State Senate Republican Leader Louis C. DeLuca (R-Woodbury), Senator John McKinney (R-Fairfield),
Senator David J. Cappiello (R-Danbury) and fellow Senate Republicans held a press conference today to announce their plan to clean up the abuse of special interest money in the legislature. The Republicans stated that the Democrats inability to pass meaningful reforms on their own prompted them to offer their own plan to address the real abuse of the system - the unchecked special interest money collected and spent by incumbent legislative Political Action Committees (PAC's).

Highlights of the plan include:

•  Banning all lobbyist contributions from political campaigns
•  Complete elimination of ad-books.
•  Eliminating all legislative PACs but the four caucus PACs
•  Banning state lawmakers from proposing legislation supporting their employer

"We have heard talk all session about reform, but when it comes down to it, the Democrats are afraid to repair a system that has provided them with overwhelming majorities in the legislature," said Senator DeLuca. "It is no coincidence that they spend all of their time talking about putting public money into the gubernatorial election, because that's the one seat they have not been able to win. But the real problem with the system are the tens of thousands of dollars in special interest money that pour in every year from PACs and fund the candidacies of incumbent politicians who support their cause. This is what we plan to put to a vote on the floor of the Senate, and it will be very interesting to see how the Democrats react to a real reform plan that eliminates the safety blanket of their PACs."