Projo Politics Blog

Rhode Island’s political parties got a little help from state taxpayers last week.
The state treasurer’s office distributed $88,448 generated by the political donation check box on state tax returns. The tax return allows filers a $2 donation for a single filer, or $4 for joint filers — by adding that amount to their tax liability.
Where did the money go this year?
The formula for distributing it is a bit complicated. Filers can opt to designate their contribution to a specific party. But just $13,440 was designated for to either the Democratic, Republican or Green parties ($8,744, $4,304 and $392 respectively; sorry, Robert Healey — Cool Moose wasn’t an option), leaving more than $75,000 designated “nonpartisan” contributions.
Each of the general officers received 5 percent of that $75,000 — $3,750.40. And the rest was divided between the state Democratic and Republican parties based on the number of votes each party’s candidates for governor received in the previous election.
That gave the state Republican Party an additional $28,695.62 (Governor Carcieri received 51.01 percent of the vote) and $27,560.38 to the Democrats (former Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty got 48.99 percent of the vote).
That’s not chump change for the state parties.
For a little perspective, the state Republican Party reported $39,471.48 in cash on hand at the end of June, before receiving the tax dollars. Democrats had $76,523.72.
There is a catch, however.
The parties cannot use any of the public funds “to support or defeat a candidate in any election,” according to state law.

-- By Steve Peoples, Journal State House bureau

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