{"id":39257,"date":"2014-02-13T21:57:44","date_gmt":"2014-02-14T01:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miserybay.usanethosting.com\/wordpress\/?p=39257"},"modified":"2014-02-13T21:57:44","modified_gmt":"2014-02-14T01:57:44","slug":"leonard-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/leonard-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduces measure to update campaign finance laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. Tom Leonard<!--more--><br \/>\nGubernatorial candidates without an opponent would be unable to use taxpayer funds in an uncontested primary election under legislation introduced today by state Rep. Tom Leonard.<br \/>\n\u201cAlmost 40 years ago, Michigan established a way for gubernatorial candidates to receive taxpayer funding to aid their campaigns in an effort to level the playing field for everyone,\u201d said Leonard, R-DeWitt Township. \u201cHowever, this law did not take into account gubernatorial candidates receiving taxpayer funds despite not having an opponent. I don\u2019t believe it was ever the intent for taxpayer funds to be used to campaign in a primary election a candidate has effectively already won.\u201d<br \/>\nHouse Bill 5331 amends current campaign finance laws so that any candidate running for governor who does not face a primary-election opponent would be ineligible to receive taxpayer funding for that primary election. If a gubernatorial candidate receives and spends taxpayer funds for a primary election prior to the filing deadline and does not receive any opposition, any funds spent and unspent will be owed back to the State Campaign Fund.<br \/>\nUnder current law, gubernatorial candidates can receive up to $990,000 in taxpayer funds for a primary election.<br \/>\nThe measure would take effect on Jan. 1, 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. Tom Leonard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjindy.com\/archive1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}