The Connecticut Post suggests that prolific commentator and former New York Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey may be interested in running for the U.S. Senate in 2016 against incumbent Democrat Richard Blumenthal. McCaughey told Daily Ructions in an April 17th email, “The answer to your question about my running for Senate is no. My focus is on defeating Obamacare.”

McCaughey spoke about healthcare policy to a gathering of Republican presidential hopefuls and party activists in New Hampshire on April 18th. For a taste of McCaughey’s vivid prose, read this piece she wrote about the abuse and ill-effects of solitary confinement in prisons.

Kevin Lembo-Frey was one of McCaughey’s aides around the time she switched her party affiliation from Republican to Democrat during her term as lieutenant governor and launched a bid for governor as a Democrat and then a Liberal. He’s now known as Kevin Lembo (she was then Betsy McCaughey Ross) and is in his second term as Connecticut’s comptroller. Lembo and his people are still bewildered by his closer than expected race last November with Ellington Republican Sharon McLaughlin. Or maybe it’s the lingering effect of the 1998 Buffalo plane crash that Lembo and McCaughey survived.

Catherine Marx, a popular figure in Connecticut Republican circles, announced Tuesday morning that she will not enter the race to become the party’s state chairman in June. The Hebron Republican sent an email to the three candidates in the race, none of whom seems to have gathered much momentum. Marx used the occasion to declare that she will not seek re-election to the party’s hive of discontentment, slights and conspiracies, the state central committee.

Here’s Marx’s email:

Joe, John and JR,

For some time now I have been talking with members, donors and leaders about the upcoming election for State Chairman. The message that I have heard over the past few months is very clear: The Connecticut Republican Party need new leadership. 

I applaud all three of you for your respective efforts engaging in a similar dialog to discuss our organization and present solutions as candidates for Chairman.  Additionally, I appreciate the reverence you have shown me in regards to my potential candidacy.  It is in that regard that I am writing to you now asserting I will not seek the office of Chairman.

I truly value the opportunity afforded me to serve others in a vast variety of roles over nearly twenty years within Connecticut Republican politics, municipal and state government.  However, I intend to pursue other career and personal ventures at this time and additionally will not seek re-election as State Central Representative in the 19^th District.

Connecticut needs a strong, vibrant and inclusive Connecticut Republican Party, I know that new leadership is the first step. 

With my sincere respect,

 Catherine

Wednesday’s conviction of former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez on murder charges prompted the Daily Beast to take a look at his family’s violent past. It leaves no doubt that criminal defendants in Connecticut get a lot of chances before heading for the hoosegow.

When Hernandez’s step-father, Jeffrey Cummings, was arrested for stabbing Hernandez’s mother in 2009, the Daily Beast discovered that Cummings was on probation for 18 months for assaulting a police officer. Ten months into his sentence, according to the Daily Beast, “Somehow, Cummings remained at liberty even though court records show he flunked 19 drugs tests between September 22, 2009, and June 7, 2010, positive 13 times for marijuana and six times for cocaine. He also failed to complete a court-mandated anger-management program.”

That’s many more than two chances.

Chief Justice Chase Rogers appears before the legislature’s Judiciary Committee Friday for hearing on her renomination to a second term in the top job in the high court. There’ll be a lot of testimony on the court system’s guardian ad litem program, which has attracted intense criticism from a well-organized group of unhappy parents.

A broader swath of lawyers, judges and court observers will be interested in the committee probing the operation of the court under Chief Justice Rogers’ leadership. They’ll look forward to questions on the extraordinary amount of time it takes at least one member of the court to produce an opinion. Why does she continue to assign opinions to him?

Committee members will render a public service if they ask why Rogers signed on to what has become known as the notorious footnote 69 in the recent Richard Lapointe decision. That was the gratuitous insult hurled at Justice Espinosa over her dissent by the 4-member majority. They accused Justice Espinosa of dishonoring the court in her opinion.

The Lapointe decision was more than a forcefully argued decision by disagreeing justices. It revealed open warfare among the justices. What has Rogers done to restore civility to the court? What are the elements of dishonor? Maybe she will give the committee a three prong test she applies to conclude and announce that a colleague has dishonored the court in a dissenting opinion.

Compared to some of her predecessors, Rogers is a remote figure to legislators. Her most sustained effort was years of lobbying during difficult budget years for pay increases through the establishment of an anti-democratic commission. Committee members may want to ask why Rogers has presided over so many staff members earning higher salaries than judges in frontline courthouses.

Rogers could get a heaping helping of free inquiry by elected officials tomorrow.

Politico reports that Professor and former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd’s gig in Hollywood is not working out very well. Hollywood is finding Dodd miscast as the $2 million a year head of the Motion Picture Association of America, an organization that once enjoyed considerable influence in Washington. Dodd’s contract ends early next year. Don’t look for it to be renewed.

The five-term Connecticut Democrat declined to seek re-election in the face of dire polls showing him a certain loser in 2010. Politico suggests Dodd may have his eye on an ambassadorship to Ireland if Hillary Clinton becomes president. Yes, Ireland. That’s where Dodd became the sole owner of an expensive piece of real estate under dubious circumstances not long after he snagged a pardon for a friend and benefactor in the final hours of Bill Clinton’s presidency. What a confirmation hearing could await the great blusterer.

Hillary Clinton’s camp is unlikely to forget this and other moments from Dodd’s unhappy 2008 presidential bid.

Federal law enforcement agents returned to the Legislative Office Building today, Daily Ructions has learned. The agents were not as aggressively obvious as they were in their memorable 2014 questioning of Republican legislators for two days.

A federal criminal investigation of the House Republican campaign operation has cost party campaign committees ten of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Former House Republican leader Lawrence Cafero and his successor, Themis Klarides, made repeated representations that there is nothing to the investigations while trying to divert worries of their caucus members of the deluge ahead.  Many House Republicans, already dissatisfied with Klarides’s lackadaisical leadership and close ties to Democratic insiders, will be further unnerved by more feds in the LOB.

The state’s wine and spirits association will also be sobered by the news as it tries to decide on a new executive director for the organization.

The Board of Paroles will meet Wednesday at 9 a.m. to reconsider its decision to parole Gary Castonguay, who in 1977 executed Plainville police office Robert Holcomb as he fled the scene of a burglary. The board voted after a short meeting in January to release Castonguay, who delivered a 33 second statement that was heavy on self-pity to the three-member panel.

The Board of Paroles has made a hash out of this procedure by failing to notify Officer Holcomb’s family and issuing an accurate agenda for the January meeting. The panel’s decision, for example, includes this in its rationale the background information that Castonguay shot Officer Holcomb, “4 times, allegedly while he was on the ground and helpless.” (Emphasis added.) There was no “allegedly” in the manner of execution. The evidence was presented and the jury found Castonguay was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Holcomb family will be joined at the hearing by a crowd of police officers intent on offering support.

Wounded veterans of the Washington office of CIGNA, one of Connecticut’s largest insurance companies, will be convulsed with guffaws when Governor Dannel P. Malloy announces a new insurance commissioner. The event is imminent, Daily Ructions has learned. Others, about to meet their appointment with dread, will have no reason for merriment. Their ordeal begins.

Insiders and observers will be disappointed that Malloy is opting for connections over competence. They had hoped Deputy Commissioner Dowling would get the job. She ran the department for the four years Thomas Leonardi held the title and traveled the world.

The Courant’s Ed Mahony reports on a story that will not be going away soon. It includes a collection of Connecticut mercenaries recruited to do battle on behalf of a financial Pershing Square Capital Management in its battle to do down Herbalife.

One never wants to be included in a 21st century federal investigation into alleged stock manipulation. That is a complicated minefield in which acts that are routine in political campaigns violate complicated securities laws. It does not take much for swaggering political folk to run afoul of the law.

Familiar names included in the ugly story in the early going on behalf of Pershing Square include Global Strategy, Democrat Tanya Meck, former state representative Evelyn Mantilla (D-Hartford), and Republican Chris Healy. Global Strategy issued a carefully worded statement that it is not “a target” of the investigation. That’s a term of art in federal law enforcement. One is usually not notified of the dreaded target status until an investigation is reaching a crescendo.

The usually voluble Enfield Republican town committee leader Mary Ann Turner takes a quiet turn in the tale. She signed one of the letters to Attorney General George Jepsen criticizing Herbalife.

People who declined the paid solicitors’ requests to sign letters are breathing easy, though investigators may be interested in the approach taken to induce them to lend their names to the canned epistles.

Pershing’s Bill Ackman’s Friday appearance on CNBC has to have discomfited his Connecticut contingent. Ackman declined to rule out the possibility that Global Strategy and its recruits made no false statements in their efforts to damage Herbalife. Sounds like they learn what the underpinnings of a bus look like.

Avaricious University of Connecticut President Susan Herbst has embarked on a mission to destroy the university alumni association. The plan is to subsume the association and its various councils into the furtive University of Connecticut Foundation. Association leaders and members are said to be dismayed at the bulldozer moving toward them and thousands of other alumni activists.

The battle is being joined by alumni leaders who have been meeting to thwart another power grab by Herbst and her coterie of enforcers. Look for alumni leaders to deploy their troops with legislators to stop the coup. Overreach by Herbst will give momentum to the movement to place the UConn Foundation under the disinfecting sunlight of the Freedom of Information Act.