That didn’t take long. Farmington Republican John Healey will no longer serve a chief of staff to the Senate Republican Office. Veteran Republican Gary DeFilippo, former Department of Motor Vehicles commissioner in the Rowland and Rell administrations, will fill the vacancy as the dozen members of the minority caucus brace themselves for some serious headwinds.

Healey, seen first and foremost as a loyalist to popular New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart, has been perceived as having Stewart’s interests as much in mind as the caucus’s, which are urgent. Stewart, re-elected to a sixth term in November, has not thrived in state party politics. She dropped her 2018 bid for governor on the eve of the state convention to make a late run at the second spot on the ticket. Stewart lost the lieutenant governor primary to Southington Republican Joe Markley.

Healey came into public view in May 2013 when he was revealed on a FBI recording as carrying illicit cash from then-House Republican Leader Lawrence Cafero’s office to a law enforcement co-operator who had put the money in Cafero’s office refrigerator. Cafero had Healey, who he dubbed Johnny Angel, take the money to FBI informant Raymond Soucy. Neither Cafero nor Healey notified law enforcement authorities of the bribery attempt.

Veteran staffer Jack Shannon remains.

The regular session of the legislature begins Wednesday.

Former state Senator Craig Miner will be nominated to serve as the state auditor reserved for a Republican. Miner will succeed Clark Chapin, who preceded Miner in the 30th Senate District.

Miner served in the House for 16 years before winning a seat in the Senate in 2016. He did not seek a third term in 2022. Miner earned a reputation for posing probing questions to legislators, administration officials, and others who came before legislative committees.

He has been working part-time for the Senate Republicans since his third term ended in January 2023.

The job of auditor is one of the legislative branch’s top paying positions and may provide a significant boost to Miner’s state pension.

Republican have a long, though not uninterrupted, history of nominating distinguished public servants to a position long considered free of partisanship. They include Leo Becker, Robert Jaekle and the late Bob Ward.

Published January 31, 2024.

State Representative Josh Elliott (R-Hamden) requires money from lobbyists before he can “focus on the important work ahead.” It’s a curious pitch but Elliott is working the same ol’ corner in his pre-session PAC fundraising event.

Build for the Future PAC’s notion of building is an old one. Shake down lobbyists for contributions, sell a few advertisements for a bogus program book and then make donations to Democratic town committees around the state. Those seem to be Elliott’s notion of “building strong relationships with key shareholders….” In the fall of 2022, those included the Vernon, East Windsor and Ellington Democratic town committees.

One item on Elliott’s agenda last year was to enact legislation that would levy fines on voters who chose not to vote. That proposal–which saw several House Democrats and one Senate Democrat join Elliott in seeking to punish working people who did not fit their ideal of a citizenship–died.

Before the Hamden Democrat begins focusing on more rules for the rest of us, maybe he could take more care with his PAC filings. Leapin’ lizards, last year’s first report from Build the Future included 14 contributions from lobbyists in which the box that asks if the contributor is a lobbyist or a spouse or dependent of a lobbyist checked the “no” box. Each one had listed his or her occupation as lobbyist.

Published January 30, 2024.

Windsor Democrat Ayana Taylor is off to an impressive start in her bid to unseat 2nd Senate District Democrat Douglas McCrory. The third term board of education member filed her campaign committee documents on December 10th, announced her candidacy in Hartford several days later and filed a campaign finance report on January 10th that revealed she has qualified for public financing, reporting raising $16,591.00 in small contributions. Taylor will receive the grant if she wins the party endorsement at a May convention or qualifies to a primary against the party endorsed candidate.

Daily Ructions regrets not including Taylor in a profile of the emerging contest published Thursday.

Taylor has deep roots in Hartford and Hartford Democratic politics, as well as support in Windsor. She is a serious contender and whether by delegates or signatures, will be on the August primary ballot.

Windsor Democrats may not have as much experience as Bloomfield ones in trooping to the pools for spring or summer primaries, they turn out to vote better than Hartford Democrats. The abysmal showing by Hartford Democrats in September’s mayoral primary is a powerful temptation to ambitious Democrats in the parts of Windsor and Bloomfield that along with a portion of Hartford comprise the 2nd.

Taylor possesses the sort of ties that can make a difference in a crowded or low-turnout primary. She’s a realtor, has belonged to the same church for decades and has served in a consequential local office.

Published January 26, 2024.

Greenwich Democrats continue to strain to explain Trevor Crow’s admission she broke a crucial restriction of the state’s generous campaign public financing law.

Crow boasted to the Greenwich Democratic Town Committee last week that in her 2022 campaign for the State Senate, she not only qualified for a $112,795 taxpayer funded grant, she raised an additional $50,000 for other committees to spend on her campaign.

“Two years ago my name was unknown. It was an uphill battle. I started late and didn’t know anyone or anything. We used the Citizens Election program, which I supplemented by raising an additional $50,000 for our DTCs and our PACS to spend on our race. And District 36 was newly redistricted, subsequently becoming more Republican,” according to the Greenwich Free Press.

The life coach is likely being too hard on herself when she says she didn’t know anything. By her own admission last week, Crow disregarded the affidavit she signed when she accepted public funds. Paragraph four is not ambiguous. It states:

“I certify that I have not solicited or received any contributions for any committee to benefit my candidacy, or authorized any other person to solicit or receive such contributions for any committee, other than qualifying contributions for my candidate committee, and that I will not solicit or receive any contributions for any committee to benefit my candidacy, or authorize any other person to solicit or receive such contributions for any committee, other than qualifying contributions for my candidate committee.”

It’s the deal a candidate makes for all that free money. You cannot solicit funds for committees with the intention that those contributions will be used by those committees to benefit your candidacy. It’s right there in the affidavit. It’s the point of the costly Citizen Election Program. Candidates and, especially, legislators have spent the two decades since the program was enacted finding ways to render its purpose meaningless. Crow was not schooled in those dark arts. Instead, she raised $50,000 for committees other than Trevor Crow 2022 to benefit her.

She announced it, threw a spotlight on it and paraded it to the front of the crowded room at the January meeting of the Greenwich Democratic Town Committee. She may have thought her unabashed confession would help her fundraising bonafides as she faces Greenwich scion to a cable fortune Nick Simmons.

Simmons filed his campaign committee papers this week, undaunted by his own abysmal appearance at the same town committee meeting at which Crow managed her own cheerful implosion. Simmons told his audience that Greenwich does not receive enough state assistance–and it’s all Republican incumbent Ryan Fazio’s fault, don’t you know.

The graduate of the exclusive all-male Brunswick School declined to acknowledge that, err, Governor Ned Lamont is a Greenwich Democrat (and once a longtime member of a lily white Greenwich country club) who has rather a lot to say about how well Greenwich does in the state budget. The town’s three seats in the House of Representative are all held by Democrats.

One more thing–Simmons is Lamont’s deputy chief of staff, a position that someone with a little savvy on how these things work ought to be able to turn into something that would benefit the suffering souls of Greenwich.

Simmons’s complaints about the injustices visited upon tony Greenwich by a state government controlled by his fellow Democrats did not go unnoticed in Governor Lamont’s office or by Greenwich legislators not named Fazio.

Published January 26, 2024.

Governor Ned Lamont and Democratic legislative leaders will not call lawmakers into special session to adopt California regulations that will begin to restrict the purchase and sale of internal combustion engines in Connecticut. The decision comes two months after the administration withdrew the regulations before a vote of the bipartisan Regulations Review Committee that was set to reject the sweeping new rules.

The decision is another blow to the reputation of Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes, who is notably unpopular with legislators, both leaders and members of the rank and file in each party.

Many legislators are said to be reluctant to vote to begin an election year by beginning to narrow consumer choices as their first act.

The news of the retreat by the Lamont administration comes in the same week the president of Toyota, the world’s biggest carmaker, predicted EVs will never account for more than a third of motor vehicle sales.

Eversource, the state’s largest utility, has warned Connecticut’s electricity grid cannot provide power to a significant increase in electric vehicles, many of which will have to be powered at private residences.

Published January 25, 2024.

Windsor Democrat and public employee labor union leader Shellye Davis filed a campaign committee for the Democratic nomination for the 2nd State Senate District on Wednesday. Davis will face four-term incumbent Democrat Doug McCrory.

McCrory was elected to the Senate in a February 2017 special election prompted by Democrat Eric Coleman’s decision not to take his seat shortly after winning re-election to accept a nomination to the Superior Court. The district includes parts of Bloomfield, Hartford and Windsor. He served six terms in the House before winning the 2nd SD election.

Davis, a public school paraeducator, was elected Executive Vice President of the Connecticut AFL-CIO in October 2021. Davis has been honored by the Connecticut Communist Party. The Yankee Institute has been following for several years the Communist Party’s penchant for bestowing awards.

Town committees will choose delegates in March. Delegates will meet in May to select an endorsed candidate. Primaries will take place on August 13th.

Dannielle Wong, recently re-elected mayor of Bloomfield after turning back another primary challenge, is said to be contemplating a challenge to McCrory. The Senate seat would be a more formidable staging post for Wong to launch a bid for the 1st Congressional District when incumbent John Larson decides to retire from the reliably Democratic district that has not elected a Republican since 1956.

The puny turnout in Hartford’s September Democratic for primary has raised the influence of Bloomfield and Windsor in the district. Each has a history of producing more robust turnouts in Democratic primaries.

Published January 25, 2024.

Bridgeport Democrats once more select a nominee for mayor of Connecticut’s largest city. The special primary was ordered by Superior Court Judge William Clark in response to a complaint by John Gomes, who was narrowly defeated (or maybe not) in the September regularly schedule primary.

The Ganim campaign has been subject to a series of mood swings during last year’s litigation and the second primary campaign that will end tonight. After a slow start, absentee ballots have been returned to the City Clerk’s office in numbers that have lifted the spirits of Team Ganim.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the number of returned ballots appeared to be headed for 1,900. While the Ganim campaign’s tactics in the dark art of getting supporters to request and return absentee ballots had to change after the autumn’s humiliating revelations of cheating, the incumbent mayor’s organization still knows who to contact to vote by absentee.

The two campaigns continued to battle over absentee ballots Monday. City attorneys representing Town Clerk Richard Buturla asked Judge Clark to sequester any returned ballots that were requested from 1,400 applications obtained by Gomes campaign supporter Denise Solano. Judge Clark sustained the Gomes’s objection to the request.

The continuing dispiriting revelations of absentee ballot manipulations may cause state voters not to approve a constitutional amendment that makes casting one easier that will be on the ballot in November.

Published January 23, 2024.

What an unusual and costly mess Trevor Crow made at Wednesday night’s Greenwich Democratic Town Committee meeting. Crowe is seeking the party’s nomination in the 36th Senate District and a rematch with Republican incumbent Ryan Fazio.

Crow, who lost her race against Fazio by 89 votes, faces opposition for the Democratic nomination from local dauphin Nick Simmons, heir to one of Greenwich’s many fortunes. The certified life coach decided to highlight her fundraising credentials by revealing how she raised money for her 2022 campaign.

Thus did Crow plant, water, and fertilize the seeds of her own destruction. She announced, according to the Greenwich Free Press, “We used the Citizens Election program, which I supplemented by raising an additional $50,000 for our DTCs and our PACS to spend on our race.”

The candidate made a prima facie case that she had violated the state’s campaign finance laws by accepting public funds while raising additional money that she knew would be spent on her campaign. We know this because she announced it to her fellow Democrats at Wednesday’s meeting. There is nothing subtle in Crow’s approach.

The State Election Enforcement Commission (SEEC) can initiate an investigation without a complaint. Information in its possession will suffice. A candidate’s admission of violating the law is enough. Crow’s acts in 2022 may render her ineligible for public financing this year and may also cause the SEEC to try to claw back its 2022 grant to Crow.

Published January 18, 2024.

Speaker of the House Matthew Ritter’s boys’ club convened in Puerto Rico for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend. The gathering included Ritter, two top staff members and some favored male lobbyists.

It’s the inclusion of lobbyists that causes consternation in the Capitol village. It’s only men and at least one of the participants often drops Ritter’s name as a buddy. The weekend in Caribbean adds to the impression that at the top of the House Democratic Office the game is fixed, rigged to benefit a handful of the boys who travel with Ritter.

Excursions for a chosen few cozying up to and carousing with Ritter and his top staff members less than a month before the regular session of the legislature opens are anti-democratic and elitist. They also provide evidence that misogyny continues to flourish at the highest levels of state government. Veteran women lobbyists have long felt they are excluded from certain powerful circles at the Capitol. Women enduring male condescension remains a fact of life in the 21st century Connecticut legislature.

Despite weeks of public hearings, decisions on the content and course of legislation are often made in the Speaker’s office as the legislative session nears adjournment. The lobbyist who vacations with the Speaker and his aides is going to be able to get the attention of the right people.

None of this is news to lobbyists, legislators, staff members and administration officials. Last weekend’s trip was not a secret. Some participants highlighted it on social media. For some it’s an exclusive marketing tool. They want people who may be looking to purchase some influence in the next few months to know that there are ways of buying an advantage.

And Ritter puts his thumb on the scale in an open, obvious and notorious annual weekend away.

Published January 18, 2024.

Top photo: ID 69426758 © Yarruta