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Governor Ned Lamont has expressed surprise at how many lawyers want an appointment to the Superior Court. “But everybody wants to be a judge. It’s incredible,’ Lamont said, laughing,” according to the CtMirror.org. “But I’ll do it based on need, not based on favor,” he continued. Lamont found a spot for an old friend among his 15 nominees announced Wednesday. Edward O’Hanlan, a partner at the Robinson & Cole law firm, is the husband of Chase Rogers, the former Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court and the father of Lamont’s godson.

Rogers and Ann Huntress Lamont, who is married to the governor, enjoy a long friendship from their days as students at Stanford University. Rogers has been an influential adviser to the governor since his 2018 election. Rogers and O’Hanlan’s son is named after Ned Lamont.

O’Hanlan, 65, will be eligible for a reduced state pension when he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70 in five years. Still, it will be more than most Connecticut working people receive in retirement each year after decades of labor. But the appointment must be based on need, not favor, of course.

Choose your children’s godparents wisely, readers.

Governor Ned Lamont is expected to nominate more than a dozen new judges this week. Most of the nominations will be to the Superior Court, the state’s trial level court.

The biggest prize in the anticipated round of nominations will go to Robert Clark, who resigned from the Superior Court after serving on it for eight months to become Lamont’s legal counsel in 2019. Clark will get a boost to the nine-member Appellate Court. He will fill the vacancy created by Judge Douglas Lavine, who in December reached the mandatory retirement age of 70. Lavine was elevated to the appeals court from the Superior Court by former Governor M. Jodi Rell in 2006.

Clark’s nomination, long expected, has caused considerable speculation on who the Greenwich Democrat will select to fill the crucial job as he prepares to tussle with the legislature and seek a second term.

Step off. Just step off. We don’t need no stinkin’ bills.

Former Republican state Representative Chris Davis has landed a pension boosting job at the troubled Connecticut Lottery Corporation. He’s a government relations manager, commonly called a lobbyist.

Davis, who was the ranking Republican on the legislature’s finance committee, abandoned his re-election race in July, two months after winning renomination for a sixth term. East Windsor and Ellington Republicans scrambled to find a replacement for Davis. The five-term veteran announced he had discovered during the pandemic that he wanted to spend more time with his family. Democrat Jaime Foster won the seat in November against David Stavens.

Foster was also a late entry into the race. She replaced Taylor Biniarz, who decided after Davis quit the race she would rather spend time on activism than in the legislature, according to the Journal Inquirer.

Pay no attention to the message on the vaccine appointment telephone line. Connecticut residents 65 and older may make their first appointment for a vaccination now. Call 877-918-2224. The message still says it is for 75+, but that is not correct. Stay on the call. You can make an appointment for as soon as Tuesday.

Governor Ned Lamont is expected to make an announcement Monday afternoon but Daily Ructions readers need not wait. Call now.

Five terms is enough for Marcia Leclerc, East Hartford’s Democratic mayor. Leclerc announced in a Wednesday letter to the Democratic Town Committee that she will not seek another two-year term.

Leclerc was expected to face a difficult path to re-election. She became the author of her own crumbling political fortunes when the Democratic-controlled town council learned last fall that Leclerc had increased her own pension benefits without informing members.

Michael Walsh, who served on the town council as a Republican and later served as a well-regarded town finance director, will seek the Democratic nomination for mayor. Walsh was expected to make the race whatever Leclerc decided, and many party activists were expected to support him.

Eversource executive vice president and general counsel Greg Butler and former state Representative Themis Klarides have offered to match $20,000 in contributions to the state Republican party’s thin coffers. Because Butler is a top executive at a state contractor, he’s restricted from making contributions to the state party’s state fund. Instead, matched contributions will have to be made to the party’s federal fund, which is of limited use in assisting state campaigns.

Klarides, who married Butler last year, is also barred from contributing to the party’s state account, as well as other state campaigns, as the spouse of a state contractor.

Connecticut’s campaign finance laws can be tricky, as shown by the revised tweets from Klarides ballyhooing the match.

The Department of Public Health (DPH) has thrown the state’s judicial branch into confusion over vaccinations of frontline employees, causing some judges, marshals, and detention center employees to cancel appointments.

DPH authorized the judicial branch to upload into the Vaccination Administration Management System (VAMS) names and contact information of its frontline workers. That included judges working in the courtroom, courthouse marshals, and employees at the two detention centers the branch runs. Invitations to make appointments for vaccinations followed. The judicial branch instills the habit of following directions. Appointments were made. Shortly after, DPH executed a reversal and told the branch that due to lack of vaccines workers under 75 years old should not make appointments and those who had should cancel their appointments.

The branch employs few people who are 75 years or older.

Connecticut Republicans’ two national committee members, Leora Levy and John Frey, were blocked from becoming interim chairman and deputy chairman until the 74 members elect leaders for a full term in June. The vacancy occurred when J.R. Romano resigned without warning after announcing in October he would serve the remainder of his term but not seek re-election.

Levy began contacting state central committee members last week to pitch the plan. She and Frey were informed by the party’s national committee lawyers Monday that national party rules prevent committee members from serving as a state party chairman. The interpretation suggests a seed of observing rules has taken root at one of the party’s most Trump-centric organizations.

Assuring party committee members “titles were never the point,” Levy and Grey nevertheless do not want to give up their titles as national committee members to lead the state Republican organization through dire times. Levy was nominated by Donald Trump in 2019 to be the United States ambassador to Chile. The Senate’s failure to confirm Levy and Trump’s defeat by 7 million votes in November doomed the Greenwich Republican’s prospects. Frey declined to seek re-election to the state House of Representative in 2020, two years after a close call.

Ben Proto, a familiar figure in state Republican circles, announced Sunday he has “decided to seek the position of Chairman of the Connecticut Republican State Central Committee.” Proto made the announcement in an email to members of the party committee.

The Stratford Republican worked on Steve Obsitnik’s 2018 race for governor. He was the Connecticut head of Donald Trump’s 2016 race.

“I am the person to get us back in the game of winning,” Proto wrote, “I have the experience, relationships, and drive to draw the line in the sand now – to demonstrate to our candidates, incumbents, donors, volunteers, and voters that Connecticut and our Towns and Cities will be better off with Republicans elected at every level of government.”

Proto is seeking the vacancy created by the resignation of J.R. Romano, who announced in October he would not seek re-election in June. Party rules require an election within 60 days to fill the vacancy. There has been talk among the battered 74 Republican committee members that they should unite behind a temporary leader who would not seek a two-year term in June.