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The surprise guilty plea of a celebrity antiques dealer twenty years ago today signaled the approach of the end of Governor John Rowland’s tenure in office as scandal grew closer to the Republican in his third term.

Wayne Pratt, who made frequent appearances on the popular Antiques Roadshow program, entered a courtroom in the U.S. District Court in Hartford twenty years ago today to enter a plea to filing false tax information and agree to cooperate with prosecutors. Pratt confirmed the lengthy tale of facts read by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nora Dannehy that revealed the Litchfield County resident as the go-between in a scheme between Rowland and state contractor Robert Matthews in the sale of Rowland’s 278 sq. foot Washington, D.C. and its meager contents.

The Pratt plea came three months after Rowland confirmed a Courant investigation that revealed state employees and contractors had paid for or provided significant improvements at Rowland’s Litchfield County lakefront cottage. Rowland had initially scoffed at the Courant revelations.

By spring, one survey revealed 88% of Connecticut voters did not trust the once-popular governor.

Rowland unsuccessfully resisted subpoenas for records from a House inquiry committee and resigned shortly after a State Supreme Court decision ordered him to hand over documents. He resigned shortly after, leaving office on July 1st. He pleaded guilty to corruption charges three days before Christmas in the U.S. District Court in New Haven. In what appeared to be the end, it was a dreary roll call of acts betraying the public trust.

The first Rowland scandals (another would follow ten years later) included “trading authority for valuable favors and gifts. Charter flights, prostitutes, a state party American Express card, a vintage Mustang of mysterious provenance, a hot tub at a cottage and a staff member (whose husband Rowland nominated to be a judge) who covered his overdrawn checking account make up an incomplete but dispiriting roll call of perversions of public authority.”

On this day 20 years ago, his slide into disgrace came into view.

The Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee rejected Governor Ned Lamont’s controversial pick to become the newly created Department of Corrections ombudsperson. The normally quiet committee voted 8-8 on Hilary Carpenter’s nomination after a March 12th public hearing.

Carpenter was the third ranking of three names sent to Lamont by the Corrections Advisory Committee, the body charged with interviewing and recommending candidates for the new oversight position. Kenneth Krayeske, who as a private lawyer has exposed inadequate medical care provided inmates, was the committee’s first choice. Barbara Fair, who has campaigned to eliminate solitary confinement, ranked second.

The tie vote defeating the motion came from an unusual coalition of five Republicans and three Democrats opposing Carpenter. Seven Democrats and one Republican, ousted Senate Republican Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, backed Carpenter. The seventeenth and deciding vote belonged to Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney. The New Haven Democrat, who knows how to count votes, abstained, defeating the motion to confirm Carpenter.

The vote on Carpenter was a rare Republican victory. Watch for them to toss it away if a motion for consideration is made at the next committee meeting. Lamont’s office has been busy looking for support for giving the Carpenter nomination another go. Some Republican committee members, living in a state of fear as November draws nearer, may be susceptible to exchanging their win for some crumbs.

The Carpenter vote came the day after Lamont lost the nomination of Devant J. Joiner for a seat on the Superior Court in a lopsided 17-10 vote by the Judiciary Committee.

Published March 18, 2024.

It was not the best season for the Wilbur Cross High School boys basketball varsity team but the players showed they are champions despite their coach. In the aftermath of a late season loss, Kevin Walton, Sr., was recorded by a hallway video camera exploding in a torrent of abuse as he emerged from the team’s locker room and ran at game officials.

Walton screamed at the referees, accusing them of being racist cheaters as he heaped profanity on them. Players, who followed Walton out of the locker room, restrained the raging coach and guided him back to the locker room.

The players exhibited exemplary maturity that they must not have learned from their unspeakable coach.

In addition to coaching a Wilbur Cross, Walton is the Director of Equity and Inclusion at Area Cooperative Educational Services (ACES).

Walton is the husband of State Board of Education Chairperson Karen DuBois-Walton. She sought the Democratic nomination for mayor of New Haven in 2021 and the party’s nomination for state treasurer in 2022, losing to Erick Russell.

Kevin Walton, Jr., is an assistant coach for the Wilbur Cross boys basketball team.

Published March 13, 2024.

The host committee for Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) has grown to 11. Hosts, according to the invitation, are in for $6,600.00, co-hosts for $3,300. Host committee members at events like this are notorious for not paying the amount advertised and often do not attend. Logan’s first quarter campaign finance report, a crucial one for any candidate in a competitive race, will tell the tale.

Individual donors with more money than sense may contribute up to $310,700.00 to the Logan Victory Fund. That amount will be allocated $9,900.00 to the Logan campaign committee. That’s $3,300.00 each for the convention, primary and general election phases of the campaign. Logan appears to have no primary challenger.

The GSL PAC–that’s Logan’s PAC and it has little money–will receive $5,000.00. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) will pocket $41,300.00. The parlous finances of the state Republican will be boosted by $10,000.00. The NRCC Building Fund would receive $123,900.00 of the $310,700.00. The remaining $123,900.00 would go to the NRCC for its Legal Proceedings Fund. Johnson, who was a leading House Republican 2020 election denier will have a particular affinity for those contributions.

Maximum NRCC contributors are rewarded with “Elite VIP Access to all Regional Major Donor Events.” Ponder what those must be like before writing that check.

Published March 10, 1014.

The contest for the Republican presidential nomination is over and Republicans in the 8th Senate District must be filled with dread. Frontline party organizers in the 11-town district vented their frustrations on Facebook as they pointed the way forward in the immediate aftermath of their disappointing 2022 election.

The first lesson: “time to be rid of Trump forever, and ignorant ‘purity’ tests during primaries are counterproductive.” There are not likely to be many primaries this year, the Republicans will once more have Donald Trump at the head of their ticket.

There’s no indication the “the toxic politics of Trump” will do anything but accelerate–as he delights in donning the mantle of retribution and continues to extoll the talents of murderous dictators.

A woman’s right to abortion serves is not likely to recede as an issue Republican candidates will continue to spend time explaining. Election deniers have not gone away. George Logan, running again for Congress in CD5 will embrace a leading one on March 16th when Speaker of the House Mike Johnson headlines a fundraiser for him.

Avon Republican Lisa Seminara won her first term in the senate by defeating Democrat Paul Hong by 124 votes of the 45,784 votes cast. The two will compete in a rematch this fall–with the most famous election denier three spots away from Seminara on the ballot. It must be a relief for Seminara that Republican activists have spotted no “election deniers and extremists” in her district.

Published March 7, 2024.

Michael Hyman heads the United campaign fund backing the Mayor Caroline Simmons slate in Tuesday’s ferocious Democratic city committee primary. Hyman, according to The Stamford Advocate, is dismayed that the opposing Responsive Government slate accepted a $5,000 contribution from Stamford Republican Joshua Esses, who serves on Stamford’s Board of Education.

Jann Wenner served on the Rock and Roll Museum board of directors until late last summer. He donated $2,000 to the Simmons slate, though he does not live in Stamford.

The Rolling Stone co-founder was removed from the board after telling the New York Times that no women were included in his book “The Masters” because “The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them. Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”

Wenner included no Blacks because “you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level,” he said. Wenner apologized during the furor that followed the publication of the Times interview plugging the white-men-only collection.

Wenner has been the subject of credible sexual harassment claims.

If it’s green and can be deposited in a bank, the Simmons slate will take it. That’’s the level it articulates at.

Published March 3, 2024.

Robert Krawiecki announced at this week’s Bristol Republican Town Committee meeting that he is seeking his party’s nomination for the United States Senate, Daily Ructions has learned.

It was a curious start to a campaign. Krawiecki handed out roses to the women at the gathering. He struggled to recall the nine points on which he will mount an assault for the party’s nomination and the general election campaign against incumbent Senator Christopher Murphy, champion of the Houthi terrorists–who Murphy has long argued are not terrorists. Helpful town committee members tried to assist Krawiecki by suggesting one of the nine points might be immigration. No, he replied, that is not on the list. The presiding party official brought the presentation to an abrupt end.

These are dreary days in Connecticut politics.

Robert Krawiecki is a brother of Edward C. Krawiecki, Jr. Daily Ructions readers of a certain vintage will recall Edward Krawiecki as the disputatious two-term House Republican leader who represented Bristol in the House from 1978-1994. Krawiecki, faced an energetic challenge in 1992 from Ellen Zoppo, declined to seek re-election in 1994.

Edward Krawiecki’s reputation was fatally damaged in 1993 when he “was fined $1,500 – the largest penalty assessed a state legislator for violating the conflict of interest provision of the ethics code,” The Hartford Courant reported. “He had tried to pass a bill that would have prevented him from being sued for legal malpractice.”

Krawiecki brought disrepute on himself, House Republicans and the legislature with his sleazy gambit to use his colleagues to punish a client he’d failed. Republican state chairman Ben Proto, then a lawyer for the House Republicans, attempted to provide mitigating testimony in the historic ethics investigation and finding. The commission properly disregarded it.

Published February 28, 2024.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is expected to appear at a top dollar March 16th campaign fundraising event for Republican George Logan’s 5th CD rematch with incumbent Democrat Jahana Hayes, Daily Ructions has learned.

The Wolcott Democrat defeated Logan by fewer than 2,000 votes. Logan is a top prospect for House Republicans seeking to hold on to their tenuous majority in the House. Between announcing his candidacy in October and December 31st, Logan raised more than $420,000. Representative James Comer (R-Kentucky), a leader in the rickety House Republican attempt to impeach President Joseph Biden, was the star attraction this week at a Greenwich fundraiser for Logan hosted by Republican National Committee member Leora Levy.

The Logan campaign is scrambling to put together an event host committee of donors with generous friends. Logan campaign fundraiser Lauren Casper hopes to book the tony Hartford Golf Club in West Hartford as the venue.

Johnson was a leading House Republican in the failed crusade to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The Louisiana Republican rejects the term “election denier” to describe him. Earlier this month, Johnson proclaimed a comprehensive immigration reform and foreign aid proposal “dead on arrival” in the House.

Johnson’s views on many issues may go down well in Louisiana but are considered extreme in Connecticut. Vanity Fair reported last year:

On the abortion front, CNN’s KFILE reports that in 2022—as in just last year—Johnson said reproductive freedom in the US was “truly an American holocaust,” adding: “The reality is that Planned Parenthood and all these big abortion (providers), they set up their clinics in inner cities. They regard these people as easy prey. I mean, it’s true.” The same year, he said he was “grateful to be from Louisiana, one of the dozen states or so that has a trigger law that will automatically become an abortion-free state, pro-life,” referring to the law on the books since 2006 that banned abortion, with no exceptions, upon Roe v. Wade being overturned. 

Logan is aligning himself with these views. In little more than two weeks, Logan will be accepting the endorsement and assistance of a Republican who has blocked assistance to the tens of millions of Ukrainians fighting for their free nation’s existence against a Russian invasion.

Logan fundraiser Lauren Casper has deep ties in the Trump wing of the Republican Party. She told Esquire magazine in a 2016 profile of “Donald Trump Super Fans” :

“I get why you think he’s an egomaniac,” she says. “I mean I support him but I still get the joke.” She loves all the usual things about Trump — how unpolished he is, how off the cuff. She loves how he puts America first, and how terrorism and immigration are at the top of his agenda. And she likes how he’s changing the GOP. “We need to rebrand. Be nice to gays and forget Roe versus Wade [The Supreme Court ruling that made abortion a right], it’s never going to be repealed. Trump’s doing all those things.”

Logan has immersed himself in this world, though he may not be eager to acknowledge it to voters in the district that runs from his new hometown of Meriden to New York border.

Published February 28, 2024.

Senator Chris Murphy remains an enigma shrouded in contradictions.

Yesterday, Murphy’s unceasing fundraising for his re-election campaign included a text message to donors and potential donors that emphasized the Democrat’s mighty struggle. “Challenging the status quo — whether it’s the gun lobby, big oil or foreign policy establishment — comes with a price, and the only way a grassroots campaign like ours will be ready for whatever comes our way is with support from people like you,” wrote the two term U.S. Senator.

The highlights of his self-advertisements on the lonely life of an outsider include his friendship with the prime minister of Qatar, the autocratic nation that hosts Hamas leaders. The scars one must endure as the champion of the Houthis battling the establishment to keep them from being designated terrorists.

Who wouldn’t want to “pitch in” to help the friend of the Houthis? Their motto remains,”God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, A curse upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.”

Murphy’s assessment of Connecticut politics leaves no room for the spirit of rebellion. On Friday, he found time to support felonious Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim in the run-up to Tuesday’s special election for mayor. The election is necessary because Ganim supporters engaged in such widespread absentee shenanigans last summer that the outcome could not be determined.

Supporting Ganim is the opposite of “challenging the status quo.”

Anyone who campaigns for Ganim in the aftermath of last fall’s absentee ballot trial forfeits his credibility in delivering homilies on how we are to uphold our democratic norms in this perilous hour for freedom under the rule of law.

Published February 23, 2024.

Democrat Nick Simmons launched his campaign for the 36th Senate District seat with a homey almost subdued video. The seat, which includes all of Greenwich and parts of Stamford and New Canaan. It is currently held by Republican Ryan Fazio.

Simmons will need to get by fellow Greenwich Democrat Trevor Crow. The life coach lost her 2022 campaign against Fazio by 89 votes in her first bid for public office. Crow began her 2024 campaign by inadvertently announcing at a Greenwich Democratic Town Committee meeting that she’d violated the state’s campaign finance laws.

Greenwich is no longer a reliable Republican bastion. Along with many affluent suburbs across the nation, it has delivered growing majorities for Democrats in state and national elections since Donald Trump became the face of the Republican Party. Fazio lost a competitive race for the 36th District seat in 2020 when he challenged first term Democrat Alexandra Kasser. He won a special election in 2021 after Kasser resigned.

Fred Camillo, Greenwich’s Republican first selectman in his third term, won a thumping victory in November, a year after Democrats claimed the tony town’s three House seats. March brings Republican town committee primaries that reflect the growing fractions in a party in decline and riven with ideological differences and suspicions.

Simmons is the brother of Stamford’s Democratic mayor, Caroline Simmons. She ought to have some influence in delivering convention delegates to her brother, though she’s had some ongoing tussles with the local party committee.

Nick Simmons left his position in Governor Ned Lamont’s office earlier this month.

Published February 22, 2024.