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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:

Governor Ned Lamont seemed unprepared this weekend for the news that UTC will merge with Raytheon and move its corporate headquarters to the Boston area. Lamont said Sunday, “I’ve spoken directly with Greg Hayes and made it clear that Connecticut will always be open should things change, as they often do.” Indeed they do.

Here’s Lamont in a WNPR.org November report when UTC announced its Carrier and Otis Elevator would each become a separate company:

“Governor-elect Ned Lamont told reporters Tuesday he’ll be watching the company’s future moves ‘like a hawk,’ although he admitted there are no guarantees about the future location of the standalone businesses.

“‘I want Carrier here, I want Otis here – I surely want UTC here. And I’m going to make darn sure they know they’ve got a governor that, the door’s open. We’ll do everything we can to make sure this is a place they can call home.'”

The UTC move is a reminder that Connecticut’s anemic job creation numbers are unlikely to improve under current conditions. The jarring move of UTC’s corporate headquarters provides an early and dramatic challenge to Lamont’s recently completed economic development team. A meaningful statement from them on Monday ought to provide some direction on the way forward for Connecticut economic policy.

Born June 7, 1917. Here he is with the Andrews Sisters appearing together for the last time. One of Martin’s quirks is on display here: he liked to stand to the right of his guests when they performed together.

Observers of Connecticut politics, especially the Republican subset, will want to read this Trumbull Times story on a notable Freedom of information Commission hearing. The May 28th hearing included testimony on an alleged Herbst request made to town technology head Bill Chin to delete messages from the town email system as the end of Herbst’s tumultuous fourth and final term.

Reading the article to the end will provide a special treat: an ode to life as an Eagle Scout and the obligation to be trustworthy. You do not often see this sort of content in a political news story. Chin, guided by the Eagle Scout’s code, declined to delete emails from the town system. He also yanked access to the email archives from his subordinates in order to protect them from having to fill any Herbst requests to “bleach” documents.

Herbst was not pleased with Chin’s testimony. He unfriended his old friend on Facebook. Such is the price paid by a 21st century Eagle Scout who runs afoul of the disputatious Herbst.

The four-term first selectman was a candidate for the 2018 Republican nomination for governor. He came in fourth in the five way August primary. Herbst’s father is running for first selectman of Trumbull this year.

The final 24 hours of the legislative session are is always a perilous time. The Senate provided a vivd reminder of the danger posed by darkness. It voted 35-0 to gag the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) and send some other startling messages.

The bill, brought out by Senate President Martin Looney, serving his twentieth term in the legislature, would limit the SEEC executive director to two four-year terms. They have finally found a term limit they can support. It would strip the commission of its power to act in a variety of enforcement acts, including general auditing and enforcing rules on straw donors.

A tranche of dismayed House Democrats, Daily Ruction can report, has mobilized to oppose the bill and expects to be able to run the clock down on the surprise measure that is a bipartisan concoction created in the Senate.

As a curiosity, the bill contains this provision that looks like what is often called a rat:

One other odd moment: Senator Mae Flexer, who co-chairs the committee that oversees elections law, declined to bring out the bill on the floor of the upper chamber, but she voted for it.