On July 16, a U.S. District Court in Connecticut cleared the way for a Republican candidate for Governor to receive extra public funding for his campaign, even though the U.S. Court of Appeals had ruled the provision for extra public funding to be unconstitutional on July 13.  See this story.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Michael Fedele will now receive $312,500 in extra public funding.  The “extra” public funding refers to the kind of public funding that publicly-funded candidates may receive when they have an opponent who is privately-funded and who is very well-funded.  Fedele’s opponent in the Republican primary, Thomas C. Foley, the frontrunner, had sued to block Fedele from receiving the extra public funding.

Although this type of public funding had been held unconstitutional on July 13 by the U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd circuit, the decision (like virtually all decisions of Circuit Courts) does not go into effect for three weeks after it was released.  The three-week delay is to allow time for reconsideration requests.  This is the technicality that allows the release of the money.  The U.S. District Court had also held the extra public funding provision unconstitutional last year, but had stayed its own decision pending the decision of the 2nd circuit.