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An update on the astonishing events at the Public Defender Services Commission this week. All but one member of the commission have resigned. Former state Representative William Dyson, appointed by the House Minority Leader, is the only remaining member, Daily Ructions can report.

Exchanges between Chief Public Defender TaShun Bowden-Lewis and commission members have grown from acrimonious to belligerent. Two recent commission meetings, scheduled for March 7th and March 21st (a special meeting) were cancelled amid growing disputes between Bowden-Lewis and the commission that appointed her last year. The last time the commission met, it spent 2 1/2 hours in an executive session. Curiously, the commission voted to table the approval of its January 10th executive session minutes.

Bowden-Lewis, whose office did not return a call from Daily Ructions early Thursday, has been at odds with the commission over the exercise of its oversight authority. Questions about certain expenditures by the Office of the Chief Public Defender have not been happily received or promptly answered. Members who received a harsh letter from counsel for Bowden-Lewis resigned this week.

No one becomes a member of the Public Defender Services Commission, including judges and distinguished professionals who have devoted their careers to criminal justice, to gain an advantage in the Connecticut hackerama of political plums. These are serious people who want indigent criminal defendants to receive the legal services our system of justice guarantees them. For all but one member of the commission to resign and leave the system without supervision means a series of travesties preceded their leave-taking.

Published March 23, 2023.

Members of the Public Defender Services Commission resigned this week and no one wants to provide details. Superior Court Judge Laura F. Baldini provided a suggestion of the turmoil at the state agency in her March 22nd resignation letter. “My decision to resign is made after careful reflection and consideration,” Baldini wrote. “Given present circumstances, if I were to remain as a member of this Commission, I would no longer be able to fulfill my statutory obligations.”

Baldini, who was nominated to the bench by former Governor M. Jodi Rell, concluded her letter to Chief Justice Richard A. Robinson with an offer to provide more details. “Please contact me if you wish to discuss the substance of this letter.” Robinson appointed Baldini and Judge Kevin S. Russo to the commission on September 29, 2021.

Baldini’s resignation came a day after the commission’s chair, New Haven lawyer Alison M. Near, sent her resignation letter to Governor Ned Lamont. Near, who Lamont appointed on July 29, 2021, told the governor, “Over the past several months, I have experienced great difficulty in balancing my obligations to my law practice with the responsibility of ensuring that the rights of indigent defendants–the clients of the Division–are protected. I have needed to devote a substantial portion of my time to the work of the Commission, and that work has taken critical time away from my existing clients.”

Near is a partner at the law firm Jacobs & Dow, LLC.

A message left with the Office of the Chief Public Defender Thursday morning had not elicited a response. TaShun Bowden-Lewis was appointed to the top job at the agency in 2022.

Published March 23, 2023.

State Representative Anne Hughes (D-Easton) was at the Red Rock bar in Hartford Thursday night with state Representative Robin Comey (D-Branford). After leaving the bar around 6:50 p.m., less than an hour after arriving, Comey struck a motor vehicle parked on Capitol, causing her car to flip onto its roof. Comey was assisted out of her car by nearby Good Samaritans.

When police arrived on the scene, they interviewed Comey and found her to be intoxicated. Video from Fox61–first on the scene from its headquarters around the corner–showed Comey unable to execute a field sobriety test. Tests revealed her blood alcohol level at .14, nearly twice the legal limit for the operation of a motor vehicle.

House Democrats acknowledged Friday that state Representatives Hughes, Lucy Dathan (D-New Canaan) and Kerry Wood (D-Newington) were with Comey at Red Rock before she made her to her car a block away. The three have declined to speak publicly about what they observed of Comey’s condition before she began her doomed drive home.

The incident–and the tragedy Comey could have inflicted–has been the subject of perplexed conversations since Thursday night. Especially puzzling is how Comey’s three colleagues could have been in the company of Comey and not have noticed or acted upon her intoxicated state. Hughes, according to her state website biography, is a Licensed Master Social Worker.

Hughes and state Representative Sarah Keitt (D-Fairfield), a public health advocate, have doused any expectations that Thursday night’s frightening crash would sober Capitol denizen drinkers. Instead, the Democratic duo will headline a “Pints & Policy” event this evening at Perfusion Bar in Newtown. The invitation states they will “discuss together what legislation is before the CT General Assembly this session.”

Maybe they will discuss urgent matters, but it’s no accident that “Pints” precedes “Policy” at the top of the invitation.

Published March 21, 2023.

State Representative Robin Comey’s drunk driving crash on Capitol Avenue Thursday evening has raised a host of questions about where and with whom the third-term Branford Democrat was before she flipped her car not far from the Capitol. House Democrats’ spokesman Todd Murphy confirms that three Democratic legislators were also at the Red Rock bar yesterday. They are Lucy Dathan, Anne Hughes and Kerry Wood.

“House Democrats can confirm that Reps. Comey, Dathan, Hughes and Wood were at the Red Rock yesterday,” Murphy told Daily Ructions. Questions about when each of the three legislators were at the popular bar and what they may have observed of Comey were forwarded to their individual caucus press person. No reply has been received from any of the trio.

The collision has stunned legislators, lobbyists and observers. The video of the immediate aftermath of the crash was captured by Fox61, which used nearby Flower Street for access to its newsroom. Footage of Comey unambiguously failing a field sobriety test shows Comey in what appears to be an advanced state of intoxication. That does not happen with a sociable drink or two. How Comey was served to a blood alcohol level of .14 has been the persistent question of St. Patrick’s Day.

Representatives Dathan, Hughes and Wood may be able to provide details on what they may have observed and done to try to prevent Comey from retaining her keys, walking to her car, and driving.

BLM860 posted and then deleted a provocative tweet (a screenshot appears above) about Thursday’s events and the dearth of details on where Comey would get so drunk she could not perform a single step of a field sobriety test. The missing piece appears to be whether one stop on Comey’s drunken Thursday odyssey was state Senator John Fonfara’s shakedown of lobbyists at a $1,000 a ticket fundraiser sponsored by a dozen of his Senate Democrat colleagues.

The Black Lives Matter 860 (Hartford CT) Twitter account expressed dismay at Fonfara’s decision to join the contest for the Democratic nomination for mayor of Hartford.

Updates as they are received.

Published March 17, 2023.

Published March 17, 2023.

State Representative Robin Comey (D-Branford) has been arrested after driving into and onto a parked car on Capitol Avenue in Hartford. Fox61 has details.

Daily Ructions readers will remember Comey from a video, posted above, of the Branford Democrat’s incomprehensible comments during a House floor debate two years ago. Comey blamed “anxiety, exhaustion, and, regrettably, the wine I had with dinner” for her drunken display. at the time, Comey claimed that ”out of an abundance of caution” she did not drive home that night.

Caution appears to have had no role in Comey’s Thursday night endangering the streets of Hartford.

Published March 16, 2023.

Former Hartford mayor Ann Uccello died Tuesday at the age of 100. She enjoyed a remarkable run in elective office between 1963 and 1971. A Republican, Uccello won a seat on Hartford’s city council in 1963 and was er-elected two years later.

As the highest vote-getter for the city council in 1967, Uccello became mayor of Hartford in 1967, he first woman in the nation to lead a state capital. Direct, partisan elections for mayor resumed two years later. She entered the 1969 campaign as a distinct underdog. Democrats enjoyed a vast advantage in voter registration. They nominated lawyer Joseph Adinolfi. Two petitioning candidates, Wilbur Smith and Ned Coll, attracted Democratic voters from Adinolfi.

Uccello eked out a narrow victory in 1969, cementing her place as a formidable statewide political figure. She was a steady hand in a tumultuous era. She considered bids for governor and U.S. Senate in 1970. State Democrats entered the year in considerable disarray. A large state deficit loomed. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Thomas Dodd had been weakened when censured by the Senate in 1967.

Republican leaders, including President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, urged Uccello to run for the open First Congressional District. With her path blocked by U.S. Representatives Thomas Meskill, who was running for governor, and Lowell Weicker, a loyal Nixon supporter and the party regulars’ choice for the Senate, Uccello gave way and ran for the 1st, which had not elected a Republican since 1956. She was so well-known that her campaign bumper stickers did not include her name but featured Uccello’s photograph and the slogan “Courage to Do What Must Be Done.”

Divided 1st CD Democrats’ nominating convention lasted two days, followed by a summer primary won by state insurance commissioner William Cotter, a party organization loyalist. Uccello lost to Cotter that November by 1,100 votes, losing only Hartford and Bloomfield. Meskill and Weicker won their races–as Uccello likely would have done.

Uccello resigned as mayor the next year to take a position in the U.S. Department of Transportation. She ran in a special election for the 1st CD after Cotter’s 1981 death. Uccello lost to then-Secretary of the State Barbara Kennelly, who would hold the seat until ran for governor in 1998.

Ella Grasso–who won a narrow victory for the U.S. House in 1970, would become the first woman elected governor in her own right four years later. Connecticut has not come close to electing a woman to the U.S. Senate.

Published March 15, 2023.

A dozen Democratic state senators and their leader want lobbyists to make maximum $1,000 contributions to state Senator John Fonfara’s campaign for mayor of Hartford. The event to which lobbyists have been summoned will be held at the Officer’s Club in Capitol complex on Thursday, March 16th from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Pigs-in-a-blanket will be on platters, sitting and standing.

The event is a grotesque violation of the spirit of the state’s ethics laws. Observe life in the loophole. State ethics laws have for decades banned legislators during the legislative session from soliciting lobbyists for contributions to campaigns for state office. The ban has never been extended to legislators running for municipal or federal office during the legislative session.

As legislative committees begin to vote on bills, lobbyists have an urgent need to please Democratic senators. Fonfara’s list of contributors will be public–and lobbyists who give in to this tawdry solicitation will want senators to know they made their maximum effort. Fonfara, of course, is co-chair of the legislature’s finance committee–seen as one of the two more powerful committees at the legislature. A lobbyist who has no business before Fonfara must have no clients.

The invitation lists as sponsors Senate President Martin Looney Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, Senators Cathy Osten, Saud Anwar, Jorge Cabrera, Joan Hartley, Rick Lopes, James Maroney, Patricia Billie Miller, Marilyn Moore, Norm Needleman, Derek Slap, and first among the not-so-equal Senate Democrats Vincent Mauro, who also serves as chair of the New Haven Democratic Town Committee.

This is wrong on a simple reading of the invitation. What makes it worse is that many of those senators drink from their bottomless well of jumped-up righteousness. They garishly parade their own rectitude at every opportunity. And then they go and spoil it all by telling lobbyists with business before them to handover $1,000 to their buddy John Fanfara.

Only a few weeks ago, one sponsor of the shakedown, Anwar, purposed legislation to browbeat and fine voters who exercise their right not to vote. The purpose is to “incentivize civic engagement.” If anyone wonders why many choose not to cast a vote, look at the Fonfara ransom note from Senate Democrats to lobbyists.

Published March 10, 2023.

Let the word go forth: William Dickinson told the Wallingford Republican Town Committee Wednesday night he will not seek re-election after 40 years as mayor, the Record Journal reports. Dickinson has won 20 two-year terms in a row.

In 2021, Dickinson had his closest result in 30 years, defeating 25 year old Democrat Riley O’Connell by 396 votes. O’Connell, who raised $40,000 and knocked on thousands of doors in his contests against Dickinson, is seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor again this year.

It was a busy night in Wallingford politics. In a double act, immediately following Dickinson’s announcement, Republican Town Council Chairman Vincent Cervoni declared his candidacy for mayor. Other Republicans are expected to join the race.

Published March 9, 2023.

New York Times reporter Hannah Dreier revealed abuses of migrant child laborers in the food manufacturing business. The astonishing February 25th story highlighted the appalling conditions endured by migrant children illegally employed making Cheetos, a popular product of Frito-Lay.

The investigation found that food processing company Hearthside Food Solutions–a supplier of Cheetos to Frito-Lay–violates state and federal labor laws by hiring children and requiring them to work in dangerous conditions. In one instance, Dreier reported, “Underage workers in Grand Rapids said that spicy dust from immense batches of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos made their lungs sting, and that moving heavy pallets of cereal all night made their backs ache.” Injuries abound but no one in authority appears to care enough to act. “Unaccompanied minors have had their legs torn off in factories and their spines shattered on construction sites, but most of these injuries go uncounted. The Labor Department tracks the deaths of foreign-born child workers but no longer makes them public,” Dreier and four Times researchers discovered.

PepsiCo, which owns Frito-Lay, declined to comment on the Times story.

Dreier won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for her ProPublica series on the travails suffered by Long Island immigrants. She was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist for investigative reporting.

Cheetos have played an outsized role in Governor Ned Lamont’s administration. Frito-Lay makes Cheetos in a Killingly plant. Lamont has been enthusiastic about the expansion of the Cheetos plant since the start of his first administration in 2019. The Greenwich Democrat immediately abandoned his proposal to enact the nation’s first statewide sugary drinks tax the day after he unveiled it when he learned it jeopardized the making of more Cheetos in Connecticut.

PepsiCo owns Frito-Lay and is also one of the world’s premier makers of sugary drinks. Emails obtained after prolonged proceedings before the Freedom of Information Commission revealed the sugary drinks tax did not go down well with Indra Nooyi, a friend of Lamont and his wife, Ann Huntress Lamont. Nooyi enjoyed a long, lucrative and well-chronicled career at PepsiCo. Nooyi served as CEO of PepsiCo for 12 years, stepping down from that position in 2018 but serving as chairman of the conglomerate until early 2019.

Lamont announced at the start of his first term that Nooyi would serve as an economic adviser to his administration. A month later, Lamont unveiled the sugary drinks tax. Mrs. Lamont learned in an email later that day that Nooyi was not pleased, not pleased at all. Yale School of Management Dean Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, acting as an intermediary between moguls for Nooyi, let the Lamonts know that Nooyi was “embarrassed and surprised by the soda tax–avoiding PepsiCo colleagues and media.” Avoiding the media was not something Nooyi had a lot of experience in doing.

The news from Sonnenfeld to the Lamonts grew worse. “The soda tax is likely to cost us the big Frito Lay deal–plus others-I am told first hand.” Mrs. Lamont concluded in a message to the new governor’s top staffers that the soda tax “will cost us the plant and any other goodwill with Pepsi.” Early that day, Lamont explained the virtues of the tax as “intended to encourage healthier food choices by our state’s residents, mitigate future health costs and, if enacted, would place Connecticut last the first state to do so.” Those health benefits and millions in tax revenue could not withstand a scowl from Nooyi directed at Lamont. The threat of abandoning plans to expand the Killingly Cheetos plant killed the tax in less than a day. It was never mentioned again. The Office of the Attorney General, in consultation with Mrs. Lamont, expended many hours resisting the release of the documents that told the sordid tale of influence among Connecticut’s wealthiest residents.

Dreams do come true. In 2021, Lamont concluded a deal to provide $5.5 million in incentives to Frito-Lay in exchange for the company expanding its Killingly plant. Administration spokesman Adam Joseph told Daily Ructions this week that it has not asked Frito-Lay for an explanation of its use of a major supplier that uses and endangers child migrant labor. It’s all about the Cheetos variety of crony capitalism.

The governor has, however, proposed H.B. 6661, a bill to protect workers’ in state financed projects. That legislation should not preclude the governor from contacting Frito-Lay and demanding an explanation and insisting that it cease doing business with companies that exploit migrant children. Maybe he could get Nooyi to join him in a strongly worded letter.

Published March 3, 2023.