.S. §9-709(a) would only allow them to campaign jointly only if both were party-endorsed and C.G.S. 9-704(a)(1)(ii) would only allow both party-endorsed and not endorsed to campaign jointly, don’t those provisions, violate Fedele and Boughton’s rights to freedom of association under the First Amendment and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment?
EdM – when you say “I still say Malloy had no problem raising his 250K so why couldn’t Fedele do that as well?”, you’re missing that Malloy took well over a year to get his money together. Rell’s late exit put these guys behind the eight-ball.
Kevin — nicely balanced post considering you are a strong Fedele supporter.
One correction: you write “Could a contributor who gave to Foley donate to Boughton …” I think you meant “Fedele” and not “Foley”
Many who gave to Foley and Boughton are not happy that their contributions ended up counting towards Fedele’s qualification.
Legal Question: I don’t think it violates the first amendment, because CEP is voluntary.
Maybe Kevin can enlighten us as to what the hell the significance of Friday’s hearing was. No injunction was issued but Fedele voluntarily agreed not to spend any of the money? I have a sneaking suspicion that by 2pm Monday, all of this may be moot because Fedele/Boughton will already have the money. I’m not certain it would be within a judge’s power to order a campaign to return money to the state that it has already received. What would be the legal apparatus for doing so? Foley’s complaint asks for injunctive relief prohibiting the funds from being dispersed. Once the funds are dispersed, there is no longer any live controversy.
Judge Aurigemma won’t be able to issue a ruling if the case is moot (like federal courts, state courts are similarly prohibited from issuing advisory opinions).
Thanks for catching that Foley/Fedele error in the post. Call me many things, but not a “strong Fedele supporter.” I am glad the primary is not for another month because like so many other Republican voters, I need to see more of the candidates. It is the weakest Republican field for governor in many years. Maybe one of them will break out in the next few weeks,
Yes grackle you are correct that Dan Malloy started much earlier but nothing says Fedele and Boughton couldn’t have started just as early. No one can blame Jodi Rell for this, Fedele and Boughton have no one to blame but themselves. They both should have opened up exploratory committees long ago with no regard to what Governor Rell is/was doing.
The system of publicly financing campaigns has been around for over three years so it’s not like they didn’t know what they had to raise and by when.
If they both hustled a little more than they did, they both could have met their thresholds and got their public “dough” as Mark Boughton/Jimbo likes to call it.
Fuzzy, Fedele didn’t voluntarily agree not to spend any money, the judge ordered him not to until the outcome of the hearing on Monday at 2:00 pm.
I think the best line in the whole article is the last one. This isn’t reform, this is politics as usual. Fedele claims that he supports this law, yet he is blatantly trying to abuse it. Anyone who supported it as much as he claims to would see that the spirit of the law clearly doesn’t encourage the double dipping. I realize that as EdMfromBranford said it’s perfectly legal, but if Fedele really believed in the reform he wouldn’t be trying to cheat it by double counting the contributions. It’s just like Kevin said, it’s just another sad excuse for reform and Fedele is perfectly complicit in it’s abuse.
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