New Haven Independent

Instead, at its monthly meeting Monday evening, the board decided to take on the issue of independent expenditures — money spent by an outside group in support of one candidate or another — in a less aggressive manner: Disclosure. It proposed that the city require that expenditures of over $1,000 to mayoral candidates be reported to the board along with major donors’ contributions.

The Democracy Fund board administers the city’s public funds for mayoral elections under New Haven’s trial voluntary public-financing system. The public money goes to candidates who qualify by raising a minimum amount of money from local contributors and then agreeing to limit their spending. The board’s seven members are appointed by the mayor, and their governing document, the Public Fund Ordinance, was legislated by the Board of Aldermen. They are aided by Robert Wechsler (at right in photo, with chair Caleb Kleppner), who was hired last year as the Democracy Fund’s administrator.

The board wrapped up an ongoing evaluation of the ordinance with Monday night’s discussion of independent expenditures. It now has full slate of recommendations to advance to the Board of Aldermen for consideration. Click here and here for stories about some of the other recommendations.

Constitutionality in Question

Independent expenditures have become a shortcut around public financing rules and campaign finance reform. Donors can give unlimited money to outside organizations instead of directly to the candidates. The organizations can then run advertisements supporting or denigrating one candidate or another.

Currently, independent expenditures are not a significant factor in New Haven mayoral politics. The Democracy Fund board wanted to be ready if the pattern in other cities like Los Angeles of greater independent-group activity is ever replicated in New Haven.

So in May, the board recommended that there be a mechanism for targets of independent expenditures, if they are participating in the public financing system, to be eligible for some kind of compensation.

This could take the form of a higher matching fund rate or an outright grant. Alternatively, the candidate benefiting from the independent expenditures could have those expenditures counted in his spending limit. The state of Connecticut has already taken such measures for state races.

But in light of a June U.S. Supreme Court decision that raises questions about the constitutionality of such a policy, the board unanimously decided Monday to withdraw this recommendation. The members present for Monday night’s decision were Kleppner, Dennis Curtis, Kevin DiAdamo, Stephen Kovel, and Maria Lamberto. (Curtis and Kovel are pictured above).

In Davis v. Federal Election Commission, the plaintiff challenged the so-called “millionaire’s amendment,” a federal law raising the individual donation ceiling three-fold for a candidate whose opponent spends more than $350,000 of his own money. The court struck down that law, ruling that applying different limits to self-financing and non-self-financing candidates violated the First Amendment right of candidates to finance their own campaigns.

To support its First Amendment reasoning in the case of self-financing, the Davis decision cited a 1994 Eighth Circuit case, Day v. Holahan, that ruled against grants to offset independent expenditures.

The fact that the court decided to cite Day rather than other lower court decisions that went the other way is indicative of how it might rule when an independent expenditures case comes before it, as will likely happen in the next year or two.

Considering that independent expenditures are not currently a problem in New Haven, Kleppner suggested that the board refrain from making recommendations that, if enacted, could get the city in legal trouble.

“In the next year or two, this specific problem will probably have been decided,” Wechsler added. “At that point, if it is constitutional, then the board can recommend it. If it isn’t, then of course it’s just as well that they didn’t.”

Full Disclosure

Board members steered clear of the constitutionally murky question of off-setting independent expenditures, but they did take a stand on disclosure.

With a unanimous 5-0 vote, members recommended that the Board of Aldermen amend the ordinance to require that any independent expenditure over $1,000 be reported to the Democracy Fund.

Connecticut already requires disclosure of independent expenditures for state elections. The board recommended that city disclosure rules, if adopted, parallel the existing state rules.

Finally, the board discussed whether independently funded mailings and advertisements should have to be explicitly labeled with who paid for them. Consensus was that this would be a more radical step than just requiring disclosure to the Democracy Fund, and that recommendations of this nature can wait until the problem of independent expenditures presents itself as more than hypothetical.

Looking Ahead

With its review of the ordinance completed and recommendations in hand, the board is ready to move into the fall with a new agenda. Wechsler said he will compile the recommendations to the Board of Aldermen and then focus on other matters, like hiring a Democracy Fund investigator; putting together a training manual for participating candidates; organizing next year’s mayoral debates; and transitioning from physical record-keeping to a more transparent electronic database that is coordinated with state records.

And the coming year will see some changes to the board’s makeup. Lori Kozlowski, the lone Republican on the board, has not been reappointed, said Kleppner, according to a letter he received from the mayor’s office. Kozlowski, whose current term ends in August, 2008, was not at Monday’s meeting.

Jennifer James, the seventh member, left the board upon graduating from Yale College in May. Andria Matthews of the State Democratic Central Committee has been named as her replacement, but the appointment process has not yet been completed.

When Matthews steps in, she will be the third Democrat on the board. Since no party can hold the majority of the seven seats, Kozlowski’s seat will have to be filled by a non-Democrat.