On December 11, the Connecticut Green Party filed this brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd circuit. The case is Green Party of Connecticut v Garfield, 09-3941. The hearing is January 13, 2010. The case concerns the state’s system of public funding for candidates for state office, which are highly discriminatory in favor of Democrats and Republicans.

The Green Party’s brief is 118 pages. Highlights include footnote 34, which says, “Defendants’ own witness, State Senator Peter Mills of Maine, confirmed that third party candidacies on the state legislative level have never posed a threat to the public fisc under Maine’s public financing system.” Maine’s public funding program does not discriminate for or against any candidate on the basis of that candidate’s partisan membership or independent status.

Also worth reading is footnote 22, which explains that if Connecticut’s existing system had been in place in 1990, Lowell Weicker could never have succeeded in winning the governorship as the nominee of a new political party. Weicker has been a witness for the Green Party in this lawsuit.