from Gov. Ned Lamont, the General Assembly agreed Wednesday to delete a portion of a bipartisan bill that would have ended a half century of independence by Connecticut’s elections watchdog.
Lamont objected to a portion of Senate Bill 1405 that would have subjected the appointment of an executive director of the State Elections Enforcement Commission to approval by a legislative committee, the House and Senate.
Rather than risk a veto of a bill already approved by both chambers and on its way to Lamont’s desk, legislative leaders agreed to insert language into an unrelated fiscal bill that makes the change sought by Lamont, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause and others.
“We are beyond grateful to the governor for standing up for the independence of the agency and are fully aware, but for the governor defending it, none of these proposals would have happened,” said Clare Kindall, the interim director of SEEC.
The executive director will be limited to serving two four-year terms, however, a limitation not imposed on other watchdog agencies such as the Freedom of Information Commission.
Kindall, the former solicitor general of Connecticut, said the “leadership churn” imposed by the term limits could have a chilling effect on the pool of applicants. She is among those applying for the job.
“I don’t see how that benefits anyone,” Kindall said. “That said, whatever the governor and legislature comes up with, we will live with.”
Kindall had no objections to a requirement that a nominee for director go through a hearing before one of the two committees with cognizance over elections law, the Government Administration and Elections Committee and the Government Oversight Committee.
“They could ask us to come before them any time to talk about the state of the agency,” she said.
The portions of the bill that will remain intact reduce the number of campaigns that can be audited post-election from 50% to 20% and require they be completed in one year.
Kindall, who acknowledged that the commission and General Assembly need to rebuild what has become a fraught relationship in the past decade, said she had hoped that the governor would veto SB 1405 and allow a cooling off period.
“We would prefer [it] to be vetoed and just see if we can’t get every one to calm down and see if we can’t reset the relationship,” she said.
The original bill was the product of mounting legislative grievances and frustrations with the State Elections Enforcement Commission, which enforces election laws and administers the Citizens’ Election Program, a 20-year-old reform that created a voluntary system of publicly financing campaigns for state office.
Lawmakers complained that SEEC staff was slow last year to review and approve applications for public financing grants, which require candidates to raise qualifying small-dollar donations, mostly from the communities in their legislative districts. Without presenting evidence, some Republicans claimed their applications were unfairly scrutinized.
The vast majority of legislative candidates use public financing.
Candelora said he was most concerned that public financing grants, which have become nearly universal in General Assembly races, are processed fairly and quickly.
“We are sort of requiring people to participate in the public financing process in order to run for elections,” Candelora said. “We want to make sure that everybody has equal access to that, and if the process isn’t working properly, it interferes with democracy. So I think the intentions have been good.”
The agency is overseen by five commissioners, one each appointed by the governor and the leaders of the four legislative caucuses: the House Democrats, House Republicans, Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans. The commission has sole authority to hire and fire the executive director.
The original bill was negotiated by the four caucus leaders, although House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, and House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, said demand for legislative approval of the director’s hiring was initiated by the Senate.
Senate leaders said the change keeping the executive director’s hiring independent of lawmakers was unnecessary but acceptable.
“I felt what we passed was fine,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk. “I think this is a reasonable compromise. I have no problem with it.”
Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, said he would have preferred retaining the legislative approval of the director.
“I still would like to see continuous legislative approval, but as I understand it, it’s a compromise.”
The Senate approved the bill 34-1. But the House vote was 92-46, with all the “no” votes cast by Democrats — a protest to the provision the governor successfully urged them to remove.
Last week, the former executive director of the State Elections Enforcement Commission, Jeffrey Garfield, urged Lamont to either veto SB 1405 or demand the change that was being made Wednesday.
“Sadly, the commission’s independence is again under attack,” Garfield said. “We must continue to fight for the agency’s independence, its funding and its future.”
The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the creation of SEEC, one of the reforms adopted after the Watergate scandal, and the 20th anniversary of the public financing law passed after a bid-rigging scandal forced the resignation of Gov. John G. Rowland.
This article first appeared on CT Mirror and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
