Candidate sues for being short-changed by FACE
Third parties entitled to one-tenth the public funding Dems, GOP get
BY CHRIS MURINO Staff Writer
ALibertarian candidate for Assembly in the 14th District has filed a lawsuit in Superior Court because the public funding he's receiving is significantly lower than that of his Democrat and Republican competitors.

Jason Scheurer

Jason Scheurer and his campaign manager, Lou Jasikoff, believe that the Fair and Clean Elections (FACE) Pilot Project is unfairly distributing funds.

"We support the program and we do feel it's a good first start, but it's by no means fair," Jasikoff said. "We're trying to have fairness."

Under the program, for collecting 800 donations from residents in the district, Scheurer would be entitled to up to $50,000 in public funding, while his Democrat and Republican competitors can receive over $500,000. Scheurer has so far received about $23,000 in public funding for the donations he obtained, according to Jasikoff.

Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-Middlesex/Mercer) does not agree with Scheurer and Jasikoff. Greenstein said that she was on the Assembly committee that was put together to design the FACE guidelines.

"We had legal information and the information they gave us was that it was not incumbent on us to give the same money to the third party," Greenstein said.

"There are a number of federal law cases that would clearly be in our favor," Jasikoff countered.

Greenstein did say that things should possibly change in the future from a fairness point of view.

"I would have to rethink that," Greenstein said. "It appears it may be fair to give third party candidates who qualify the same money."

However, she stressed it should not happen for this pilot program.

Scheurer's running mate, Ray Cragle, was not listed as a fellow plaintiff in the suit. According to Jasikoff, Cragle is opposed to publicly funded elections and has opted not to participate in FACE.

Funding aside, Jasikoff had many other problems with FACE and its rules. Candidates that got in their 400 donations by Aug. 17 would have been noted on the ballot as participants in FACE, and had a 250-word statement on the pilot project run alongside them. Scheurer did not meet this deadline, getting in his donations by Sept. 30.

"We feel the law is unconstitutional," Jasikoff said. "When people walk into the ballot box, they will see 'clean and fair' next to the Republicans and Democrats, not Jason's name. This really tilts things in their favor."

Jasikoff was also irritated at the reason for the Aug. 17 deadline.

"The ballot needed to go to the printer to be interpreted in Spanish," Jasikoff said.

Scheurer wants English to be the national language and Jasikoff said that they would rather the statement just be printed in English.

"If you can't read the ballot, perhaps you shouldn't be voting," Jasikoff said.

With the extra money, Jasikoff hopes to get more exposure for his candidate.

"We would make sure everybody knew what our platform is," Jasikoff said. "We would do more TV commercials, probably some billboards and some ads in the paper."