Paul Bass Photos
Bysiewicz, Lamont at Sunday’s debate.
One influential gubernatorial campaign-watcher isn’t buying the idea of a public-financing litmus test.
That campaign-watcher — New Haven Mayor Toni Harp, whose support the leading Democratic candidates to succeed Gov. Dannel P. Malloy have been courting — saw the issue emerge at Sunday’s debate at Career High School.
There, two leading Democratic candidates, Susan Bysiewicz and Ned Lamont, sparred over Lamont’s decision not to participate in the state’s public-financing system, the Citizens’ Election Program. That same decision cost Lamont the support of progressives when he last ran for governor, in 2010, and lost a primary despite outspending his publicly financed opponent 3 – 1. But this time he appears to picking up more progressive support than his opponents.
So Bysiewicz — who plans to participate in the CEP, which caps individual donations and bars special-interest contributions in return for public dollars — highlighted the fact that Lamont is self-funding his campaign by asking him at the debate if he would limit his primary spending to the $1.25 million that publicly-financed candidates may spend. Lamont declined to; he said Democrats need all the money they can get to take on Republicans in November. Bysiewicz shot back that that doesn’t mean he needs all that money against Democrats in a primary. (Read more about the exchange here.)
“I think that the Citizens’ Election [Program] is helpful. But it shouldn’t be the end-all to someone’s ability to run. It would seem to me that we need to look at the candidate, what they stand for, and their ability to run ultimately,” Harp said the next morning on the weekly “Mayor Monday” program on WNHH FM.
“I understand her point,” Harp said of Bysiewicz. “Everybody has their positives. She may have the ability to pull together enough resources; because it does take resources to qualify for the Citizens’ Election [Program]. He has the resources already but is willing to show that he has broad-based citizen support.
“Both of those things matter. They’re both equal. I think the Citizens’ Elections [Program] is supposed to even the playing field, not define the playing field.”
Harp, who has yet to endorse a candidate, said it seems that Lamont, Bysiewicz, and Jonathan Harris are emerging as the top contenders in the field.
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This episode of “Mayor Monday” was made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem Moses P.C.
If you ask me the Citizen's Election Program, which forces candidates to establish/demonstrate actual grassroots support from the communities they're running to serve, should be the only way to finance a campaign. Ban private financing of political campaigns, period.