A dramatic change in the state’s longstanding policy on converting land far from native American reservations to tribal land occupies four consequential lines in the bond package being hurried through the last day of the legislature’s regular session. The change would likely make it easier for the state’s federally recognized tribes to add property anywhere in the state to their domains, placing it under federal jurisdiction.

This profound change in longstanding state policy would have significant impacts on currently unknown towns. The bill has had a public hearing but could not get over the finish line on its own.

The state, as the tribes point out from time to time, must treat the tribal lands as sovereign nations. By adding to their real estate holdings, a piece of Connecticut is gone. This independence came into stark view when the Mohegan Sun hesitated to comply with Governor Ned Lamont’s initial pandemic orders. They raised their status as a sovereign nation at that critical hour.

Republicans, with their affinity for local control, ought to be in an uproar. They would not undermine the primary issue that unites them, would they?

Published June 4, 2025.

The passage of the budget usually allows the House and Senate to relax and take a victory lap. Thirteen lines in an amendment to the budget has caused legislators and other to wonder what they have done. The section, posted above, takes the unusual step of requiring the Commissioner of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) “to grant the owner of the Wallingford Transfer Station a temporary operating permit….”

The amendment appears to have surprised DEEP. The agency was scrambling Tuesday to learn more about where this curious provision originated. Governor Lamont may want assurances that there is nothing in this provision that could embarrass him as he ponders a post-session announcement on whether he will seek a third term. The refuse business, as Daily Ructions readers aware of what can happen in the shadows, makes even the most steely government official uneasy.

Updates as events require.

published June 3, 2025.

Two hard nights for energy committee co-chairs Senator Norm Needleman (D-Essex) and Representative Jonathan Steinberg (D-Fairfield) as each tried to wash away the stain of their failure of candor over who wrote a wild-eyed, conspiracy-laden opinion piece that appeared on the CT Mirror website on December 19th.

On Monday night, Needleman appeared to be reading remarks as he struggled to summarize the energy bill that did not include a power grab for the chair of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA). Needleman made a fleeting reference to the 12/19 op-ed that accused the utilities of conspiring with ratings agencies to lower their bond ratings. Neither Needleman nor Steinberg recanted their op-ed screed against the Hartford Courant’s reporting. Demagoguery remains in season.

What the damaged duo did not do on Monday, Tuesday or any other day is release the op-ed draft PURA chair Marissa Gillett told Steinberg in a text that she appears to no longer have that she had finished an op-ed and would be sending it to him—just days before it appeared in the left-leaning Mirror.

Steinberg said on the floor of the House Tuesday evening, “The rhetoric has gone way overboard, including both sides.” He added, “I myself regret contributing to the tension, including the unwarranted speculation as to the relationship between the utilities and the ratings agencies….That was was with regard to the opinion piece Senator Needleman and I penned.”

”Penned” is a funny old world. Not as clear or emphatic as “wrote.” Better would be an end-of-session announcement that he and Needleman will produce all texts, emails, attachments and metadata pertaining to the 12/19 venting of someone’s spleen. The pair’s contempt for the Freedom of Information Act has not abated. They may soon learn that a subpoena is a more powerful tool than the FOIA in the righteous search for truth.

If Steinberg and Needleman do not augment their FOI disclosures, their positions will be in considerable jeopardy when the complete story emerges.

Published June 3, 2025.

Such a night in the House of Representatives. Sly Representative Anne Dauphinais (R-Killingly) read startling titles, descriptions, and excerpts of sexually explicit books she and others discovered in some Connecticut public school libraries. WTNH’s Mike Cerulli was first with the story and an excerpt from Dauphinais sharing her findings as she the presiding officer and his gaggle of distressed aides on the dais.

Mr. Bookman, the library detective, described the situation to Jerry Seinfeld, “What about that kid sitting down and opening a book at a branch of the local library and finding drawings of pee pees and wee wees? This is about that kid’s right to open a book without getting his mind warped.”

What it took Dauphinais 12 minutes (with interruptions) to do, Mr. Bookman accomplished in less than a minute. The essential question is the same. What about that kid?

And what is a provision about the books in school libraries doing in the budget?

Libraries are about more than socks and mobs. Here’s a palette cleanser and a paean to a trip to the library and the magic of books:

Published June 3, 2025.

The final three days of the regular legislative session can be long and intense, especially for the members struggling to get their bills across the finish line. That is not an excuse for legislators to yell at staff members.

In the past 12 days there have two wildly inappropriate instances of members of the Senate Democratic caucus yelling at women staff members. The incidents occurred in the presence of other legislators who remained silent. Each woman declined to escalate the moment because they are mature adults. Other senators who witnessed the scenes could have intervened, but they did not. Other witnesses were uncomfortable and also silent.

The Capitol village has long been a man’s world. Not everyone has adjusted to the sporadic progress women have made in the established order. The two recent incidents have caused considerable comment and privately expressed scorn.

Judith Martin (“Miss Manners”) calls etiquette “a common language of behavior” that provides a foundation for our enduring civil society. Regrettably, bullies are in fashion in some quarters, but their victims are not without defenses. Bullies always cry foul in the face of an effective fightback.

This would be a good day for the shouty senators to apologize and adhere to a standard that reflects what Governor Lamont calls “Connecticut values.” It would be the right thing to do, but also the smart one because those targets of the bullies, well, it’s not their first time at the rodeo. And they have dealt with a lot worse than you, fellas.

If anyone needs a refresher on modern manners, the writer, podcast personality and Britain’s expert on proper behavior William Hanson recently written a book, Just Good Manners, that shows the way forward.

Published June 2, 2025.

The annual state property conveyance bill included a mystery: 92 Farmington Avenue in Hartford.

The building, built in 1943, has 6 floors and a basement. Its 103,000 square feet include 85,000 square feet that is usable by a tenant.

The conveyance, which did not enjoy the benefit of any testimony at a public hearing, is to the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA). It does not need the space for itself, so something else must be in the works, though no one on the floor of the House during a rare Saturday session seemed to know or was willing to disclose what that may be. Republicans inquiries were not met with a flow of information that would allow elected officials to discharge their duties properly.

Questions are likely to persist.

Published May 31, 2025.

Governor Ned Lamont has a problem: $183,000 a year Senior Advisor Jonathan Dach A report by the Shipman & Goodwin law firm concludes that Dach, Lamont’s third chief of staff, made prolific and reckless use of a state vehicle, Daily Ructions has learned.

The independent report, prompted by an extensive story by Inside Investigator’s dogged Marc Fitch on vehicle misuse, is expected to be completed in the next two days and released early next week in the rush of the final three days of the regular legislative session. There are some acts even a $2.6 billion surplus cannot divert public interest in. The chilling Dach driving dodge is one of them.

The report confirms that Dach used a state vehicle at times for personal, not government, business. In addition, the car’s technology recorded Dach, a Lamont favorite, driving at speeds the law deems reckless, a crime under state statutes. Even a Yale Law School graduate must know that one’s sense of entitlement does not include driving any vehicle at over 90 miles per hour. Dach is known for his righteous claims that he does not own a motor vehicle and uses public transportation. If a state car is included in a sweeping definition of public transportation, Dach is telling the truth.

State employees in positions not as lofty Dach’s would have been fired long ago for committing the abuses the report confirms.

The report’s conclusion will cause needless embarrassment to Lamont, who has been good to Dach. A gentleman would have shared with Lamont in private what he’d done and quietly resigned months ago. Instead, Dach allowed the charade to continue into an expensive law firm investigation while the child of privilege spent months running interference for embattled and failed head utilities regulator Marissa Gillett.

The report may also provide a clue to one of the curiosities of Dach’s tenure with Lamont: Why does he spend so much time on the shoreline visiting with former state Representative Holly Cheeseman, a Republican? Cheeseman, who narrowly lost a re-election bid in November, has been mentioned for a spot on the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA).

The release of the report is expected to cause Dach, who does not live in Connecticut, to leave the Lamont administration after Wednesday. That is too late. Dach should go now. Lamont is aware of the report’s damning findings but has allowed Dach to play a significant role in shaping important legislation, despite revealing himself as unsuited and unworthy to wield authority in the public’s name.

Published May 29, 2025.

Disgraced former governor John G. Rowland has received two pardons from Donald Trump, like Rowland, a convicted felon.

Most public officials only need one pardon, Rowland required two. The three-term Republican resigned as governor on July 1, 2004. He pleaded guilty to corruption charges three days before Christmas that year of shame for Connecticut. Ten years later, the recidivist Waterbury native was convicted by a jury on seven counts that included obstructing justice, falsifying documents, and campaign finance violations.

Rowland served prison sentences in both prosecutions.

Among Rowland’s lowest moments came when he accused his popular successor as governor, Jodi Rell, of “throwing him under the bus” as his corruption began to emerge in public.

At his March 2005 sentencing hearing, Rowland acknowledged accepting $107,000 in gifts. Those gifts, from people seeking state contracts and hefty breaks, included vacations and improvements to his Bantam Lake vacation cottage and private getaway.

Published May 28, 2025.

The political book of the year, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, includes a laudable cameo by Governor Ned Lamont.

Democratic governors attended a July 3rd meeting last summer with a besieged President Joe Biden. The meeting was held in the White House two weeks after Biden’s worst-in-presidential-campaign-history debate in Atlanta. Ten Democratic governors were in the room with Biden, others, including Lamont, joined their colleagues by Zoom.

By then, Biden had no trouble reciting his delusional talking points about the gobsmacking debate disaster. He’d had a cold, he had been traveling too much, and the polls show people don’t care about the state of his health.

Josh Green, Hawaii’s governor and a physician, asked Biden how he was doing and added the guy Green saw on the debate stage wasn’t the Biden he knew.

Some of the governors, according to Tapper and Thompson, were not candid. California Democrat Gavin Newsom “did some rah-racing for Biden; [New York Governor Kathy] Hochul and [Maryland Governor Wes] Moore praised him and said they were all in.” Our Ned was having none of that. “On Zoom,” Thompson and Tapper write, “Connecticut’s ned Lamont affably said, Mr. President, since age is just such an issue right now, front and center, why not just take age off the table and just step aside and swap somebody else in?”

Janet Mills, Michelle Lujan Grisham, and Jared Polis raised concerns about Biden’s November prospects in their states, which Biden won in 2020. Not everyone was given a chance to speak before Vice President Kamala Harris intervened and brought the meeting to its conclusion. “We have to have the president’s back,” quote Harris as announcing. “It’s our fucking democracy at stake.”

But it was Ned Lamont who said what the others either denied or gingerly hinted at. Lamont’s candor was bolstered by a singular dose of credibility. He was the first governor outside of Delaware to endorse Biden in 2019–when not a lot of elected officials were rushing to join the former vice president’s campaign. Biden appreciated that endorsement, according to emails obtained by Daily Ructions after a long battle with Lamont and his office over the release of obvious public records.

Five years later, Lamont did Biden another favor–he told him the truth about his dire prospects.

Eight days later, Representative Jim Himes called on Biden to get out of the race. Himes reached his conclusion, Original Sin reports, because the debate was bad enough, but worse was “the realization that the Democrats had so lowered the bar that when Biden strung four sentences together in a cogent way, they all celebrated.”

Published May 21, 2025.

Short of halfway through his second four-year term, Middletown wunderkind Democrat Ben Florsheim resigned as mayor on Tuesday.

The 2014 Wesleyan graduate won a thumping re-election in 2023. He has had numerous extended tussles with the Common Council, which is dominated by Democrats.

Florsheim, Daily Ructions has learned, will leave office next month to pursue teaching. A special election will follow.

Updates as events require.

Florsheim will issue a statement later today.

Published May 20, 2025.