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My Courant column this week reminds readers of the ordeal of civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer. Above is the story of her remarkable testimony before the credentials committee of the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. Please share it with someone who may not know of Fannie Lou Hamer.

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill’s chief of staff, Sharon Wegele, is back and ready to “smash the patriarchy.” In Connecticut politics there are many rich targets, all Democrats. They include the triumvirate of top elected leaders, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Governor Ned Lamont, and Senator Chris Murphy. A wider net would add state Senate leader Martin Looney and presumed Speaker of the House Matthew Ritter.

Wegele, a West Hartford Democrat, renewed her pledge On Facebook in response to a the announcement that Senator Kamala Harris will be former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate. The pick was seen by most as a unifying move.

As Tropical Storm Isaias approached Connecticut, Eversource Energy Executive Vice President and General Counsel Gregory B. Butler sold half a million dollars in Eversource shares, according to public records. Butler disclosed the transaction on August 3rd, the day before Isaias pounded Connecticut, leaving thousands of Eversource customers without power for day after sweltering day.

The SEC requires corporate executives and board members to disclose insider transactions within 48 hours of making one.

Butler is a Republican fundraiser and is engaged to marry House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, who is leaving the legislature and contemplating a bid for governor as anger at Eversource grows.

Thomas Gilmer, the party-endorsed Republican candidate for Congress in Connecticut’s 2nd District withdrew from the contest as polls were about to open. Gilmer defeated Justin Anderson by a stonking 234-50 at the party’s May video convention.

Anderson’s 50 votes qualified him for a primary, which he pursued. The race has received little notice among primary voters but has caused considerable comment among a small group of party insiders. Gilmer accuses Anderson of “slinging mud, without regard to truth” in a statement ending his candidacy.

Gilmer remains a heavy favorite to win Tuesday’s primary. Party-endorsed candidates in quiet races are often the beneficiaries of deference-minded primary voters. The polling day withdrawal provides another indication of a party in steep decline.

UPDATE: The Courant’s Daniela Altimari has more, much more. Thomas Gilmer “was charged on a warrant with first-degree unlawful restraint and second-degree strangulation and posted a $5,000 bond.” He turned himself in to Wethersfield police late Monday.

State Representative Jesse MacLachlin is done. The three term Republican from the 35th House District will abandon his campaign for re-election Tuesday, Daily Ructions can report. MacLachlin, 30, was first elected in 2014 to serve Clinton, Killingworth, and Westbrook in the House of Representatives. He has told local party leaders of his imminent announcement.

MacLachlin was nominated for re-election at a May party convention. He told delegates he was “honored and overwhelmed” by their support. The “sustainable infrastructure entrepreneur” was the only House Republican to vote in favor of a police accountability bill during last month’s legislative session.

MacLachlin joins state Representative Chris Davis (R-Ellington) in abandoning a re-election race after seeking and accepting renomination.

It is not only loathsome demagogue Donald Trump who objects to every voter receiving an absentee ballot application during a global pandemic. He has an ally in Groton Town Clerk Betsy Moukawsher, who The Day newspaper of New London described as “irked” by the change in protocol wrought by the public health crisis.

“We’re quite behind because of this new development, we were fine prior to it,” Moukawsher told The Day. “I don’t think this is a good formula going forward for the general election. If people want to vote absentee, they have the ability to with the COVID-19 excuse, but we should not send out applications to every registered voter in the state. That should be the responsibility only of the voter.”

Moukawsher is married to the state trial court judge who upheld the new procedure. He is also the judge who ruled in 2016 that local school districts ought to be able to bar special needs students from public schools. The cruel ruling alarmed U.S. Department of Education officials and was unanimously rejected by the state’s highest court.

Cromwell is a town in central Connecticut. Cornwall is 40 miles away in Litchfield County. Cromwell is home to nearly ten times more residents than Cornwall. Both towns befuddle Secretary of the State Denise Merrill.

Twice this week, Merrill’s office has sent absentee ballot applications for the August 11th party primaries to the wrong town. On Wednesday, the town clerk in Cromwell received applications for Cornwall. The next day Cornwall’s clerk discovered 250 applications from Cromwell voters. The dutiful clerks met in Thomaston—halfway between their towns—each day to correct the mistake.

Merrill spokesman Gabe Rosenberg wrote this week, “It is so easy for voters’ faith to be eroded from the electoral process….” Rosenberg might want to remind the Hartford Democrat that this is not the moment to flex her power to blunder and erode.

The Journal Inquirer’s Alex Wood has more on Merrill’s errors.

One only turns 55 once, so a power outage disrupting the lives of thousands of constituents was not going to interrupt departing House Minority Leader Themis Klarides’s Wednesday birthday lunch.

The Derby Republican was joined at Stonington’s Stone Acres Farm by younger sister, state Representative Nicole Klarides-Ditria (R-Seymour): and state Representative Vincent Candelora (R-North Brandford). Candelora is expected to become leader of the House Republicans in January. Tropical storm Isaias damaged their districts too.

Joining the legislators were lobbyists Lawrence Cafero and Nicole Griffin at the farm-to-table restaurant. Cafero served as minority leader while working at the law and lobbying firm Brown Rudnick. Cafero suffered a stinging defeat in 2018 when he ran for probate judge in Norwalk. You can also hire probate attornys in Towson from here!

Also at the lunch was New Haven Democrat Vincent Mauro, the chief of staff to Senate Democratic leader Martin Looney, who will soon mark 40 years as a member of the legislature.

Missing from the celebration was Klarides’s fiancé Gregory Butler, an active Republican fundraiser and Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Eversource Energy, the monopoly that employs more lobbyists than any other company doing business in Connecticut. Those lobbyists will need all their old tricks in dealing with the storm after the storm as angry customers demand action from their representatives.

While the three legislators dined in Stonington, Governor Ned Lamont met with extravagantly compensated top Eversource executives Wednesday, though none joined Lamont as he met the press outside the company’s Berlin headquarters. The extended fiasco, expected to torment Connecticut residents into next week, has caused Klarides’ nascent campaign for governor to be holed below the waterline before it begins.

A 2017 storm that left towns in eastern Connecticut without electricity for days prompted utility monopoly Eversource to promise to improve its response to inevitable stormy weather. The Hartford Courant reported on November 15th of that year, “The utility is seeking state approval for a $336.8 million rate increase that would boost consumer electricity bills by an average of 6.79 percent. Eversource officials said the new funding would be used for infrastructure improvements to better protect the grid from storm damage and to restore outages more quickly.”

At the legislative hearing on Eversource’s inadequate response to the widespread outages, state Senator Cathy Osten (D-Sprague) told legislators, “I’m not interested … in a witch hunt.” Osten may also not have been interested in solutions. Hebron, one of the two towns in the district the five-term legislator represents, endured outages of 100% of Eversource customers from the storm. The number was at 97% Friday morning.

Read more about the 2017 legislative hearing here.

Eversource donated $105,000 to the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) in 2017 and $100,000 in 2018.

Campaign finance records show U.S. Representatives Joe Courtney and Jahana Hayes, as well as U.S. Senator Christopher Murphy, are favorite recipients of a campaign contributions from Eversource’s political action committee.

Freshman Hayes has received $3,500 in the last two campaign cycles, with the electricity monopoly increasing its 2018 contribution of $1,000 to $2,500 this round. The Eversource executives’ fund gave $4500 to Courtney two years ago and $2,000 so far in this round.

Murphy received $4,000 when seeking re-election in 2018. While a member of the House, Murphy cultivated a generous political relationship with Northeast Utilities, which merged with Eversource not long after hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents endured an extended power outage in 2011.