On February 10, U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith, a Bush Jr., appointee, upheld Rhode Island’s law on how public funding is distributed to political parties. Rhode Island taxpayers may choose to contribute to a qualified political party on their state income tax forms, by writing in the name of the party they wish. But they can also choose to donate to the state’s “nonpartisan account.” Taxpayers get a state income tax credit for their donations, which are limited to $5. Here is the 16-page decision, which is Moderate Party of Rhode Island v Lynch, 10-265.
The Moderate Party sued over the formula for distributing the money in the nonpartisan account. One-fourth of the money goes to the political parties that elected statewide state officers in the last midterm election (there are five such offices, and a party gets a 5% share of the fund for each of these offices that the party won). The other 75% of the nonpartisan fund goes to each of the qualified parties, in proportion to the share of the vote that party’s gubernatorial candidate received. Under this formula, the Moderate Party does get some money from the fund. The decision says the party did not show that the distribution formula injures the party.
Only $2 from each $5 credit goes to the party funds, which are restricted to non-candidate purposes. The other $3 is used for matching funds for gubernatorial candidates, and even the total amount in the party funds is capped at $200,000. Based on previous years, it appears that the total was somewhat short of $200,00. Relatively few taxpayers designated a party (around 10% in 2005), when the parties were Republican, Democratic, and Green.
It is not clear how the 2010 results will be applied, because an independent candidate was elected governor, and about 38% of the gubernatorial vote was for independent candidates.
But if we assume $150,000 in credits, with 10% earmarked to a specific party, and 20% of the nonpartisan fund to the Democrats based on their winning the other 4 statewide offices, that leaves $108,000 to apportion on the basis of the gubernatorial vote. The Moderate candidate received about 10% of the non-independent vote, so they might receive around $10,000, which they might apply to their legal costs.
The Moderate Party should just encourage taxpayers to earmark the $2.