Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Patrick, Reilly to get $400K each

Two of the three Democrats running for governor, Deval L. Patrick and Thomas F. Reilly, will each get about $400,000 in public financing, the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance announced today. The third Democrat, Christopher F. Gabrieli, opted not to seek public financing. Here's part of the release.

TWO GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATES ARE CERTIFIED TO RECEIVE PUBLIC CAMPAIGN
FUNDS

The Office of Campaign and Political Finance announced today that two candidates for governor have qualified for matching public funds for their primary election campaigns.

Democrats Deval Patrick and Thomas Reilly each submitted the necessary qualifying contributions by last Friday's deadline and today were certified by OCPF to receive funding.

Each candidate's campaign account will receive $403,422.30 from the State Election Campaign Fund this week.

Under the public financing law, M.G.L. Chapter 55C, each gubernatorial candidate who agrees to observe a statutory spending limit and submits the minimum amount of contributions is eligible to receive up to $750,000 in matching funds for the primary. However, the State Election Campaign Fund, which is funded by a taxpayer checkoff on state income tax returns, does not contain the $1.5 million that would be needed to fully fund both of the eligible candidates.

The fund contained $1,613,689.19 as of June 30, according to the state Comptroller's Office. That amount must be split in half, with $806,844.60 allocated for the primary campaign. The law also calls for candidates for governor to be funded first, with any remaining funds to be distributed to candidates for the other five statewide offices who are eligible to receive public financing. Because the payments to Patrick and Reilly have depleted the portion of the fund allocated for the primary, the candidates for other statewide offices who agreed to limits will not receive any public funds for the primary campaign.

Candidates must agree to abide by statutory limits for both the primary and general elections in order to be eligible to receive matching funds. Patrick and Reilly originally agreed to the statutory limit of $1.5 million, but that figure was increased to the $15.36 million set by Democrat Christopher Gabrieli, who is not participating in the public financing program but was required to set a spending ceiling because he is opposed by at least one participant. The primary campaign spending limits apply from June 7 through Sept. 19.

Posted by Scott Helman, Political Reporter at 06:35 PM

Print | E-mail to a friend | Permalink | Subscribe via rss