AN ACT CONCERNING THE CITIZENS' ELECTION FUND.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
Section 1. Section 9-750 of the general statutes is repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof (Effective from passage and applicable to primaries and elections held on or after such date):
(a) If, (1) for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006, or any fiscal year thereafter, the amount of funds available under section 3-69a for deposit in the Citizens' Election Fund established in section 9-701 is less than the amount of funds required under said section 3-69a to be deposited in said fund, resulting in an insufficiency in the amount of the deposit, or (2) during an election cycle the amount of funds in the Citizens' Election Fund is less than the amount of funds required to provide grants to each qualified candidate committee pursuant to the provisions of this chapter, resulting in an insufficiency in said fund, a portion of the revenues from the tax imposed under chapter 208, equal to the [difference between said amounts] amount of any insufficiency described in subdivision (1) or (2) of this section, shall be deposited in said fund to allow for the payment of grants pursuant to the provisions of this chapter.
(b) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 3-69a, if funds are deposited into the Citizens' Election Fund pursuant to the provisions of subdivision (2) of subsection (a) of this section, the aggregate amount of any such deposits shall be deducted from the amount deposited into said fund under section 3-69a for the following fiscal year.
Sec. 2. Section 9-716 of the general statutes is repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof (Effective from passage and applicable to primaries and elections held on or after such date):
(a) Not later than June 1, 2007, and annually thereafter, the State Elections Enforcement Commission shall issue a report on the status of the Citizens' Election Fund during the previous calendar year. Such report shall include the amount of moneys deposited in the fund, the sources of moneys received by category, the number of contributions, the number of contributors, the amount of moneys expended by category, the recipients of moneys distributed from the fund and an accounting of the costs incurred by the commission in administering the provisions of this chapter.
(b) Not later than January first in any year in which a state election is to be held, the commission shall determine whether the amount of moneys in the fund is sufficient to carry out the purposes of this chapter. [If the commission determines that such amount is not sufficient to carry out such purposes, the commission shall, not later than three days after such later determination, (1) determine the percentage of the fund's obligations that can be met for such election, (2) recalculate the amount of each payment that each qualified candidate committee is entitled to receive under section 9-706 by multiplying such percentage by the amount that such committee would have been entitled to receive under this chapter, if there were a sufficient amount of moneys in the fund, and (3) notify each such committee of such insufficiency, percentage and applicable recalculation. After a qualified candidate committee under section 9-706 first receives any such recalculated payment, the committee may resume accepting contributions, which shall not be subject to the restrictions on qualifying contributions under section 9-704, and making expenditures from such contributions, up to the highest amount of expenditures made by an opposing nonparticipating candidate in the same primary campaign or general election campaign. ] The commission shall [also] issue a report on said determination.
(c) The commission shall establish a reserve account in the fund. The first twenty-five thousand dollars deposited in the fund during any year shall be placed in said account. The commission shall use moneys in the reserve account only during the seven days preceding a primary or an election for payments [to candidates whose payments were reduced under subsection (b) of this section] of grants pursuant to the provisions of this chapter if the fund is otherwise insufficient for the purposes of making such payments.