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Supporters of Chief Public Defender TaShun Bowden-Lewis are being urged to gather at the Legislative Office building on April 16th to “support one of our own.” In a video, one Bowden-Lewis supporter (or perhaps Bowden-Lewis herself, the speaker does not identify herself) claims she has been “retaliated against” and “publicly humiliated.” The Public Defenders Services Commission will at that meeting continue the process of determining if it will discipline Bowden-Lewis in the face of myriad accusations.

“Stand with us in solidarity as we protect one of our own,” the speaker requests. That refers to Bowden-Lewis’s race, the first Black lawyer to be appointed to lead the state’s public defenders. It is presumably not a call to stand in solidarity with an agency head accused of hacking into colleagues’ email accounts.

This is not the first race-based accusation to anchor the controversies that have swirled around Bowden-Lewis. A year ago, Bowden-Lewis through her lawyer accused the Public Defender Services Commission that hired her of creating a pretext for discrimination by disagreeing with some of her hiring and promotion recommendations. All but one commission member resigned.

Bowden-Lewis may eventually conclude that was a strategic error. The new commissioners who replaced the ones Bowden-Lewis chased away appear resolute in their determination to confront the intolerable atmosphere of suspicion, recriminations and fear of retribution that pervade the agency. Public defenders voted 121-9 in favor of a no-confidence motion in Bowden-Lewis.

Published March 28, 2024.

A slate of 37 delegates committed to Democrat Nick Simmons defeated a slate supporting rival Trevor Crowe by the Greenwich Democratic Town Committee Wednesday night. The New Canaan DTC added its 10 to the growing Simmons count.

Stamford sends 16 delegates to the May convention. Crowe will need 10 of those to reach the 15% mark required to qualify for a primary at a nominating convention. Simmons is the brother of Caroline Simmons, Stamford’s Democratic mayor. If Crowe fails to win the support of 15% of the delegates she will need to collect signatures from 5% of the registered Democrats in the district to appear on the August primary ballot. That is almost always harder than candidates expect.

An additional obstacle looms. There will be no state or congressional Democratic primaries this year. Connecticut continues to have the most anti-democratic ballot access laws in the nation. A Democratic primary for the state senate will likely be the only contest on the ballot. It will be a low turnout contest with an advantage to the endorsed candidate–the self-funding Simmons. This is the season of sudden and harsh realities for candidates running against the candidates favored by a party establishment.

Crowe’s 2022 loss to Republican incumbent Ryan Fazio by 89 votes appears to have earned her no longterm goodwill among local party leaders.

The November election race for the seat is expected to be among the most competitive senate contests. Republicans, with only 12 of the chamber’s 36 seats, face considerable headwinds in previously Republican suburbs like Greenwich and New Canaan.

Published March 28, 2024.

Trevor Crowe, the Greenwich Democrat seeking her party’s nomination for the 36th State Senate District for the second time, is using social media to cleave to the historic legacy of the late Ella Grasso, the first woman elected governor of a state in her own right. There was no one like Ella.

One needs to be careful about soldering abortion rights to Mrs. Grasso. She was an unwavering opponent of a woman’s right to choose abortion services. The Windsor Locks Democrat would find no place in today’s Democratic Party.

In 1977, Grasso, the daughter of Italian immigrants, immediately prohibited the state from financing elective abortions (broadly defined at the time) when the Supreme Court ruled Connecticut was not required to pay for them.

Her achievements earned Ella Grasso a unique place in the nation’s public life in life and after her death in 1981. She said, “I keep my campaign promises, but I never promised to wear stockings.” That was Ella mocking the expectations imposed on women who succeeded in politics. People also paid attention when she declared, “I’m opposed to abortion because I happen to believe that life deserves the protection of society.”

Published March 27, 2024.

The Peabody Museum opened Tuesday after a four year renovation. The state’s most prominent dinosaurs were not in New Haven Tuesday morning. Instead, they gathered at the Bushnell for a CBIA legislative forum.

The CBIA event was an all-male affair. The panel of legislative leaders was comprised of only men. The moderator, Chris Davis (who abandoned his 2020 House re-election campaign to spend more time with his family and take a state job) is the business organization’s chief lobbyist. Davis was introduced by State Comptroller Sean Scanlon.

Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas was in the audience with many other women. You can see the back’s of their heads in the photo above.

Governor Ned Lamont and Senator Richard Blumenthal also spoke to the annual gathering. Lamont pleased the audience by pledging to uphold the state’s fiscal guardrails and insist on a sensible budget.

Published March 26, 2024.

State Representative Michael D’Agostino (D-Hamden) will not seek re-election to the House seat he was first elected to in 2012, Daily Ructions has learned. D’Agostino is expected to make his announcement at Tuesday’s meet of the Hamden Democratic Town Committee.

D’Agostino has had an unusual career in the House. His reputation as a notably capable legislator was confirmed in 2017 when he was chosen to bring a critical state employee agreement to the floor of the House. The House was closely divided between Democrats and Republicans. There was an argument to be made that the agreement negotiated by the Malloy administration made a terrible 25 year deal an awful 30 year one. The House Republicans, mired in cliches, were no match for D’Agostino’s skill as an advocate. The savings promised by the Malloy administration have often fallen short, as was the custom during the surly Democrat’s eight years as governor.

When there was heavy lifting to be done, Democrats were lucky to have D’Agostino. The accomplished lawyer could argue any brief. That also proved skill a burden for D’Agostino’s ambitions. Few could match his intellectual firepower. Political leaders are often wary of colleagues with brains and no talent for disguising them.

Confident leaders would have promoted D’Agostino to the co-chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee. Brusque self-confidence accompanied by knowledge proved more frightening than attractive to House leaders. That has been D’Agostino’s burden.

D’Agostino briefly explored a race for attorney general in 2018.

Published March 26, 2024.

Published March 26, 2024.

Governor Ned Lamont’s office has been negotiating to reverse the rejection of his nominee for the newly created Department of Corrections Ombudsperson. On a tie vote of the committee, Hilary Carpenter failed to win the approval of the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee for the pension boosting position.

Carpenter, a public defender, was not the first choice of the Corrections Advisory Committee for the job. She was the third of three. The committee’s first choice was Ken Krayeske. He’s regularly done battle with DOC. Aggressive oversight of the secretive Department of Corrections is unlikely in the job description Lamont has in mind for the new position.

Tuesday’s meeting is the only opportunity the committee will have to overturn its defeat of Carpenter’s nomination with a motion to reconsider made by a member who voted against her. Two Democrats and one Republican were absent from the 20-member committee’s last meeting. Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney (D-New Haven) abstained on Carpenter’s nomination.

Republicans, who rarely win committee votes, have been eager to make a deal with Lamont’s office in exchange for ushering Carpenter through the confirmation process.

The meeting will follow the conclusion of an 11 a.m. public hearing.

UPDATE: Representative David Yaccarino (R-North Haven) made the motion to reconsider. It passed on a voice vote. Yaccarino explained that members did not mean to defeat Carpenter’s nomination. Yaccarino said they had originally hoped to advance Carpenter’s nomination for more discussion. Most legislators know that that requires a vote in the affirmative.

The roll call on Carpenter’s nomination will remain open until 3 p.m.

What are 30 pieces of silver going for these days at the Legislative Office Building? We may never know.

Published March 26, 2024

John Hinckley, the man who nearly assassinated President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, complained last week that his appearance in Naugatuck on the 43rd anniversary of that chilling act was evidence of “cancel culture.” The mewling folk singer told the New York Post that it happens all the time.

“I think that’s fair to say: I’m a victim of cancel culture,” he told The Post. It may, but it did not happen in Naugatuck. The venue at which Hinckley was scheduled to appear does not have the proper permits to host such an event. A cease and desist order was issued to operators of the Hotel Huxley on March 8th.

Naugatuck building official W. L. Herzman issued an unsafe building/cease and desist order to Sumant L. Patel of N Holdings, LLC that illegal occupancy changes had been made in the property and it had inadequate exits for the capacity of the venue. There appears to be nothing unusual about this.

What is unusual is why anyone would pay to hear folk music and why on earth anyone would want to hear folk music performed by John Hinckley murder some notes on Easter weekend and the anniversary of his attempt to assassinate one of the nation’s greatest presidents.

Published March 25, 2024.

An embarrassing week at the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP). The State Police agency saw one of its own civilian employees arrested for third degree larceny.

An internal investigation found that Sherry Pina, a Processing Technician in the Overtime Coordinator’s Office, was allegedly submitting overtime hours for herself while working at a second job in the private sector. In 2021, Pina submitted 247 hours of allegedly false claims for overtime pay while working overlapping hours at her second job. The total amount Pina received in pay she did not earn, according to the arrest warrant application, is $9.295.96.

During the police investigation of the alleged crime, according to the arrest warrant application, Pina confirmed that between April 2021 and November 2, 2023, when another staff member was also working on payroll information, she did not work “even one hour of overtime.” That employee, who left DESPP in 2023, voluntarily provided a sworn written statement to detectives. That statement appears to have been helpful in the investigation. Pina told her former colleague that her arrival in the office caused Pina to stop working overtime and caused her to find a second job working for an answering service from home at night.

Pina agreed to meet with a detective on December 20, 2023. She was accompanied by union representative Robert Raczka. After answering questions, Pina declined after consulting with her union representative to provide a written statement.

Published March 20, 2024.

Republican David Cassetti, serving his sixth term as mayor of Ansonia, will try to unseat Democratic incumbent Democrat Kara Rochelle in the 104th House District. Cassetti announced his candidacy Monday morning.

Cassetti won re-election in November with 73% of the vote. Rochelle was elected to her third term in the House in 2022. Her victory came a few weeks before details of her affair with disgraced former West Haven state Representative Michael DiMassa came to light in the corruption trial of DiMassa’s co-defendant. DiMassa testified about his relationship with Rochelle, who was paid $5,000 from federal pandemic funds for firehouse consulting services, in a co-conspirator’s trial

DiMassa, who admitted stealing more than $1.2 million from West Haven, pled guilty on November 1st last year to three conspiracy counts in the scandal.

Exactly what Rochelle was to do for West Haven has remained unclear. City records say she was paid for a Covid study of a firehouse. Rochelle claimed “through a spokesman that she was hired to act as project manager in a city push to build a new firehouse,” according to a Hartford Courant report. “The job would require, among other things, community outreach to win popular support for the project, while navigating potential jealousies between the existing city fire precincts.” This year’s campaign will provide many opportunities for Rochelle to clarify what she was paid to do.

Cassetti and Rochelle have clashed before.

Published March 20, 2024.