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It’s never enough. Insatiable legislative partisans have used the annual bond package to thicken the lining of party coffers. A jarring provision in the bill written by House and Senate leaders raises the maximum annual contribution to a state party committee by an individual from $10,000 to $15,000.

The advent of a generous public campaign finance bill and the proliferation of self-funding moguls has left party committees scrounging for dough—and even missing a payroll now and then. Such suffering.

Provisions of the bond package also expand the public campaign finance bill by establishing grants of taxpayer money for convention campaigns. The bill also allows more coordination between largely lobbyist-financed legislative caucus campaign committees.

With just over two hours remaining in the legislature’s regular session, the public interest continues to take a battering.

Published June 7, 2023.

Introducing Stone Academy students to National Guard recruiters at an emergency career fair was not enough. More than 800 students who were locked out of the for-profit school regulated by the Office of Higher Education (OHE) want a fair deal and some help. OHE Executive Director has provided neither.

Nursing and health aide students with vivid signs took to the street Tuesday to protest Larson’s dithering. The former East Hartford mayor, airport administrator and state senator is looting the fund limited to reimbursing students who lose tuition when a school regulated by OHE closes. The 27-employee agency is paying an accounting firm $200,000 to audit student records, an unprecedented action that has historically been performed within OHE.

The students–mostly minority women–were locked out of their classes when Larson failed to reach an agreement for a teach-out that would have allowed then to complete the academic period. The Stone closing has generated heated accusations and performative press conferences, but no immediate relief for students trying to grab a rung on the ladder of advancement.

Stone has waited for a restive calm to return before beginning its fightback. That has begun.

Published March 30. 2023.

Early in the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump belittled John McCain’s military service in Vietnam. “He’s not a war hero,” said Trump of McCain at a Family Leadership Summit. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” McCain spent 5 1/2 years in a North Vietnamese prison camp after being shot down over Hanoi while on his 23rd flight mission. When the Communist government of North Vietnam tried to score a propaganda victory by releasing McCain after his father became commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, McCain refused to violate the POW code of accepting release before fellow prisoners who had been captured earlier.

Governor Ned Lamont sounded a lot like Trump recently when he spoke of replacing state hero Nathan Hale with lexicographer Noah Webster. Hale was hanged as spy by the British in 1776. Lamont observed that Hale was a “nice enough guy who was captured after a week at the inn. If he had two lives to give for his country, he would have been a spy for us for two weeks.”

Lamont seems to think of himself as a public personality in addition to being governor. He often compares himself to the title character in the series “Ted Lasso”. Now the governor has reduced Hale to material for the Democrat’s strained comic act. If Lamont does believe Hale is no longer worthy of being Connecticut’s state hero, then the governor has revealed something far more unsettling.

Hale was a distinguished student at Yale and joined the Connecticut militia in 1775. He fought in the Battle of New York when the British overwhelmed the Continental Army, forcing George Washington’s troops to flee across the Hudson River under cover of a thick fog.

Washington needed intelligence on British movements and asked for volunteers to disguise themselves and return to New York. Hale volunteered, entered New York, and was caught by the British. They executed him by hanging on September 22nd. He is famously said to have declared at the gallows, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

Webster, born in West Hartford in 1758, was a teacher who became an important dictionary and textbook writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Webster was also one of the Federalists’ busiest proponents of private wealth over personal virtue as the foundation of a free nation. Webster’s American history textbook did not mention slavery. He is a curious figure for Lamont to champion as a means to denigrate Nathan Hale.

Published March 16, 2023.

Katherine Scharf Dykes is alone on the House calendar. Democrats did not act Thursday on her reappointment as Commissioner of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).

The delay is unrelated to Dykes’ costly bungling of energy policy. Enough House members are dismayed over the inclusion of hard cider on the 2022 expanded bottle bill. Members believed they had an agreement that hard cider would not be included in the containers subject to a ten cent deposit.

A DEEP explanation of its administration of the bill notes “that Public Act 21-58 makes explicit that spirit-based beverages labeled or marketed as hard seltzers are covered, due to the inclusion of ‘hard seltzer’ in the definition of ‘carbonated beverage.'” Enough House members feel betrayed by Dykes that they prevailed upon leaders to meet in session Thursday without taking up the resolution confirming Dykes.

The impetus for the Dykes delay was hard cider but the controversy gave House Democratic leaders an opportunity early in the session to remind the Lamont administration that Democrats in the legislature possess independent authority and may choose now and then to exercise it. They are not the hired help.

The House meets again in February on a day to be announced.

Published January 27, 2023.

Matthew Brokman will served as the head of Governor Ned Lamont’s legislative office. Brokman has earned a reputation as a political polymath, serving in a variety of positions, including with the House Democrats and the state party.

Claims Commissioner Christy Scott will return to the House Democrats. She served as a senior staff member there until then-Governor Dannel P. Malloy appointed her to the claims commissioner job in 2016. Scott replaced J. Paul Vance, Jr.

Published January 17, 2023.

State Senator John Fonfara is expected to form a campaign committee for the Democratic nomination for mayor of Hatford on Monday. The former five-term House member began his 19th term in the Senate Wednesday. He wields significant influence as co-chairman of the legislature’s finance committee. Fonfara will likely take a leading role this spring in shaping and passing Governor Ned Lamont’s middle class tax cut.

Fonfara retains a reputation as an energetic candidate. He has remained rooted in his district, which includes much of Hartford. Decades of constituent casework provide will provide a potent list of prime voters that no other candidate can hope to match.

Arunan Arulampalam scored an own goal with his Thursday campaign kickoff. The former lobbyist surprised officeholders and others by proceeding with his event on the same day state Representative Quentin ”Q” Williams was killed in a fiery wrong way motor vehicle as he drove home from Governor Ned Lamont’s inaugural ball. Arulampalam began his campaign launch with a tribute to Williams, telling the audience he had prayed on whether to hold the event. God said yes, and Arulampalam began his quest to find the 6,000 votes he says he will need to win September’s primary.

Legislative leaders received a different answer to their anguished prayers Thursday morning. They cancelled all meetings scheduled for Thursday and Friday and closed the Legislative Office Building. Williams surpassed popularity at the Capitol. In his four years in the House the Middletown Democrat was the object of affection beyond the usual limits of bitter contemporary partisan politics.

Williams was no ordinary legislator. His success came from toil devoid of privilege. Legislators will spend this legislative session in the shadow of his death.

Published January 7, 2023.

Published December 20, 2022.

The phenomenon known as Petula Clark turns 90 years old on Tuesday. Daily Ructions will celebrate with videos of some of her most memorable performances. She is the rare female British international singing sensation, notably at ease with big orchestrations driving the melody.

She was an Ed Sullivan favorite. You see why here. According the the Sullivan show website, she performed ”I Know a Place” live and without rehearsing—shortly after her flight arrived in New York for her first appearance in the Sunday night powerhouse show.

Published November 11, 2022.

A note of confusion reigns in the reporting of results from the New York Times reporting. It shows Harwinton as the only town with no results reported. In Harwinton, Republican George Logan, according to unofficial results, won 918 more votes than Democrat Jahana Hayes, 1965 to 1047.

The Logan campaign believes it holds a narrow lead.

The Secretary of the State results page has Logan ahead by 2,934 votes with four districts not yet reported. Those four may be three in Avon and Norkfolk’s one voting district. Hayes won Avon by 1187 votes (including absentee ballots) and Norfolk by 213 (also including absentee ballots).

A candidate is automatically entitled to a recount if the Secretary of the State certifies a result with a margin of victory of .5% or less.

This is going to be a heck of a ride. Connecticut has not had a recount in a U.S. House race since 2006 when Joe Courtney unseated Republican Rob Simmons.

Published November 9, 2022.

This is not how veteran Manchester Democrat Steve Cassano had hoped to leave public office. He prospered under an increasingly harsh Democratic organization in Manchester. Cassano failed to prepare to thwart its pitiless will when it decided to discard him.

Cassano had the support of too few Democratic delegates at the 4th Senate District nominating convention in May to qualify for a primary against the organization’s new favorite, MD Rahman. After five decades in local politics, Cassano decided not to pursue a place on the ballot by collecting signatures for a primary or a place on the ballot.

Democrats and Republicans are engaged in a battle over the wisdom of Steve Cassano on the way forward. Rahman, after considerable delay, has snagged Cassano’s endorsement. Republicans are reminding voters of a spontaneous utterance about Rahman from Cassano.

Rahman, according to state campaign finance records, has put $300,000 of his own money into his campaign. His Cassano endorsement will likely reach more voters than the Cassano assessment Republican Jacqueline Crespan’s campaign is highlighting, ”He’s not ready for it…You don’t start in the senate.”

Rahman’s lavish self-financing puts him in the upper reaches of tier of Senate candidates who have poured their wealth into a campaign. It is likely to become a theme for others should the home health care business owner and real estate developer win on Tuesday.

Published November 5, 2022.