"I think it's an issue for both political parties moving forward, about being accountable, about being transparent."
Khalilah Brown-Dean
Connecticut election officials are widening an investigation into whether the state Democratic Party illegally spent money to distribute campaign mailers supporting Governor Dannel Malloy’s re-election.
The State Elections Enforcement Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a request from its investigators to issue subpoenas.
Investigators are seeking to subpoena individuals and documents about the development and distribution of a campaign mailer supporting Malloy's re-election last year.
Speaking on WNPR’s Where We Live Bill Curry, political analyst and columnist for Salon.com, said that campaign finance, ethics, and transparency in state politics are headed in the wrong direction.
“This culture of soft corruption is coming close to owning this government. It’s more powerful in Connecticut than it ever was,” Curry said.
Khalilah Brown-Dean of Quinnipiac University told WNPR that transparency issues won’t be going away any time soon.
“I think it’s something we’ll continue to see -- the influx of money in politics, the influx of people thinking ‘I can kind of do what I want to do with this.’ I think it’s an issue for both political parties moving forward, about being accountable, about being transparent. And making sure that these things are being done in the proper way,” Brown-Dean said.
The state Republican Party filed a complaint against the Democratic Party last October. The GOP asked the enforcement commission to determine that Democrats illegally spent money from a federally registered account on a state race and that Malloy and his campaign approved the illegal spending.
Democrats said last year they were not spending contractor money on state races and said federal law allows the party to spend federal money on get-out-the-vote efforts.
This report contains information from The Associated Press. Ryan King is an intern at WNPR.
