Friday, I Liveblogged the SEEC hearings in Hartford. Generally, I’m not a big fan of liveblogging. It is sort of like trying to take notes in a class and writing a paper for the class at the same time. Most liveblogging ends up being nothing more than a transcription service. I try to mix in a little context as I go, but there isn’t much time for that.

As a result, I ended Friday without having blogged about the last four witnesses to testify, other than to acknowledge that they were there. So, this blog post will bring in a little bit of their testimonies and try to add a little more context.

The testimony from Jon Green of the Working Families Party was particularly good. He started off in a jocular manner, talking about calling the SEEC with numerous questions and feeling like he was playing Stump the Chumps on Cartalk. He acknowledged the great job the SEEC had done and went on to address issues of minor party candidates.

One issue that he brought up was about gathering signatures to get full funding. Major party candidates automatically qualify for full funding if they can meet the fundraising requirements, but an additional hurdle is thrown at the minor party candidates. To get full funding, the minor party has to have received 20% of the vote in the previous election. Either that, or they must gather signatures of 20% of the number of people that voted in the previous election. If they can’t get that many signatures, there are partial grants available.

Interestingly enough, this appears to benefit candidates running in districts with lower voter turnout, since it lowers the number of signatures required, and as the number of signatures increase, you start running into diminishing returns. This worked out well for one candidate in the 2006 cycle, and the Working Party Family did well on the ballot, so they should be in good shape in the next cycle. However, because this cycle was a presidential cycle, the next cycle will be much more difficult for other third parties. It was disappointing that representatives of other third parties didn’t show up to testify, although some people did not Republican’s concern with how the rules affect minor party candidates, and some people suggested it was because of the Republican party’s potential slip into minor party status themselves.

Mr. Green also broached the idea of making the program closer to the matching funds program in New York City. This would get around the all or nothing problem of getting no grant if a State Representative candidate only raised $4,990 while a State Representative candidate that raises $5,000 would receive a $25,000 grant. This could also be used to address the timing issue that various people spoke about, allowing candidates to get some of their money early, when they had met certain thresholds.

He also acknowledged the independent expenditure problem, which he noted opens up a loophole large enough to drive a caravan of realtors through. This received chuckles from many at the hearing.

State Representative Elect Matthew Lesser was the next to speak. He noted that as a first time candidate, he would not have been able to run the successful race he did if it wasn’t for the citizens election program. Yet he did see many areas for improvement. He suggested that the power that party committees continue to have threaten to undermine the program. He suggested that the rules about exploratory committees should be tightened. He also felt that the ban on lobbyists and state contractors could be safely lifted as long as the limits of $100 per donation remained in effect and many donations continued to be required. Like Mr. Green, he expressed concern about independent expenditures. Also testifying was his deputy treasurer, Saul Carlin. Saul is also active in Democracy Matters, the youth branch of Common Cause.

Susan Kniep, president of the Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations (FCTO) was the next to speak. Her concerns were primarily about money going to candidates that were running unopposed. She then went on to talk about the mailings that State Legislators can send out from their office. She felt that many such mailings were nothing but thinly disguised campaign mailings and should be eliminated altogether.

She continued on to talk about FCTO’s support of the Constitutional Convention and expressed concern about elected officials on public property talking about their opposition to the convention, as well as reports they had received of ‘vote no’ signs in local schools.

Former State Senator David Blackwell was the next to testify. He noted that he had voted against the program when he was a Senator and he believed the results would show the reasons for his opposition to be sound. He suggested that the program merely changed the way special interest money would flow into campaigns, with more of it going through independent expenditures and party committees. He expressed his concern about who if there were unlawful literature drops on the final weekend before the election, there was no way to have the issue properly addressed before election day.

Christine Horrigan of the League of Women Voters spoke briefly about their support of the program, noting that there is no better investment in democracy than clean elections. Peter Thor, director of policy and planning for AFSCME expressed his concern about how the value of phonebanking space was calculated.

Tom Swan of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group was the final witness. He spoke about the program in the historical context noting that just three years ago, Connecticut had the nickname of Corrupt-i-cut and was now being viewed as a model for how to run clean elections. About a Republican who had testified earlier, claiming that a well run campaign could only make a difference of about three percent, Mr. Swan quipped that if that is what most Republicans believe, perhaps that is why the only hold around State Representative thirty seven seats now. He noted that with clean elections in good shape, perhaps we can finally get universal health care.

Now, on to a few of my final notes. During one part of the testimony, a member of the commission noted that the data from filings would become available in machine readable formats beginning in January. This should provide great data for researchers hoping to glean information about what does and what doesn’t work.

Several witnesses spoke about the goals of the program as leveling the playing field or taking the special interest money out of elections. While taking special interest money out of elections is an important goal, it seems to me that the greater goal is to increase involvement of all citizens in the electoral process, whether they run for office, volunteer to help with a campaign, contribute, or simply just get out and vote. It is part of the education process of establishing an informed populous.

With that, while there is a lot of focus on how many races were contested, how many incumbents defeated and other measures, it would seem as if the most important questions are not being asked. How many people are going to the polls with more information about who they are voting for in the State Legislative races? How many people will remember who their State Legislators are? How many people will end up contacting their State Legislators about issues that matter? It is my hope that over time, these numbers will increase and we will have more responsive and better informed State Legislators.

As a final note: As we read about the demise of local papers, it is not surprising to see the paucity of coverage of this hearing, and I suspect more and more hearings are likely to go uncovered. Yet it is simply and fun to go to the hearings as an individual citizen and write up your own experiences. Just as I hope the Citizens Election Program will encourage more people to become more involved in the electoral process, I hope more people will get involved in going to hearings and writing about them for everyone.