"That is because the default lightning effect "bolt" is not a curve persay, it is an extruded softbody, and therefore with its dynamic connections, is not accepting your command to be paintable.
...it should still work tho... weird..."

It won't let me because the curve is not a nurbs or polygon object.

I don't know if I completely understood what you suggested with paint FX. Are we talking about lightning effects or the electric brushes? The burshes have to be painted on a nurbs or polygon surface, which a curve is not, and you can't make it a paintable object. Please specify further

Thanks for the help. I'm sure I could do this in AE with no problems, but I just think it would be quicker and more efficient for this short clip just to do light linking, but I don't know how to go about that. I guess I'll research that later. I'm fairly new to maya, but I've only played around with modeling before. I have never really learned about lights, rendering, or effects, that's why I have all the "newb" questions.