New Haven Independent

For four years, Democrats in New Haven from the mayor on down have claimed they wanted to allow candidates running for mayor to be able to receive public money. That would enable candidates who aren’t rich, don’t sell their souls to wealthy business people, or prefer not to make deals with political powerbrokers to have a fair shot at running for office.

But before New Haven could pass a public-financing law, it needed permission (“enabling legislation”) from the state legislature. Each year, because of petty political squabbles among local Democrats and because of inattention at the state Capitol, such enabling legislation managed to fail.

Until early Thursday morning. A version of that proposal made it into the final bill that passed allowing candidates for statewide office to participate in a voluntary public-financing system.

The version that passed sets up a pilot program in which three municipalities can experiment with publicly financed elections, beginning in 2007.

Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney of New Haven said not a lot of attention was paid on this provision of the larger bill, but he and others made sure that some form of municipal public-financing survived this year.

To qualify for the pilot, interested municipalities must pass local laws supporting the idea. Then they must apply to the state Elections Enforcement Commission, which will write the rules for the pilot program and choose which municipalities can participate.

According to Joan Andrews, the commission’s principal attorney, New Haven is the only city or town to have expressed interest in the idea to date. New Haven politicians lobbied for the proposal at the state Capitol.

It’ll be a while before the commission writes the rules for the pilot. “There is so much the agency has to do” under the bigger bill that passed, Andrews said. But she said New Haven can get the ball rolling by writing to the commission to express its interest in being one of three municipalities.

So now New Haven Democrats — including those considering running for mayor in 2007 — are on the spot. They can no longer blame Hartford if they fail to pass a local law and make public financing happen.