CT Republican Leaders Blast Democrats’ “Dark Money” Special Session Agenda Add-on

Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly and House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora today each expressed serious concerns regarding the addition to next week’s special session agenda of measures which will undo Connecticut campaign finance reforms. Majority Democrats are seeking to allow dark money into CT elections.

“This is the height of arrogance,” Sen. Kelly said. “And talk about bad timing: As Connecticut makes embarrassing national news for the Bridgeport primary fiasco, majority Democrats now want to open the dark money floodgates for our elections? Connecticut is a national model for campaign finance reform, but today Connecticut Democrats want to undermine those protections for clean elections. This bill enables senate and house democrat political action committees to solicit dark money donations from all across the country. This speaks volumes about Democrats’ priorities. Rather than focus on closing the known corruption loopholes exposed by the Bridgeport video,  Democrats instead want to create a new and dark money corruption loophole in our election laws. This will undermine the clean election process and the progress Connecticut has made in becoming a national model for campaign finance reform.  The public can now clearly see what majority Democrats value the most.”

Rep. Candelora said, “Recent allegations of absentee ballot fraud have rocked Bridgeport, yet rather than sending Connecticut residents a strong message about bolstering election integrity, the state legislature’s majority Democrats and Governor Lamont are exploiting next week’s special session to rewrite expenditure rules at the heart of the state’s public campaign financing system—the Citizen’s Election Program. Residents aren’t asking the legislature to give politicians access to more fundraising tools to tap into new sources of money from far off places, they simply want to have confidence that our elections are conducted fairly and accurately. For Democrats to offer a special session agenda that simultaneously delivers an election monitor for Bridgeport while also weakening our watchdog agency’s authority over state campaign contributions sends a discordant message. Their campaign finance change isn’t an emergency and shouldn’t be on the agenda.”