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Whoever gets elected governor just over a year from now will have to administer the budget the legislature enacts. With a herd of candidates seeking the state’s highest office, this would be the moment for serious candidates to offer thoughtful opinions with details on the way forward for Connecticut’s state finances.

When you hear the silence, you’ll know it’s them.

News from Middletown. Geoffrey Luxenberg, embattled chief of staff to Mayor Dan Drew, has resigned his position. The former political consultant and state representative from Manchester took the job in early August and trouble followed as Drew’s campaign for governor began to come undone.

Mark Lauretti, the Shelton mayor making his second bid for governor, is close to collecting the $250,000 in small contributions. That’s one of the requirements to qualify for Connecticut’s generous public financing program. The other is to win 15% of the delegate votes on one ballot of the nominating convention or collect thousands of signatures from party members on petitions.

Lauretti’s campaign finance reports are a festival of interesting entries for reportologists. There is a lot of cash making its way into Public Official Number One’s coffers. Cash is allowed but it is unusual to see so much of it in $100 contributions in one campaign.  Also, Republican Lauretti’s spending is from another age. A big chunk of Lauretti’s campaign money is going to food for fundraising events. Most 21st century Connecticut campaigns try to keep those costs low so they have dough left for increasing their internet/social media presence. It’s a long way to the May convention and $250,000 (or more if you can raise it) does not go far.

As of September 30th, Lauretti had raised $229,670.11 and had $156,918.36.

Former state Representative Geoffrey Luxemberg has many titles. Since August, he’s been the $72,000 a year chief of staff to the mayor of Middletown, Dan Drew. The Drew campaign may be broke, but Luxenberg was a prolific contributor to Democratic campaigns around the state during the third quarter of the year. Before taking the job in Middletown, Luxenberg was a campaign consultant at The Vinci Group, LLC.

The state’s election agency has been making more local finance campaign reports available online. Reports from towns in the program reveal Luxenberg donated $13,780 to local Democratic campaigns. That includes $1,000 to Connecticut Conference of Democratic Mayors. That’s the PAC Drew created with the assistance of Luxenberg when the Manchester Democrat was more overtly in the campaign consulting and management business.

There are two other notable municipal contributions. Two Democratic town committees reported contributions from “Team Dan Drew, Geoffrey R. Luxenberg , Treasurer” or “Team Dan, Geoffrey R. Luxenberg, Treasurer.” One for $250 went to Simsbury, Southbury received $200. There’s no “Team Dan Drew” or “Team Dan” registered with the SEEC. Luxenberg is not the treasurer of Drew’s campaign committee, nor was he in charge of the exchequer when his boss had an exploratory exploratory committee.

Dan Drew provides an explanation for his subordinate:

The transition from enforcing campaign laws as a prosecutor to a candidate who must abide by them can be a challenge. Witness Democrat Chris Mattei. The elite prep school graduate (Loomis Chaffee ’96) came to the public’s attention by prosecuting former Governor John G. Rowland, nursing home moguls Brian Foley and Lisa Wilson Foley, and members of former House speaker Christopher Donovan’s 2012 congressional campaign staffers and contributors for campaign finance violations. Mattei may be more sympathetic with that roll call of the guilty now that he’s having so much trouble wrestling with reporting for his own exploratory committee.

The maximum contribution to an exploratory committee is $375. It is not $400, $500, or $750. It is $375. Mattei and his campaign people struggle with this basic rule.

The Hartford resident’s 3rd quarter report is replete with contributions exceeding the limit that had to be returned. Others, however, have yet to be sent back. They include $400 contributions from Matthew Jasinski and Leonard Crone, $500 from Susan Miller, and $750 each from Adam Neuheus and Boston “consultant and chocolatier” Caitlin Welby. This is the sort of reporting that can lead to trouble.

Mattei’s wrestling with math may provide the beginning of an answer to one of the persistent questions of the campaign: Why won’t he talk about the state’s grim financial problems? He may be terrible with numbers.

DFER CT Denounces Senator Slossberg’s Inappropriate and Inexcusable Comments
Does Not Represent Leadership or Judgment for Education Chair

(October 12, 2017) – State Senator Gayle Slossberg’s comments at the University of Connecticut College Democrats meeting last week were inappropriate and completely inexcusable in any context. This behavior does not represent the judgment we would expect from the Chairperson of the Education Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly.

Democrats for Education Reform CT view our efforts as an extension of upholding a social safety net and providing opportunity for our most vulnerable students, who are often children that live in poverty and are of color. Our leaders must speak for and serve all students, regardless of race, religion, self-identity or economic status. In our economically and racially diverse state, our elected representatives should be held to the highest standards and turn from some of the divisiveness and intolerance we are seeing nationally. We should expect no less.

A statement from the UConn College Democrats on state Senator Gayle Slossberg’s use of the N-word at her October 3rd meeting with the group.

On-again-off-again Republican David Walker cannot turn away from the siren call of an internet comments section. The thin-skinned Jacksonville University accounting graduate is at it again. He was online mewling about a third quarter fundraising story by CT Newsjunkie editor Christine Stuart. Here’s a link to the story. Walker disputed the characterization of his fundraising, which includes contributions from both Walker’s exploratory and candidate committees. He quickly gets a tone, which will be no surprise to anyone who pays attention to Connecticut politics.

Readers will recall Walker’s pledge, made in the comments section of Only in Bridgeport, to leave Connecticut if Tom Foley was not elected in 2014. A promise broken. Pity.

Walker, who has mentioned more than once his membership in the Sons of the American Revolution and his wife’s in the Daughters of the American Revolution (the women who in 1939 refused to let Marian Anderson sing at Constitution Hall because the great soprano was black), is very sensitive about titles.

Ken Cockayne, the mayor of Bristol, has dodged, acknowledged, and apologized for his treatment of a municipal employee. The ongoing scandal has been costly to the town and often shrouded in mystery. It has been an expensive embarrassment for Bristol. A lawsuit by an employee alleging harassment and retaliation by Cockayne was filed in June by corporation counsel legal secretary Noelle Bates.

Cockayne’s behavior was bound to be an important issue as he seeks a third term in this fall’s municipal election. The post card above has been appearing in local mailboxes. It does not include the mandatory disclaimer indicating who paid for it, but local voters may overlook that as they are caught by its incendiary form.

Cockayne should not be surprised that this is what he has wrought for Bristol.