I am profoundly disappointed that legislative Democrats would turn aside, through budget cuts, the public campaign financing program many of us worked so hard to put in place to prevent political corruption scandals.
The Democrats have effectively eviscerated the spirit of the law since 2011 and now they are looking to overturn the actual letter of the law altogether.
We passed these strong campaign reform measures following a dark period in our state’s history in 2003 and 2004. Prohibiting state contractors and limiting special interests from paying-to-play through political campaign contributions was the right thing to do then and it’s the right thing now.
It’s also the right thing for the state Democratic Party to fully cooperate with the state Election Enforcement Commission’s investigation of Gov. Dannel Malloy’s and their purposeful, inappropriate and possibly illegal circumvention and outright disregard of state law during the 2014 gubernatorial campaign. The court case going on right now against the Democrats and Gov. Malloy is exactly why we need strong anticorruption laws on the books and why we need to follow them.
M. Jodi Rell of Brookfield is the former governor of the State of Connecticut.