On June 18, the California State Senate Elections Committee passed AB583. This bill institutes public funding for the Secretary of State’s election in 2014. It awards $1,500,000 to Democratic and Republican candidates for that office who receive $5 contributions from 7,500 people. Every other candidate for that office would need to receive $5 contributions from 15,000 people to qualify for public funding. Richard Winger testified against that aspect of the bill on behalf of the Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE). The bill passed anyway, 3-2. Now it goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Well, yes, it is discriminatory. But would the small parties be worse off or better off if the bill passes? I think 3,000 people (out of 16 million registered voters) giving $5 each is well within reach of the Libertarians and Greens. Maybe not the American Independent and Peace and Freedom parties, though. The possibility of being able to run a real campaign is extremely tempting.
I continue to be torn about this. At one extreme, the Connecticut bill is, I think, unconstitutional (by the way, what happened to the ACLU lawsuit against it?). At the other end of the continuum there’s a completely level playing field. They gray area in between is pretty wide. I think it’s hard to draw a line.
The ACLU lawsuit against the Connecticut discriminatory public funding is winning. The US District Court said it is probably unconstitutional, and reported his analysis at 537 F Supp 2d 359. However, the case is not over yet, not even in the US District Court itself.
This thing breezed through the Assembly when it came up, even though it was watered down to just the SoS as a pilot program. But it is not a level playing field in the slightest. Yes, minor parties are worse off if this passes as it’s basically election welfare for the major parties while the minor parties get shut out. Either the race is fully-public-funded or it fully-private-funded, not any of this garbage.
The LPCA Legislative Action Committee has recommended the LPCA oppose this bill, but no action has been taken on it by the LPCA ExComm at this point.