Category — Posts

New Haven Mayor Toni Harp will be raising money in Stamford today for her embattled re-election campaign as federal authorities continue to probe her administration. The New Haven Independent broke the story Tuesday that a federal subpoena was served earlier this month on Corporation Counsel John Rose, keeper of some of the city’s documents.

The subpoena follows other more informal inquiries around the city by federal investigators. Harp had been hoping to hold off public acknowledgement of investigators’ interest in her administration until after September’s primary.

Attorney General William Tong is headlining tonight’s Harp fundraising. The state’s chief civil law enforcement officer sponsoring a money event for a mayor with a federal criminal investigation hovering over her may not be the look the Tahoe Tong seeks to create among a crowd of ambitious Democratic rivals hungry for opportunity.

UPDATE: The Harp-Tong fundraising event has been postponed. Instead, the duo will be attending a community event in New Haven, where Harp faces a difficult Democratic primary in September.

Former Department of Children and Families Commissioner Joette Katz fostered an atmosphere of contempt for legislators during her catastrophic eight-year tenure. Katz’s chief of staff, Elizabeth Duryea, delighted in this dark-face photoshop of Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano as a Willy Wonka character. Fasano was a critic of the department under Katz. Duryea sent the photos to Katz and were discovered on the former judge’s cell phone earlier this year. The malice toward critics, and sometimes others in the department, is a frequent theme in hundreds of pages of text messages obtained by Daily Ructions under the Freedom of Information Act.

Duryea was moved into a high-paying protected civil service job at DCF before the Malloy administration ended in January. This is part of their legacy.

Katz now practices law at the Hartford firm Shipman & Goodwin.

Former DCF Commissioner Joette Katz’s text message reveal a long vicious streak toward critics. Katz’s chief of staff, Elizabeth Duryea delighted in taking aim at the secretive agency’s critics, covering her boss is praise, and providing Katz with frequent traffic reports.

On September 1, 2015, Duryea delighted in sending Katz a photoshopped creation of Senate Republic Leader Len Fasano spanking Child Advocate Sarah Eagan. Fasano and Eagan were critical of DCF’s fatal failures in protecting the state’s most vulnerable children under Katz. The former high court judge and her palace guard reveal thin skins and preening self-regard in hundreds of pages of recently discovered text messages obtained by Daily Ructions through a Freedom of Information Act request. They probably would declare themselves feminists. Their treatment of other women in government who dared to disagree suggests they are not.

Dave Mathus, former head of the Union League Club, withdrew Tuesday morning from the contest for chairman of Connecticut’s state party organization. The Mathus announcement clears the way for incumbent J.R. Romano to win a third term after leading the party to stunning losses last November.

Connecticut Democrats may need more than Tito’s at tonight’s annual fundraising dinner (formerly known as the Jefferson Jackson Bailey). There will be tension in the air.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Washington’s shrewdest politician, is tonight’s guest at the Connecticut Convention Center event. The San Francisco Democrat has been deftly keeping the lid on caucus members’ urge to begin an impeachment inquiry of loathsome demagogue Donald Trump. Party activists are more eager to act than Pelosi.

Senator Richard Blumenthal appears to be on the side of those who wish to proceed. Earlier this month, Blumenthal was raising money on the observation that “Donald Trump would be in handcuffs, criminally charged, if he were not the sitting President of the United States.” [Emphasis Blumenthal’s] or would have faced charges similar to that of being arrested for DWI in Hempstead. The state’s five Democratic U.S. House members have had little to say on impeachment, which would start in their chamber.

State legislative Democrats are pleased with their own performance in the recently concluded legislative session. Worries abound, however, that the Lamont-Bysiewicz administration is in a frequent state of confusion. Experienced Democrats are frustrated with the new governor’s aversion to taking a stand and staying with it.

A growing number of Democrats have been eyeing each other warily as news spreads of national press reporters making inquiries about U.S. Senator Christopher Murphy. The Cheshire Democrat has been through this sort of examination before but never with such intensity. Murphy’s long known a career in politics is usually a marathon, not a sprint, until it does become a sprint so that it can resume being a marathon.

Break out the Tito’s, it may be a bumpy night of celebration.

A paragraph of Jon Lender’s Courant column on a fractious relationship between former Speaker of the House Brendan Sharkey and a solar energy client may have a longer life than the typical weekly piece. Here’s the operative paragraph:

“[Christopher] Scyocurka [the client] got word of that PURA decision from a third party on June 13, 2018, and immediately emailed Sharkey, his lawyer and others, including Mackey Dykes, vice president of commercial programs at the Connecticut Green Bank, who Scyocurka said brought him and Sharkey together to begin with. “Mackey, you ask me to bring this guy on as a consultant to preserve the ZREC and solar in Ct. and PURA approves gutting the ZREC pricing levels? This is a whole different kind of crazy.”

Dykes’ efforts on behalf of Sharkey, as described by Scyocurka above, may fall under the wide net of Connecticut General Statutes Section 1-84 (l):

(l) No public official or state employee, or any person acting on behalf of a public official or state employee, shall wilfully and knowingly interfere with, influence, direct or solicit existing or new lobbying contracts, agreements or business relationships for or on behalf of any person.

Updates as they become available.

Oh, the burdens of wealth. State Senator Alexandra Bergstein, the Democratic class warrior from Greenwich, has opened a new front in her war on privilege. Bergstein is seeking access to a joint account maintained with her estranged husband, Seth Bergstein, in their acrimonious divorce.

Alexandra Bergstein complains in a June 14th motion that Seth Bergstein “interdicted and prevented” her from using a joint account. Alexandra Bergstein asserts in her motion that Seth Bergstein made Eight Million Dollars ($8,000,000) in 2018 and has earned an additional Five Million Dollars ($5,000,000) from his employer, Morgan Stanley, so far this year. She is seeking “access to their joint Morgan Stanley account in order to pay her reasonable living expenses, as well as her reasonable counsel and professional fees.”

Alexandra Bergstein is an advocate for charging working people do drive on the state’s major highways.

Democrat Justin Elicker surprised incumbent Mayor Tomi Harp in her home district on Monday night, the New Haven Independent reports. The ballot win came in a Ward 25 Democratic committee endorsement vote. Elicker defeated Harp 21-17.

The New Haven race is becoming the most-watched municipal contest in Connecticut due to Elicker’s energetic campaign and Harp’s many missteps. Watch for the mayor and former state senator to renovate her flailing campaign organization if she’s to have a chance in the September 10th face-off with Elicker in the Democratic primary.

This hurts. Today’s Providence Journal warns the people of Rhode Island not to become Connecticut.

House Minority Leader Themis Klarides (R-Derby) will attend Governor Ned Lamont’s tolls summit with legislative leaders today. This is an about-face for Klarides. She and House Republican caucus members sent a strongly worded letter to Lamont to let the Greenwich Democrat know they need no more time to study tolls. They are against them.

Lamont continues to undermine his proposal with his meandering musings on its scope. Today’s meeting—which is not open to the public—provides another opportunity for the governor to clarify the plan he says he is staking the success of his administration on.

Here’s Klarides’ May 21st letter to Lamont: