Measure Allows For Greater Amounts Of Campaign Funding
A new law taking effect Friday will allow political candidates to take much more money from individuals and political action committees.
The measure scraps the current limit of less than $15,000 on what a legislative candidate can take from all PAC's for their races. The Citizens Clean Elections Commission sued to block the changes but a Superior Court Judge rebuffed the effort yesterday.
That's a big blow for public funding, since lawmakers did not increase what's available to those candidates.
Commission chair Louis Hoffman says there will still be a role for public funding.
“I don't think it dooms the system,” Hoffman said. “I think it will still be around to provide a path for candidates who wouldn't otherwise be able to run. But as a practical matter, those people will be facing much more heavily funded opposition in many races.”
The new law does more than boost what candidates can take from private sources. It also completely eliminates the $6,390 amount any one individual or PAC can give to all candidates in any year.
