New Haven Independent

The guardians, board members of the New Haven Democracy Fund (including Lori Kozlowski and Stephen Kovel, pictured), voted Monday night to recommend that the city lower the limit that mayoral candidates can spend if they wish to receive matching government money for their campaigns.

The vote was one of several steps the board is taking to try to fine-tune New Haven’s first-in-the-state municipal campaign finance law.

Last year the city became Connecticut’s first to offer mayoral candidates matching money if they agree to limit how much they spend. However the noble-sounding plan — aimed at enabling more challengers to run serious campaigns for office; reducing the influence of wealthy special interests; and limiting the amount of time candidates raise money instead of engaging issues — ended up having no impact in this past election. Challengers and would-be challengers failed to qualify for the program. (The program’s voluntary.)

Even Mayor John DeStefano —- who championed the law and agreed to take part in the program even though he could have raised a lot more money — ended up failing to qualify for matching funds. Due to an accounting error, his campaign incorrectly thought it had raised donations from enough local contributors to qualify. (The Fund originally cut the mayor a $27,000 check, then had to have it returned.)

So the board of the Democracy Fund, which administers the law, has set about trying to figure out what went wrong, and how to make it better.

Last month, for instance, the board voted to recommend making it easier for candidates to qualify for matching funds. It suggested that candidates raise $10 contributions from at least 200 registered New Haven voters. (The law currently requires contributions of at least $25.)

Then, this Monday evening, after close to two hours of seminar-like deliberation on the finer points of campaign law that left some members confused about what they were discussing, the board voted to make three more recommendations.

The first recommendation involved the $300,000 spending ceiling. The current New Haven campaign finance law law requires that mayoral candidates spend no more than $300,000 on an election (either a primary or general election campaign) in order to receive matching funds of up to $125,000. The last time New Haven had a competitive mayoral election, in 2001, top candidates spent roughly $300,000 each per campaign.

Monday night the board voted to recommend that the city “substantially lower” that ceiling more along the lines of ceilings in other communities with similar clean-elections laws.

Check out the difference: New Haven’s $300,000 spending cap comes out to $5.45 per registered voter. Albuquerque’s comes out to $1.21; Austin’s, 50 cents; Portland, Oregon’s, 60 cents; Tucson’s, 40 cents, according to figures compiled by Democracy Fund staffer Robert Wechsler (pictured with board member Jennifer James).

Even the spending limit for Connecticut’s public financing system for State Senate seats, which is relatively high, comes out to fewer dollars per voter than half New Haven’s ceiling, Wechsler said.

Board members seemed in agreement that mayoral candidates shouldn’t need more than, say, $100,000 to run a campaign. But they didn’t put that in the resolution on which they voted.

The reason: Their recommendations have to be approved by the Board of Aldermen and signed by the mayor. They figured the politicians would simply dismiss a proposal that went as low as $100,000.

One Man’s Ceiling, Another Man’s Floor

“One hundred thousand is plenty of money to advertise what you’re running on,” said Board Chairman Caleb Kleppner (pictured with Dennis Curtis). “But I think we might want to draw them [lawmakers] in a little more.” So the board voted to suggest general wording about per-voter ceilings “comparable” to other communities.

Even that stab at realpolitik may prove insufficient. Asked about the recommendation after the meeting, Board of Aldermen President Carl Goldfield, one of the prime movers behind the campaign finance law, said he is inclined to reject the change.

“We based that [the $300,000 ceiling] on what we thought was a reasonable amount to run a campaign in the city,” he said.

However Goldfield added he is “open to taking a look at it and being convinced otherwise.”

Swift Boat Bucks

The second recommended change voted on Monday night involved “independent expenditures” — money that outside groups spend to help a candidate. That’s become a big issue in presidential campaigns, when donors evade campaign-finance limits by supporting supposedly separate groups that attack a candidate’s opponents. (Think “Swift Boat.”) The board voted to suggest that aldermen “address the issue of independent expenditures” and make grants to participating campaigns whose opponents benefit from such outside money.

“We want to get money in the hands of candidates who are disadvantaged by this,” Kleppner said. “And we want to dis-incentivize the independent expenditures.”

The third recommendation passed involved “triggers” — the point at which it’s decided that participating candidates should receive more money, or be able to spend more money, because a non-participating opponent has a lot of dough.

Right now, some candidates who participate in the Democracy Fund can get more money if an opponent spends above the ceiling. But to qualify, the participating candidates themselves must have spent $300,000. Most candidates aren’t going to reach that threshold, the board reasoned; that puts them in even more of a position to need help to level the playing field against a big-bucks opponent.

Click here to read the minutes from the meeting, including the precise wording of the three resolutions.