Connecticut Local Politics

From the AP:

A federal judge has dismissed part of a challenge of Connecticut’s new public financing law, but agreed to hear claims that the law is unfair to minor party and petitioning candidates.

U.S. District Court Judge Stefan Underhill said the plaintiffs did not prove that a part of the law concerning matching funds was unconstitutional. The plaintiffs include the state’s Green and Libertarian parties and the Connecticut ACLU. (AP)

The part of the lawsuit that’s going ahead concerns the very, very high qualifying bars for minor parties. Right now if you were, say, a Green Party candidate running for office, you’d not only need to get the required amount of small contributions, but also have an awful lot of petitions signed (or your party has to have won a certain percentage of votes in the last election–but since you’re a Green Party candidate this probably didn’t happen) to get public financing.

This case will be very interesting to watch as it moves forward.

Should minor parties have higher qualification thresholds to get public financing?
	Yes, this helps cut down on vanity candidacies wasting money
	No, it’s unfair–minor parties deserve to be treated the same as major parties
	I hate public financing and hope it dies a terrible death
	I’m not sure
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Source
“Federal judge dismisses part of campaign finance law challenge.” Associated Press 21 March, 2008.