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Matthew Brokman will replace Jacqueline Kozin as executive director of the state Democratic party organization. Brokman is chief of staff to House Majority Leader Jason Rojas (D-East Hartford), a position he held under former Speaker of the House Joseph Aresimowicz.

Rojas announced Monday that he had “some good news to share.” Brokman will be taking the party role and staying on at the House Democratic caucus. Until the next legislative session begins in February and after it ends in May, “Matt’s hours will be reduced at the state as he works to help elect Democrats.”

Brokman is married to Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the state’s Working Families Party (WFP).

The news will disappoint state Senator Gary Winfield (D-New Haven). Winfield has emerged as a powerful influence in Democratic politics and was promoting Christine Bartlett-Josie, an experienced campaign operative for the position. Bartlett-Josie’s DNA campaign management outfit helped eke out a victory last week for the beleaguered Nancy Rossi, mayor of West Haven.

Posted November 8, 2021. Updated November 9, 2021.

Sergeant John MacDonald resigned from the Connecticut State Police Thursday, the day after he was placed on administrative suspension. McDonald was facing two internal affairs investigations.

MacDonald was operating a motor vehicle in September 2019 when he crashed into another car, injuring the mother and daughter in it. McDonald had left a retirement party for a colleague at Black Hog Brewery in Oxford when the collision occurred. McDonald reached a plea agreement in May that allowed him avoid jail, participate in an alcohol education program, and perform 100 hours of community service. It is important for finding a good alcoholism treatment center, especially for people who have a problem with drinking and are seeking treatment.

The disposition of McDonald’s criminal case allowed state police to complete its internal affairs investigation. That eventually became two investigations, one arising out of the drunk driving crash, the second arising out of McDonald’s reassignment to administrative duties on the team that oversees the Kronos scheduling and time keeping system used by Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP), according to Brian Foley, assistant to Commissioner James Rovella.

McDonald’s resignation will put the investigations in abeyance, Foley said Thursday. McDonald will begin the process of applying for retirement benefits, which will be significantly reduced from what he would have been eligible for if had completed his career, Foley said in response to an inquiry from Daily Ructions.

The state police administration concluded that allowing McDonald to resign would save the state the risk of losing litigation that might arise if McDonald was fired, Foley said. The state will begin the process of decertifying McDonald as a law enforcement officer.

Posted November 4, 2021.  

Jacqueline Kozin is leaving her post as executive director of the state Democratic party organization. Governor Ned Lamont’s 2018 deputy campaign manager will serve as Special Adviser and Chief of Government Relations at the state’s new Paid Family Medical Leave Authority.

Kozin announced in a message that she is “thrilled” with her new job. She managed Kevin Lembo’s first two comptroller campaigns and also worked in his office on legislative, intergovernmental, and community affairs.

Lamont has shown a taste for rewarding Democratic operatives with state largesse. He can expect to hear more about that in the year ahead as Connecticut’s unemployment rate continues to exceed the national average. Friends first may be a governing policy that Lamont comes to regret.

Posted November 3, 2021.

Connecticut media legend Brad Davis died this evening. An Enfield High School graduate, Davis established himself as a local television original in 1959 as the enthusiastic star of WTIC television’s dance show—selling a lot of milk in the dance breaks for 11 years. He was a television news investigative reporter with John Sablon. They knew how to tell and sell a story.

Davis, a Marine veteran, began a more than 40 year career hosting WDRC-AM’s morning radio show. In an era of seismic media changes, the Davis audience stayed with him, a testament to their mutual affections.

He did it all with unflagging enthusiasm.

Posted November 2, 2021.

Popular Hartford Democrat Glendowlyn Thames leaves the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) this week. Farewell party takes place Wednesday. The deputy commission heads to the private sector.

Thames was on the shortlist for Governor Ned Lamont’s prospective 2018 running mates. The desire to avoid a primary and save some money caused Lamont to settle for rival Susan Bysiewicz. Democratic primary voters had inflicted a surprise decisive defeat on Lamont in 2010. He did not want to risk a second loss in upset 2018, so passed on Thames, who was the leader of Hartford’s city council.

Jonathan Harris has quietly served Lamont at the Office of Policy and Management (OPM) and as the Governor’s legislative liaison. Harris left OPM shortly before Secretary Melissa McCaw moved her close friend Kostantinos Diamantis from the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) to the executive suite at OPM as her number two. Harris’s move from OPM to Lamont’s office was an attempt to make a course correction in Lamont’s first year of confusion and broken promises, but left the upper reaches of OPM without a pair of eyes loyal to Lamont and extraneous entanglements.

Harris leaves Lamont’s office, where he was often sidelined in the ceaseless competition for influence, for the state’s most unpopular corporation, utility behemoth Eversource. Harris served in the state Senate and was executive director of the state’s Democratic organization, where he became enmeshed in a 2014 campaign finance scandal that ended with a controversial settlement. He made a brief run for governor in 2018 after quitting as commission of consumer protection.

Posted November 2, 2021.

Konstantinos Diamantis is out at the Office of Policy and Management. The former Democratic state legislator quit after being suspended by Governor Ned Lamont over an unspecified personnel matter.

Diamantis’ abrupt exit comes four weeks after his daughter’s hiring was disclosed in my Hartford Courant column.

The departure of the influential second-in-command at the state budget office is an abrupt change. Secretary Melissa McCaw brought Diamantis into her office in 2019 despite fierce objections from inside Governor Ned Lamont’s office. McCaw won that power struggle but her victory ended today.

McCaw’s regard for Diamantis was evident in the lavish praise she showered on him in an e-mail to OPM employees announcing his appointment. Diamantis had been overseeing school construction grants at the Department of Administrative Services. He brought the school construction grant portfolio with him, though statutory authority for the shift would come later.

McCaw ceded considerable authority to Diamantis, causing widespread dismay at OPM, other state agencies, the legislature. Nowhere was Diamantis’s influence more starkly evident than at the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney. In June of last year, Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo hired Diamantis’ daughter to fill a $99,000 a year , newly created executive assistant position in his office. Anastasia Diamantis’s experience did not make her an obvious recipient of that state bauble. Colangelo interviewed only Ms. Diamantis for the position. State law required the position to be approved by both OPM and DAS.

The hiring of Anastasia Diamantis will require the Criminal Justice Commission to ask Colangelo to explain his role in a decision with corrosive effects on confidence in his office and the fair administration of justice.

Daniel Morrocco, a veteran Democratic campaign professional, will lead Governor Ned Lamont’s 2022 re-election campaign, Daily Ructions has learned. Lamont has not announced his candidacy but the prolific self-funder can stash Morrocco at the state party operation until he’s ready to make a public announcement.

The Rhode Islander was a senior adviser at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. He managed Arizona Democrat Melanie Kirkpatrick’s 2016 Senate campaign against John McCain. He was also on Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential bid.

Morrocco has arrived as Lamont received encouraging news in a PPP survey. The Greenwich Democrat leads Republicans Bob Stefanowski (his 2018 opponent) by 16 points and Themis Klarides by 20 points. Lamont received support from 52% of respondents against each Republican.

Posted October 26, 2021.

Public Policy Polling (PPP) contacted Connecticut voters this week. The polling firm, associated with Democratic campaigns and interest groups, posed questions about the 2022 contest for governor.

Participants of the online survey measured Governor Ned Lamont’s support against his 2018 Republican opponent, Bob Stefanowski, and former state Representative Themis Klarides. The poll included questions on education and school choice, according to one participant.

Lamont is expected to seek a second term and has recently settled on a new campaign manager. The first left for a North Carolina Senate race. Stefanowski has continued to comment on issues and circulate among Republicans activists. Klarides formed a campaign committee months ago and has also been appearing at party gatherings while unsuccessfully seeking to forge a deal with Stefanowski to serve as his running mate.

The three candidates are expected to self-finance their campaigns. Klarides has spent $200,000 of her own money on consultants and legal fees. She’s getting legal advice from Ross Garber, who served as counsel to felonious former governor John Rowland until the end came the first time in July 2004. Garber was contemptuous of the legislature’s power to investigate Rowland—Klarides was a member of the House at the time. Garber has gone on to make a career of defending politicians who betray their public trust.

Lamont will likely for the fourth time carve off a slice of his vast fortune to finance his campaign. He’s spent $50 million on his three previous campaigns, causing Democrats who traditionally advocate for campaign finance restrictions as essential to democracy to abandon their public posturing.

Stefanowski spent millions on his 2018 campaign, though not nearly as much as Lamont. The Madison Republican purchased ad time early that year while his opponents were scrambling to collect enough small donations to qualify for public financing late in the spring. If he runs, watch for Stefanowski to make a big early commitment of the green stuff that folds in his campaign.

Posted October 22, 2021.

Mayor Nancy Rossi will spend the next 13 days straining to explain how state Representative Michael DiMassa was able to obtain access to $636,000 in public funds. The West Haven Democrat was arraigned in federal court Wednesday on charges accusing him of stealing the federal COVID funds.

West Haven voters may find Rossi, DiMassa’s fellow Democrat, guilty of failure to supervise DiMassa, a town employee. A December 28, 2020, City Council resolution authorized Rossi and her designees, Frank Ciepilinski and Michael DiMassa, to receive and allocate the COVID funds.

Rossi, a certified public accountant, has expressed her dismay at what she discovered when she recently reviewed documents expending the funds—months after the alleged thievery began. One early indication that something was wrong: DiMassa’s consulting bills were paid the day after he submitted them. If Rossi had paid even cursory attention to where the funds were going, that one-day turnaround was a bright line crossed.

Adam Wood, the South Windsor Republican who quit the contest for town council in next month’s municipal election, has made a defiant return to the race as a write-in candidate. Wood gave up his place on the ballot after the Journal Inquirer obtained copies of Wood’s Instagram posts.

The posts are horrific in their malice for others. They are misogynist, racist, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic. Daily Ructions did not post them when Wood removed his name from the ballot earlier this month. Wood’s announcement Wednesday that he is a write-in candidate for the council cause the public’s interest in seeing the posts to outweigh propriety.

Wood complained in his Facebook announcement that he did not receive support from local Republican leaders. He noted that many disagreed with his decision to withdraw from the race. “For those who wish to support me you can do so by exercising your right to vote, challenging candidates and continuing to push for a more transparent government.”

Here is painful transparency:

Posted October 20, 2021.