Cafero to Call It Quits Wednesday. Will Dine With Lobbyist Colleagues Downtown After House Speech.

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you go downtown with the lobbyists you’ve been working with for decades. That’s if you’re beleaguered House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero (R-Brown Rudnick).  Cafero will announce that he’s not seeking re-election on Wednesday. He will then retreat to a lobbyist-heavy dinner at Max Downtown for a dinner, Daily Ructions can report. Expect the evening to feature tales of Cafero “taking care” of those saluting him at the $75 a ticket dinner.

It’s an unhappy end for Cafero. The FBI camped out at the LOB for two days last month, making public federal investigators’ interest in House Republican campaign practices. Cafero’s longtime chief of staff George Gallo resigned on the second day of the aggressive FBI intrusion. Cafero was also the unhappy star of a political fundraising and legislation corruption trial last year. The Norwalk Republican was caught on video as an FBI informant put $5,000 in cash in Cafero’s office refrigerator. The illegal dough was later turned into contributions to House Republican campaign committees through straw donors.

Cafero has worked for more than a decade as a “contract partner” for the Hartford office of the Brown Rudnick law firm and its lobbying business. There was a time early in the charade when Cafero protested that he did not know who Brown Rudnick’s clients were. Like Cafero’s denials of knowing anything about cash in his refrigerator, evidence shredded the eleven-term legislator’s claims.

Wednesday night Cafero and his diminishing crowd will try to forget all his troubles and forget all his cares, as they wonder what’s waiting for him.