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Press Release
DeRosa for CT Secretary of the State
Connecticut Campaign Finance Court Challenge
The following is a transcript of a joint press
conference held on July 06, 2006 in Hartford CT. The press
conference was held in the legislative office building by the CT Green
Party, the CT ACLU and other plaintiffs.
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July 06, 2006
My name is Mike DeRosa and I am the co-chair of the CT Green Party.
Today
the Green Party of CT, the ACLU-CT, and numerous other plaintiffs are
challenging the recently passed CT Campaign Finance Law in the U.S.
Federal Court. Under this law, no third party candidate can qualify for
campaign funding unless the party candidate for the same office won at
least 10% of the vote in the prior election, or the candidate gathers
the signatures of 10% to 20% of the people who voted in the last
election. The major parties are exempt from this requirement under this
law. The major parties also receive substantial funding for primaries
whereas third parties receive none. Under other provisions of this law,
the Green Party, along with all the other major and minor parties,
would also have to gather a large number of small donations in order
qualify for funding under this law. The two requirements that third
party candidates must meet are too high.
We consider this law an
act of blatant discrimination against third parties and independent
candidacies. We believe that this law is unjust and unconstitutional.
It violates the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause of the U.S.
Constitution, the 1st amendment, and many other rulings by U.S. courts
and the U.S. Supreme Court. To put another way: The two major parties
in CT believe that all parties are equal in CT but some parties are
more equal than others.
The onerous
requirements in this law stack the deck against third parties and make
it almost impossible for Green party candidates to receive campaign
funding. The CT legislators who drafted this law in the dead of the
night knew that they were creating a law that would create two classes
of political parties that were separate and unequal. They also knew
that it would protect incumbency by giving a virtual monopoly of
campaign funding to the two party system. That is why some of us in the
Green party call this legislation the No Incumbent Left Behind
Law.
Elections in our
opinion are supposed to increase political discourse, give voters more
choices, and introduce new ideas into the political system. That is
what politics and campaigns are all about. In our opinion this CT law
is not campaign finance reform, it is campaign finance deform. Some
would even call it the Prevention Of Politics Law.
We call upon voters of
all political persuasions and the U.S. Federal Courts to help us in
this important effort to create a fair and truly constitutional
campaign finance law in the Constitution State.
More Information:
acluct.org/aboutacluct/pressroom/acluchallengescampaignfina.htm
CFRComplaint.pdf
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