According to this Democracy 21 press release, some members of Congress are working to change the public funding system for presidential elections. Apparently primary season matching funds would be abolished, and the money would be used to pay for the major party presidential conventions. This idea might appeal to Democrats, because the Democratic National Committee is low in funds that are needed to pay for costs of the 2016 Philadelphia convention.
The only minor party or independent presidential candidate who is currently seeking to qualify for primary season matching funds is Jill Stein. She must raise $5,000 in small donations from each of 20 states. She recently crossed the threshold in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, so is up to eleven or twelve states now.
The change in the law would be brought about by inserting provisions into the omnibus spending bill, which is expected to pass by the end of the year.
The linked post doesn’t mention use for conventions that I see, much less for *only major-party* conventions. (Can you document that too, Richard? Maybe with a link to something about the omnibus bill?)
The latter would heap open partisan unfairness on top of the betrayal of the individual taxpayers who have supported the system.
@John: It’s the fourth paragraph in the linked post:
“It is our understanding that last minute efforts may be pursued in the Omnibus bill to restore public financing for the presidential nominating conventions in return for taking away the funds currently in the presidential tax checkoff system.”
There’s no statement that this has been written into an actual amendment or bill yet.
If these last-minute efforts do become part of the omnibus bill, and it turned out that there was any party other than the Democrats or Republicans eligible to receive such funds in 2016, I would be very surprised. Before the convention funds were eliminated from the public funding system, a party needed to get at least 25% of the last popular vote to qualify for the maximum convention funding, or at least 5% to qualify for partial convention funding (with the amount of funding increasing as a party’s vote total increased between 5% and 25%). Hence, no minor party has received any such convention funding since the Reform Party in 2000 (thanks to Ross Perot’s garnering 8% of the popular vote in 1996). I don’t think there is much support in Congress to fund the Libertarian, Green, or any other minor party’s national convention.
They still spend this money. It’s just not for political conventions.
@Joshua K.: Ah, yes, there it is — top paragraph of the letter itself. Not that it mentions “major party” there — but I agree that Congress isn’t likely to extend the funding to alternative party conventions.
And as for those conventions . . . it would be nice to think that the Ds and Rs would cut back on their convention budgets if this doesn’t happen, but I expect it’s more likely that they’ll hit up convention “sponsors” for more money.