Elizabeth Esty Hopes You Have Forgotten.

Scandal kept U.S. Representative Elizabeth Esty off the November ballot. She will leave office in January after three terms. Nevertheless, the Cheshire Democrat is holding on to a hefty campaign exchequer—and spending some of it. Campaign finance laws are curious creations. Esty, whose personal fortune helped propel her into office in 2012, gets to keep spending funds donated for her re-election even if there is no re-election campaign.

Esty abandoned her 2018 campaign when Holy Week exposes revealed she had condoned violence in her congressional office. She failed to fire chief of staff Tony Baker for weeks after learning  he had terrorized another staff member, courageous Anna Kain. Esty eventually arranged a soft landing for Baker with severance and a recommendation for Baker to join the Ohio branch of Sandy Hook Promise, an anti-violence group born of the 2012 Newtown school killings. What Baker had on Esty that allowed him to negotiate the deal remains a mystery.

Esty hopes you have forgotten the details of the scandal that brought her down. If not, she’s using campaign funds to whitewash her remarkable abandonment of normal human instincts. Esty’s campaign is spending donor funds on online ads associating her with the fight against gun violence. It looks like a cynical ploy by the haughty Democrat as the sun sets on a career in office that benefited more from happenstance than substance. The ad, posted above, is notable most for a photo of Esty dominating the purchased space. While Esty fades, watch to see if the usual campaign finance reformers raise objections on Esty’s cynical use of donations.