Apparently (CTMirror, Washington Times, Hartford Courant) the Democratic leadership in the Connecticut Senate is about to kill the public funding of elections in Connecticut for the 2016 cycle. 

Connecticut is one of three states with serious public funding for state officials (CT, AZ, and ME). In the first year after its enactment, 78% of elected representatives opted into the system. But now, the Dems are talking about killing the program — which of course would be wonderful for the lobbyists in Connecticut, and further strengthen the power of SuperPACs in that state.

This is officially #REALLYbadNEWS. A week after Maine voted to strengthened its own public funding system, and Seattle voted to establish an innovative voucher program to fund city elections (here’s Paul Blumenthal’s piece about both), Connecticut should be talking about how to make their program better, not dead. 

If you’ve got friends in the state, please ask them to ask the Democratic leadership what’s going on? You can reach the President of the Senate, Martin Looney (D-New Haven), here.

We Democrats tell ourselves that we’re leaders on this issue — everywhere, including Connecticut. Let’s make that true.