Daily Newspapers Ask Malloy To Veto Campaign Finance Bill

In a rare move, the state’s daily newspapers are asking Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to veto a controversial campaign finance bill that was passed several weeks ago.

The bill has already been blasted by groups as diverse as the 10,000-member Connecticut Business and Industry Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut.

The newspapers are objecting on some of the same grounds that are related to the disclosure of various expenses and the requirements for approval of those expenses.

Under the interpretation of the bill by the Connecticut Daily Newspapers Association, newspapers that sponsor a political debate would be required to calculate “the value of the debate – i.e., set-up, airtime, advertising, etc. – coupled with the broadcasting of such debate” as an “independent expenditure” that would need to be reported. In addition, the CNDA board would need to approve those expenses, and the board “would then be required to disclose the votes of individual board members and ‘pertinent information’ that took place during the discussion of the expenditure,” according to a letter to Malloy by Chris Van DeHoef, the association’s executive director.

“If CDNA should partner with a local television station to host and televise a debate and CDNA placed ads in its members’ papers, would those ades constitute an independent expenditure?” Van DeHoef asked in his letter. “Would the airtime be an independent expenditure?”

Two unlikely allies – CBIA and ACLU – were both lobbying against the bill because of the reporting requirements. The bill stated that the board of directors of any corporation or nonprofit would need to vote every time that the entity spent more than $4,000 in a political expenditure.

Currently, large corporations like Hartford-based United Technologies and Fairfield-based General Electric only convene their boards for huge issues and never sign off on bills as small as $4,000. The board would not only need to convene, but the vote by the board would need to be published on the company’s website within 48 hours. The corporations said that board of directors are not involved in the day-to-day operations of the corporation and only set broad policies. A lower-level employee in the company would be approving expenses at the level of $4,000.

“You don’t bring those things to a board now,” Joseph Brennan, the chief lobbyist for CBIA at the Capitol, said at the time. “Connecticut is putting a spotlight on itself. We just don’t think it’s good public policy.”