Opinion ID: 150474
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Primary Election Grants

Text: Candidates seeking the endorsement of a major party must run in primary elections that are governed by state law. Those candidates receive CEP funding for the primary election in the following amounts: candidates for governor receive $1.25 million; candidates for other statewide offices receive $375,000; candidates for the state senate receive $35,000; and candidates for the state house of representatives receive $10,000. Id. § 9-705(a)(1), (b)(1), (e)(1), (f)(1). Like all CEP grants, those amounts will, in the future, be adjusted for inflation. Id. § 9-705(d), (h). A candidate running for the General Assembly receives more money for the primary election if the election takes place in a district that is considered one-party dominant and the candidate is a member of the dominant party. (As discussed in greater detail below, we will also refer to one-party dominant districts as safe districts.) A one-party dominant district is defined as a district in which there is a difference of twenty percentage points or more between the number of registered voters for the two major parties. For example, if 55% of the voters in a district were registered Democrats and 35% of the voters were registered Republicans (with 10% unaffiliated or registered with a minor party), there would be a twenty-percentage-point difference in the number of Democratic and Republican voters, and the candidates running in the Democratic primary would receive extra money: the grant for the Democratic candidate for the state senate would increase to $75,000, and the grant for the Democratic candidate for the state house of representatives would increase to $25,000. See id. § 9-705(e)(1)(A), (f)(1)(A). Currently, no minor party in Connecticut selects its candidates by means of primary elections, but defendants contend that, if a minor party were to hold primary elections, that party's candidates would be eligible for CEP funding. See Green Party II, 648 F.Supp.2d at 312 n. 16.