Dear CSU-AAUP members,

During a meeting Tuesday evening with the governor’s office, SEBAC leaders were notified the governor will annouce the beginnings of the layoff contingency plan.

According to the governor’s staff, action is being taken now because of notice requirements in various collective bargaining agreements. The governor will identify the largest 12 executive branch agencies funded by the General Fund, plus OPM and DAS, for the first round of layoffs. More widespread layoffs will happen if there is no success from the SEBAC exploratory talks. CSU-AAUP members are not at risk of layoffs presently.

Here’s what you can do to help:

Click here to contact your legislators and tell them to stand up for public higher education and Connecticut’s working and middle class families.

Tell them about the new study done by our own CCSU economists and the Center for Public Policy and Social Research that shows Connecticut not only has the lowest Total Effective Business Tax Rate (TEBTR) in the region, including New York and New Jersey, but also in the United States. Connecticut also has the lowest business taxes per private sector worker in the region, and the lowest business taxes as a share of state and local taxes in the United States. This report is also attached to this email and available for you to share widely.

A budget that works for everyone is possible!

While SEBAC leaders continue to explore ways that state workers can provide help in the state’s fiscal challenges, the uncertainty of thousands of public service workers who serve Connecticut’s families and communities are more proof of a rigged economy and a rigged tax system that protects only the very wealthy few. Layoffs and service cuts threaten public health and safety, our children’s education, and our state’s future. They only hurt the economy more and lead to more fiscal crises.

Thank you for taking action.

Elizabeth Newberg

Communication and Research Associate

Connecticut State University – American Association of University Professors

Joe Visconti, who ran for governor as a petitioning candidate in 2014, will run for run for governor once more. Visconti will seek the Republican nomination for governor against many opponents. Visconti sought the Republican nomination for governor in 2014 but received almost no support.

Visconti endorsed Republican Tom Foley the weekend before the election. Foley was defeated by incumbent Dannel P. Malloy.

Mike Jarjura, the former Waterbury mayor, is running for judge of probate as a Democrat in a November special election. Jarjura earned a place in political history in 2005 when he won re-election as mayor with write-in votes. Jarjura had lost the Democratic primary to Karen Mulcahy, the city tax collector.

Jarjura ran for governor as a Democrat in the eventful 2010 political cycle and switched to the comptroller’s race. He lost that summer’s primary to Kevin Lembo, who is in his second term as comptroller and is contemplating a race for governor. In that race, Jarjura accused Lembo of working as chief of staff to a right wing Republican in New York. That was Betsy McCaughey, who served as lieutenant governor of New York from 1994-1998.

Jarjura ran for re-election in Waterbury in 2011 as a Republican and was defeated in a bitter contest with retired police chief Neil O’Leary, the Democratic candidate.

He’s back. Litchfield real estate developer and persistent congressional candidate Mark Greenberg is running for State Comptroller. The Republican ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010, 2012, and 2014. Greenberg was the party’s nominee in his last bid, losing to incumbent Democrat and Cheshire millionaire Elizabeth Esty. He lost primary challenges in 2010 and 2012. The 2012 primary was notably brutal, with Greenberg and Lisa Wilson Foley, the wealthy Simsbury Republican who later pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations.

Greenberg provided damning evidence in former Governor John G. Rowland’s  2014 criminal trial for campaign finance violations, the same ones that caused Wilson Foley so much trouble.

That did not take long. Governor Dannel P. Malloy had not begun his announcement that he will not seek a third term when his Boston fundraiser, Ben Josephson, sent an ominous email to donors–many with interests in state government. Malloy will continue to shakedown donors for political contributions. Josephson’s message also included a copy of the speech Malloy will deliver this afternoon.

Here’s the Josephson message:

Good afternoon–

At 2:00 today Dan Malloy will announce that he will not be running for a third term as Governor of Connecticut in 2018.

He is most appreciative for the great support you have provided and wanted to be sure you were among the first to hear this news.

Governor Malloy hopes to be in contact in the coming weeks about the work he still plans to accomplish in his remaining 20 months as Governor, including working tirelessly on elections in 2017 and 2018.

I will be back in touch shortly, including with the remarks he delivers at 2pm

Thank you for your friendship and support.

Ben Josephson

Governor Dannel P. Malloy is expected to announce at 2 p.m. today that he will not seek a third term. The unpopular Democrat won a narrow victories in 2010 and 2014 over Greenwich Republican Tom Foley. The 2014 was a particularly grim lesser-of-two-evils contest. Malloy devoted the first year of each term to proposing and imposing crippling tax increases on Connecticut residents.

Malloy’s surly personality and his destructive economic policies combined to deny him successes in reviving the state’s economy. Democratic challengers to a third term began to stir early this year, including state Senator Ted Kennedy, State Comptroller Kevin Lembo, Middletown mayor Dan Drew, and former state Senator Jonathan Harris.

A dozen Republicans have been looking forward to facing Malloy in the 2018 general election. They will need to do some quick calculating in remaking themselves and figuring out how to tie Democratic hopefuls to Malloy.

A small circle of Malloy advisors has been urging their benefactor to seek a third term. Persistently dire poll numbers have made that impossible, as Malloy’s announcement confirms. He remains the most unpopular Democratic governor in the nation.

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Mark Boughton got some help from 2010 running mate Mike Fedele in a tough week for the Danbury mayor. Boughton posted mediocre fundraising numbers ($64,801) in the first quarter of the year in his third bid for the state’s top office. It has caused much comment among supporters and competitors. The quarterly report was a reminder that fundraising has always been a trouble spot for Boughton. A third bid for governor ought to mean has a lot of low-lying fruit to harvest from loyal donors.

To change the subject, Boughton announced Wednesday that Mike Fedele, the former lieutenant governor who ran a close race in the 2010 Republican primary for governor, will serve as the chairman of the Boughton campaign’s executive committee. That sounds bureaucratic in a campaign that needs to be lean and flexible due to the limited amounts of money the state’s taxpayer financing system imposes. Boughton was Fedele’s running mate in the 2010 contest. Boughton won his primary for lieutenant governor, defeating his BFF of later years, Lisa Wilson-Foley.

Fedele is one of a handful of Republicans who have won statewide office in Connecticut in the the past 60 years–and one of even fewer still living in Connecticut.

For the first quarter of the year, here’s how candidates did in collecting qualifying funds for the $250,000 required of candidates for governor to receive millions in taxpayer funds for the primary and general election campaigns.

Mark Boughton:  $63,298

Tim Herbst:  $80,319

Peter Lumaj:  $14,610

Steve Obsitnik:  $72,143

Prasad Srinivasan:  $120,000

These include some or all of a candidate’s out-of-state contributions. Candidates are limited to $25,000 in out-of-state contributions in the calculations for what counts to ring the bell.

Peter Lumaj, former candidate for the U.S. Senate and also secretary of the state, raised $79,905.00 in the first quarter of the year. That brings his exploratory committee total over two quarters to $206,705.00.  That allows him to collect contributions of up to $375 each. No word in the Lumaj announcement on how much of that qualifies for public financing.

One cautionary note on the Lumaj report. The Fairfield Republican has $110,000 on hand. That’s a fast burn rate in a time when there’s little going on in the race for governor other than raising money, meeting local town committee members, and spending time tracking down rumors and insults in the teeny tiny world of state party activists.

Lumaj also announced today that he has added Carl Higbie to his campaign team. “Higbie will be overseeing Lumaj Explore’s communications with both state and national media.”