John Rigby, the Colebrook Republican who appears to have won a seat in the state House of Representatives by default, with the sudden resignation of incumbent Rep. George Wilber over illness and the disclosure of a three-year-old sex abuse settlement, was talking Thursday about returning as much as $7,000 in unused campaign funds to the state ... until he heard that he might, yet, have an opponent Nov. 4.
State Democrats are preparing to file for an injunction that would block a Secretary of the State office ruling that William Riiska, a Norfolk attorney, could not run as a write-in for the seat because he faxed his signed application before the deadline rather than drop it off in person in Hartford.
Rigby qualified for public financing of his campaign (raising $5,000 from 150 different small donors in order to qualify for $25,000 more in campaign money funded by taxpayers). He said Thursday that he would return what hasn't been spent since he no longer has an opponent, but upon hearing about Riiska's progress in becoming an official candidate, he started to doubt his plans.