Senate Leadership
September 11, 2006
Williams Wins "Clean Elections MVP Award" at National Activists Conference on Public Financing of Elections
State Senate President Pro Tempore Donald E. Williams, Jr. (D-Brooklyn) on Saturday received the Seize the Moment! MVP award given by three major campaign finance reform groups at the 2006 Seize the Moment! National Conference on the Public Financing of Elections held in Washington, D.C. The award recognized Sen. Williams' efforts to promote democracy and restore elections to the voters of Connecticut.
"These winners have showed strong leadership and deserve recognition for taking the next step in cleaning up our political system," said Nick Nyhart, Executive Director of Public Campaign. "Voters in Connecticut should be proud of elected officials who support a Clean Elections system by making fund raising more transparent and restoring accountability."
"I am honored by this award as it is recognition of all the hard work that went into this historic reform - not just by leadership, but also by the all the members of the Democratic caucus," Sen. Williams said. "We needed to get special interest money out of the election system. We have made great strides toward that end."
Public Campaign, Common Cause and Democracy Matters sponsored the conference to gather and organize national and state organizations, campaign reform activists and allies around the country on this issue. The conference name, Seize the Moment!, refers to campaign reformers' efforts to motivate the public to support the public financing of political campaigns in light of pay-to-play scandals that have rocked Washington, D.C. and statehouses nationwide.
Clean Elections works by allowing candidates to qualify for public funding once they show a broad base of community support by collecting a set number of small contributions. If a candidate runs under the Clean Elections system and faces an opponent who is running with private contributions and who outspends the publicly funded candidate, the law typically provides a limited matching grant to the publicly funded candidate. Extra funding is also available if there is independent spending against a candidate by an outside group or individual.
Sen. Williams is currently in his seventh term representing the 29th Senate District. Since his election as Senate President, he has been a leading advocate for cleaning up government. He authored legislation to reform the State Ethics Commission into the Office of State Ethics and supported sweeping changes to the campaign finance system and the state contracting process. With the creation of a publicly funded campaign finance system in 2005, Connecticut now has the strongest reform laws in the nation. He also succeeded in creating a yearly funding stream for farmland preservation, open space acquisition, historic preservation and affordable housing. Each worthy cause will receive several million dollars annually due to legislation authored by Sen. Williams in the 2005 legislative session.
For more information on the Clean Elections system and the conference, please visit http://www.publicampaign.org/conference_agenda.
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Senator Williams’ Larry Cook |
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Senator Looney’s Larry Cook |
