Public Campaign Financing Reform - Reform

Here is the Progressive Soup interview with Mike DeRosa and Richard Duffee - two Connecticut Green Party members - about their successful suit re: Connecticut's Public Finance Law. The law was ruled not equitable to minor party candidates.

As an example, a minor party candidate for Governor would have to gain 225,000 signatures to achieve full public financing for the 2010 Governor's race. That is one fifth of the total number of votes cast in the Governor's race in 2006. With the possibility that Democratic and Republican party town clerks would determine some signatures invalid, the number of needed signatures might be even higher.

A note about the lawsuit - former Governor Lowell Weicker, who won as a minor party candidate (it was named "A Connecticut Party") testified at the trial that under the current law he would have had no chance of successfully competing for the office.

Here is the interview :

http://hatcityblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/local-access-video-progresive-soup.html