McKinney: “Illegal Contribution to State Democrats Raises Suspicion of Pay for Play”

Hartford, CT – State Senate Minority Leader John McKinney (R-Fairfield) says the circumstances surrounding an illegal donation made by a state contractor and accepted by the State Democratic Party should be investigated.

According to publicly available campaign filings, Philadelphia Flyers owner Edward Snider, the chief executive of Global Spectrum, the company that won the right earlier this year to manage two major state-owned venues, the XL Center in Hartford and Retschler Field in East Hartford, made a $10,000 donation to the State Democratic Party’s State Political Action Committee (PAC).

This is an illegal contribution under Connecticut’s campaign finance laws which prohibit state contractors, including Mr. Snider, from donating to a State Party’s PAC. It is also illegal under state law for the State Party to accept the donation.

Senator McKinney said, “For three years Dan Malloy has said ‘Connecticut is open for business.’ Sadly we now know that Dan Malloy’s Connecticut is for sale.”

“Mr. Snider doesn’t live in Connecticut and has never given to the Connecticut Democratic Party before. But, all of the sudden, at the same time his company is bidding for a multi-million dollar state contract, he decides to write a check for the maximum contribution of $10,000 and, lo and behold, is awarded the contract to manage the XL Center and Rentschler Field by the governor’s hand-picked head of the Capitol Region Development Authority (CRDA).

“This is an illegal contribution, even under Governor Malloy’s watered-down campaign finance law. What’s worse is that this is the latest in a growing number of examples where state contractors like Northeast Utilities and individuals like Mr. Snider reap a direct financial benefit from Governor Malloy’s policies and state grants while concurrently donating thousands of dollars to the Democratic State Party. It reeks of ‘pay for play’ and should be investigated.”