Today, the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC), is holding hearings about the Citizen’s election program, what worked, what didn’t and what can be done to improve the program. The hearing started with comments about the dust settling and a chance to look back at a very successful first run of the program.

The first person to testify was Speaker-Elect Chris Donovan. He spoke about how well the program worked and his appreciation that the program brought campaigning back to the fun days that reminded him of his first campaign, with much greater emphasis on going around talking with voters.

Speaker-Elect Donovan was followed by State Representative Andrew Fleischmann. Rep Fleischmann made similar comments about how well the program has worked. He also spoke about how good it was to be able to talk with voters, and tell potential donors that he only needed $5 dollars, because he had already raised enough money, and just needed more supporters. He did suggest that candidates should be allowed to continue fundraising, after they raised their requirements and received their grants, with money going to the help fund the Citizen’s Election Program.

Updates are below the fold

Update 1
Jay Salvatore is the third speaker. Mr. Salvatore was treasurer for Candidate for State Rep. Kurt Cavanaugh. He had never been a campaign treasurer before and did not know about the CEP program before taking on this position. Overall, he has viewed the program as a tremendous, especially for getting ordinary citizens involved in the process. That said, Mr. Salvatore has proposed several possible changes that will make the process work better for new treasurers as well as for all candidates. As an example, once a candidate has raised 90% of their funds, both candidates need to start filing weekly statements. This presented problems and needs to be investigated. In addition, treasurers need to meet other requirements, such as with the IRS. To the extent that the SEEC can provide better information about all the requirements that treasurers need to face, it will help everyone.

Update 2

State Senator Gayle Slossberg, co-chair of the Government Administration and Elections Committee appeared and made brief comments about the program. She was followed by Art House who was a candidate for State Senate in the eighth district.

Mr. House ran in a district that has always gone Republican and made it a very close race. He noted that the availability of public financing played a significant role in getting him to run. He focused on three aspects of the program, management, good government and fairness. He noted the importance of having a good treasurer and that a treasurer is no longer a fundraiser, but a compliance officer.

In terms of good government, he never met with a lobbyist and instead helped build grassroots support. He noted that not every town committees recognized the significant role that they could play with the new program, but some did and were very helpful. In addition, he believes that this helps the state parties if they work wisely with the program.

On the other hand, Mr. House did not believe that the program was sufficient overcome the power of incumbency. This is most significant in races where challengers do not have great name recognition and especially in areas where print journalism is dying. You can’t simply get name recognition by holding a press conference, he asserted.

Update 3
Vincent Marino, who ran for State Senate against Senator Slossberg spoke about the success of the program, especially in taking away all the stress of raising money. He recognized that we will never have a perfect system, but this is a step in the right direction. He expressed concerns about how electronic filings are handled. The SEEC recognized the concern about electronic filings, especially for State Senate campaigns.

Mr. Marino was followed by Cicero Booker who ran as a third party candidate. Mr. Booker ran as a candidate on the Independent Party and the Working Family Party. Mr. Booker strongly supports the process but believes that it should be made equally fair for minor candidates. He spoke about the difficulties of gathering enough signatures as a minor party candidate to get full funding. One idea that he suggested was that a major party that does not field a candidate should lose its status for that district and the minor party should no longer be required to gather the signatures necessary for a grant. In addition, the major party should need to gather signatures to regain their status.

Update 4
William Jenkins, who was Treasurer for State Rep. Mike Alberts spoke about his opposition and concerns about the program. He asserted that grant application requires more than the law requires and spoke about IRS issues that treasurers need to address. The testimony was long and rambling and the commission had to ask him to be brief.

Mr. Jenkins claimed that past supporters felt less connected because of less opportunities to donate. He asserted that fundraising is an important aspect of running a campaign and makes campaigns much less work. He claimed it had no effect on the races.

It is worth noting that in June, the SEEC found ‘Reason to Believe that Respondent William Jenkins Violated Connecticut General Statutes 9-605(e)(1)’ according to the .June 25, 2008 SEEC Meeting

Mr. Jenkins was followed by my wife, Kim Hynes. Kim is a senior organizer for Common Cause here in Connecticut and has spent a lot of time working in support of the program. Her key concerns were that the issue of candidates who lose an opponent and hence potentially losing the funding of having opponent grants as well as the concern about the General Assembly raiding the fund during difficult financial times. The committee thanked Kim not only for her testimony, but also for her work leading up to the election in helping people understand the program.

Update 5
David Stevenson, who ran for State Representative in the 107th Assembly District spoke about his experience running for office. He described the what a great experience it was and how, contrary to Mr. Jenkins’ experience, it brought in lots of volunteers, who will be tomorrows candidates. (Full disclosure: I hosted the websites for Mr. Stevenson, as well as for Mr. House, whom I mentioned above.)

Mr. Stevenson was followed by William Cutler. Mr. Cutler spoke about the program as a major step forward for CT and an opportunity to learn and study what worked well and what didn’t.

State Representative Diane Urban then spoke the success of the program. She, also, called for expanded training for treasurers and raised various issues. What are, or should be the requirements about spouses with joint accounts contributing or children contributing.

The committee mentioned that they expect to have online training available for the 2010 election cycle and that children can currently contribute up to $30.

Update 6
Jonathan Pelto was the next to testify. My understanding is that this was an addendum to previous testimony that he provided and that he has done significant research on the program. Unfortunately, I had to step out briefly and missed most of his testimony, although I hope he will make it available so that it can be posted online.

Mr. Pelto was followed by Tom and Greg Simones. Tom ran for State Senate in the 20th District. They spoke strongly about the needs to make the process more accessible. They felt the standards were too high, and that this was especially an issue for third party candidates. Tom had been an Independent but registered as a Republican to qualify as a major candidate. He encouraged the SEEC to consider moving the deadline earlier to get candidates to spend more time speaking with voters instead of just asking for money. He spoke about the need to translate the forms to Spanish, and here I add, other languages as well. He also suggested that some donations from outside the district should be considered in terms of qualifying in terms of the number of donors.

Tom and Greg were followed by Karen Houghtaling who ran a very competitive race as a candidate for State Representative in a Democratic primary. She said that she wanted to run because she had recently become a grandmother. The citizen’s election program is what made it possible for her to run, while she also held down two jobs and helped raise her granddaughter.

Ms. Houghtaling expressed concern about the role that independent contributions could still play in the race with one large contributor making substantial independent expenditures that changed the dynamics of the race. The SEEC is working on drafting legislation to address this issue.

Jim Dean, the chair of Democracy for America, who lives here in Connecticut was the next to testify. Mr. Dean thanked the committee, along with the legislator and the Secretary of States office for helping Connecticut establish national leadership on the issue of campaign financing. He spoke about having never been prouder as a citizen of Connecticut as when they completed.

Mr. Dean said that thanks to the program, everyone can now be part of the Hartford crowd. He embraced the idea that PACs, like Democracy for America cannot send out emails on behalf of the candidates. As a final comment, Mr. Dean suggested that it would be most useful would be if the SEEC provided more general tips on what it takes to get involved in the process.

Update 7
Tessa Marquis, a citizen of Milford, CT came to testify about the success of the program as well as to encourage the program to be expanded for municipal races. She is currently trying to help find a person to run for Mayor in Milford. At the end of the testimony, the commission took a brief break.

After the break, Judy Aron of West Hartford spoke. Ms. Aron is listed as the Vice President of the West Hartford Taxpayers Association. She presented a different view of the program, calling it state funded political welfare and saying that with the current budget deficit, there are more important things for the government to spend money on than lawn signs and political trinkets. She suggested that this made candidates lazy, simply bugging a few people they already knew. She was glad that the program is voluntary, but she felt it would have been better if simply limits were placed on PACs.

She also expressed concern about how this related to minor party candidates, calling it appalling discrimination. She noted that her son ran as a petitioning candidate who chose not to accept public funding.

Update 8

State Representative James Spallone spoke next. Rep. Spallone has spoke of his disappointed on diversion of $5 million from the Citizen’s Election Fund. He considers the fund an investment in democracy and that the cost of corruption is more expensive than the cost of the program. He noted that the eyes of the nation were on CT as the state implemented the program and he hoped that the eyes of Washington are on CT because we need these ideas in Washington.

Michael Riolino, who was treasurer for State Representative Michael Lawlor’s campaign spoke next. He also noted the success of the program and noted that Rep. Lawlor gave back funds that were not spent.

Jon Green, executive director of the Connecticut Working Family Party was the next speaker. He focused primarily on the issues affecting minor parties.

(I’m falling behind at this point, but the hearings are close to over)

Update 9
Final witnesses included Susan Kniep, President of the Connecticut Taxpayer Federations, former State Senator David Blackwell in the 4th Senate District, Christine Horrigan, member of the Connecticut League of Women Voters, Peter Thor, Coordinator of Policy, for AFSCME Council 4, and Tom Swan, executive Director of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group.

I hope to provide more details about the final witnesses in a separate blog post.