{"id":526820,"date":"2010-04-13T17:07:17","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T21:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.courant.com,2010:\/capitol_watch\/\/9.75986"},"modified":"2010-04-13T17:54:38","modified_gmt":"2010-04-13T21:54:38","slug":"house-modifies-states-campaign-finance-law-changes-buy-more-time-allow-candidates-to-keep-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/526820","title":{"rendered":"House Modifies State’s Campaign Finance Law; Changes Buy More Time, Allow Candidates To Keep Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

State representatives voted to change a provision in the state’s campaign finance law Tuesday to give themselves more time to decide how to fix the law if a federal appeals court decides it is not constitutional. <\/p>\n

Last fall, a judge for the U.S. 2nd Court of Appeals ruled that the law’s voluntary public financing provision would put minor-party candidates at an unconstitutional disadvantage against better-financed major party candidates. The state appealed the decision and is waiting for a response. <\/p>\n

Under current law, lawmakers would have only seven days to act once a decision is made, or the state would revert back to old campaign finance laws. Prior to 2005, candidates were allowed to collect money from lobbyists, special interest-groups and state contractors.  <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Tuesday, both Democrats and Republicans said that part of the law needed to change. <\/p>\n

The House of Representatives voted 137-12 to change the “reverter clause.” The changes would allow a 30-day window before reverting back to old laws if a court decision comes down between April 15 and Aug. 10, the day of this year’s primaries. After that time period, lawmakers would have only 15 days to act. <\/p>\n

The bill would also allow candidates running for office to keep any money received through the citizens election program prior to any limitations or prohibitions taking effect.<\/p>\n

Rep. James Spallone, D-Essex, co-chairman of the government administration and elections committee, called the bill reasonable and necessary. Rep. Lawrence Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, agreed, but stressed that the bill does not fix any problems with the law. <\/p>\n

“It’s just delaying the time bomb,” he said.      <\/p>\n

House Speaker Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, said Tuesday that lawmakers have not agreed on how to fix the law yet. Discussions are ongoing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State representatives voted to change a provision in the state’s campaign finance law Tuesday to give themselves more time to decide how to fix the law if a federal appeals court decides it is not constitutional. Last fall, a judge for the U.S. 2nd Court of Appeals ruled that the law’s voluntary public financing provision would put minor-party candidates […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-526820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}