Benjamin Barnes, one of former Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s loyalist during eight dark years, is leaving his post as finance director for the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU), Daily Ructions can report. An announcement is imminent.

Barnes, who served with Malloy in Stamford, was the surly Democrat’s budget director for nearly all of his two terms. As the end drew near in 2010, Malloy parachuted Barnes into CSCU.

Malloy often used higher education as a comfortable retreat for his top aides–even if they knew little about life in the academy. Malloy lived his philosophy when he snagged the top job at the University of Maine system–controversy has followed him.

Barnes earned notoriety when he–not Malloy–announced generous raises for 200 Malloy appointees in December 2014, seven weeks after Malloy won a narrow race for a second term. Barnes himself was award a 12% increase to $209,000 a year. The raises took effect the day after Christmas, of course. They came a month after Barnes declared Connecticut was in a “permanent fiscal crisis,” refuting the claims Malloy had made to win re-election. Barnes had considerable trouble balancing the state’s budget until a bipartisan coalition intervened in 2017 and began to restore the state’s finances.

Barnes received a salary of $213,600 when he moved to CSCU, though the position came with far fewer responsibilities than he was entrusted with as the head of the Office of Police and Management (OPM) for eight years.

Barnes is not expected to be the only top official at CSCU to depart from the state agency.

Published July 13, 2023.

The co-chairs of the legislature’s energy committee object to your electric bill. Not the amounts, mind you, just the explanation of its component parts. State Senator Norm Needleman (D- Essex) and state Representative Jonathan Steinberg (D-Westport) wrote a letter to Marissa Paslick Gillet, the head of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) criticizing the description of the fourth of four categories of costs that the agency requires on electric bills.

Needleman and Steinberg do not cavil with the supply, delivery and transmission summaries. It’s the two-sentence “Public Policy” description that rankles the Democrats. It states, “Cost to support energy related programs authorized by the Legislature. Not regulated by PURA.” That brief explanation cuts too close to the truth.

Instead, Needleman and Steinberg want those two sentences removed and replaced by “Investments to support reliability, emissions reductions, and affordability. Not originated by PURA. Charge dependent on usage.” Politicians continue to strain to wedge their favorite euphemism into explanations for government spending. You are not paying a monthly “public policy” fee, you are making an investment to pave the road to a sunlit uplands imagined by the legislature. One must not mention these include costs imposed on consumers by legislators. To the consumer paying electric rates that are among the highest in the nation, that public policy charge is just one more cost.

The public policy charges on bills are allocated to conservation programs, conservation adjustments, the Green Bank, system benefits and, claiming the largest chunk, other energy programs. Needleman and Steinberg contend in their June 28th letter that their Orwellian dance “will preserve the intent of the Authority’s Decision (to explain bills) while more accurately describing the costs as investments that yield system benefits that cannot be fully captured by the confines of a consumer’s monthly electric bill.”

They conclude by urging PURA to adopt the changes they have submitted.

Published July 13, 2023.

A candidate lending great big chunks of change to his campaign is a sign of confidence or a signal that fundraising has disappointed.

Democrat Eric Coleman, a former state senator and retired Superior Court judge, made a an $80,000 loan to his campaign on June 28th as a thin campaign finance period was two days from closing. Coleman raised just $23,615 from supporters. Including the $80,000 loan, Coleman had $146,873 in cash-on-hand when the period ended on June 30th.

Former Eddie Perez top aide Matthew Hennessy began his late bid for city treasurer with a $50,000 loan. Hennessy defended Perez and was critical of the state’s prosecution of the disgraced mayor for corruption. Perez plead guilty to accepting a bribe and attempted extortion in 2017. Hennessy was one of Perez’s dyslexia explainers in the Democrat’s 2010 criminal trial.

Hennessy and his wife were plaintiffs in a much-commented on lawsuit against Hartford Golf Club and one its members. According to one document in the dispute, “The complaint stems from an alleged argument and physical altercation which occurred at a members’ holiday party in December 2016. Following the events at the party, the club took disciplinary action, suspending Fairbanks for a four-month period, during the winter months.” Hennessy was in a twist over the winter suspension (when there’s not much golf played in West Hartford).

In addition to his own $50,000, Hennessy received $250 from former Connecticut resident Joseph I. Lieberman, who served four terms in the U.S. Senate. Lieberman was elected to his fourth term in 2006 as an independent. (The same people who hailed the late Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., for winning election as governor in 1990 as a petitioning candidate took a different view of Lieberman’s bid 16 years later.) Lieberman was famously supportive of Senator John McCain’s 2008 bid for president against then-Senator Barack Obama.

Lieberman is listed in Hennessy’s report as a lawyer employed by KBT–that would be Kasowitz Benson Torres. That firm and its lead partner long represented loathsome demagogue Donald Trump, including $1.6 million from the campaign from November 4, 2020 to the end of the year. The firm also represented the risible Trump University in a fraud investigation that ended with a $25 million settlement to students traduced by Chancellor Trump and his minions.

Democrat Adam Wood, a lobbyist, contributed $250 to Hennessy and has also made fundraising calls. Hennessy must be a tough sell. The campaign reports just $6,800 in individual contributions.

Incumbent Democrat Carmen Sierra has raised $43,156 in individual contributions. Sierra became treasurer when controversial treasurer Adam Cloud resigned in 2022 after a decade in office.

Published July 11, 2023.

Monday’s funeral of former U.S. Senator and Governor Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., featured a variety of tributes that highlighted some of the memorable events of his political career. Speakers were spoiled for choice as they prepared their remarks.

The former Greenwich Republican-turned-A Connecticut Party leader was hailed for his willingness to take on issues others ducked or ignored. Weicker’s independence included his taste for taking a poke at fellow Republicans when he was in the Senate–and after. (It was a surprise to hear references to a house on fire and “the big bear who loves to get out of the cave and roar.“)

The tributes prompted a thought about an urgent contemporary issue. What would Lowell Weicker have done when he was governor if more than a thousand nursing students, nearly all of them women of color, had been locked out of their school? The Lowell Weicker who was eulogized Monday would not have allowed them to languish in a frustrating and expensive limbo for five months–so far.

Lowell Weicker would not have been indifferent to his administration’s failure to find meaningful solutions for dispossessed students trying to improve their career prospects in Connecticut. He would not have given those students a long, silent shrug.

Eulogies mark an end but they can also point the way forward.

Published July 11, 2023.

James Wade, a discreet, shrewd political adviser, as well as one of Connecticut’s top lawyers, has died at 86 after a long illness.

Decades of Democratic governors, senators and other political notables sought Wade’s advice and, often, his help in a dodgy moment. They came and went; Wade endured, a leading member of the informal government or the government-in-waiting, always consequential.

The Robinson & Cole law firm partner began counseling governors in his 30s with John Dempsey, who served from 1961 until 1971. Ella Grasso recognized Wade’s value during her historic five years leading the state. Her successor, Bill O’Neill, often relied on Wade during his under-appreciated decade as governor.

After O’Neill left office in 1991, a Democrat did not win the governorship for 20 years—a long stretch in the wilderness. Wade sustained his influence and reputation as a savvy force. A mention of James Wade signaled something of note was happening—or was about to be buried.

Wade’s talent for steering the powerful away from or out of trouble overshadowed his lifelong work as a lawyer. He long enjoyed a place among the state’s most respected lawyers, a man to see.

He left this world with many secrets.

Published July 3, 2023.

Municipal control over traditional democratic decisions of local government rules were dramatically altered in the state’s annual bond package. Not content with authorizing billions in spending in the final hours of its regular session, the legislature grabbed power from local charter revision commissions.

The provision was the work of Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons. The first-term Democrat has seen her authority slipping as she engages in a ceaseless public and private battle with the progressive wing of the local party. Seen as a force-in-formation in state Democratic politics, Simmons could be derailed if she continues to face opposition in Stamford from disaffected Democrats. The heavy-handed charter intervention may enflame the former state representatives growing number of detractors.

A charter revision commission has been toiling for more than a year developing and debating changes to the foundation document. Their efforts would go before voters but that may have become moot with the legislature’s pre-emption of local decision-making. The city council—not a center of goodwill for the Greenwich-raised Simmons—will be dismayed to see it is restricted from having its own legal counsel.

The danger with a vanity show of force like this one is that the legislation is broad and affects other towns. Simmons has managed to dismay plenty of Democratic activists nearly three years before the first delegate to the 2026 Democratic state convention is selected.

The requests for documents under the Freedom of Information Act will be flying from Stamford to Hartford to assemble the threads of Simmons’s anti-democratic gambit.

Published June 22, 2023.

Donald Trump lawyer and campaign operative Justin Clark will return to Connecticut to front a Bridgeport Republican Town Committee August 17th event.

Formerly of West Hartford, Clark managed Tom Foley’s 2010 losing campaign for governor and his unsuccessful 2014 rematch with Democrat Dannel P. Malloy. Clark began the 2016 on the Chris Christie campaign. After Christie’s campaign ended in tears in New Hampshire, Clark followed the former New Jersey governor to the tumultuous Trump campaign. Clark rose from his perch in the Connecticut Trump campaign to Deputy National Political Director.

Clark did a turn in the Trump White House before moving into the campaign consulting business and the losing 2020 Trump campaign. Clark has also served as a soldier among Trump’s short term recruits army of lawyers.

In 2019, Clark inadvertently provided a recorded preview of the 2020 Trump campaign. In a meeting with Wisconsin Republicans, Clark contended, “Traditionally it’s always been Republicans suppressing votes in places,” but accused Democrats in the state.”

Harriet Hageman, who in 2016 called Trump “racist and xenophobic, hired Clark’s consulting firm to helm her 2022 Wyoming race against steadfast patriot Liz Cheney. Hageman, who was endorsed by Trump, won the Republican primary and the general election by large margins.

What a singular political journey Clark has traveled from Gore 2000 to representing Trump in his efforts to stymie the work of the House January 6th committee. It is a tale of the sudden and dark unraveling of a broad major political party into the home of grievance and resentment. A party that held high the torch of freedom applauds the embracing of despots and disdains our democratic allies. And so much winning.

That ought to be some revival meeting in Bridgeport on August 17th. No wonder Abraham Lincoln looks bleak on the invitation.

Published June 19, 2023.

The 37 counts in the indictment of Donald Trump make bewildering reading. New York University’s Ryan Goodman explains them in this episode of Conversations with Bill Kristol. It’s also available as an audio podcast.

Goodman, a professor of law, sets out what the government will need to prove, the challenges of introducing classified documents to a jury, and the role of the judge in shaping the course of the case.

In a week marked by posturing, threats of retribution, and much talk of an apocalypse, Goodman provides an informative view of the perils on the path to justice.

Published June 16, 2023.

Greenwich Republicans will welcome presidential hopeful Vivek Ramawamy to a joint fundraiser this Saturday night at an undisclosed private home. Greenwich has long been a lucrative stop for Republicans (and now more often Democrats) looking to raise a heft haul of campaign donations.

The Ramaswamy event commands a top ducat price of $6,600. For that hefty chunk of change, a donor gets “Call with Vivek, Photo with Vivek, VIP Roundtable, VIP Parking, Program Recognition, Party & Book,” according to the invitation posted on Twitter. The sliding scale of enticements ends at $250. Contributors at that level are entitled to “Keynote & Book.” That presumably means a chance to listen to Ramaswamy and leave with a copy of his book.

Ramaswamy, who lives in Ohio, flirted with a run for the U.S. Senate from Connecticut against Richard Blumenthal in 2022. He appears to have concluded he has a better chance to become the Republican nominee for president than he does to win one of Connecticut two seats in the Senate.

The 37 year old pharmaceutical entrepreneur is making his mark in the campaign as a devoted acolyte of Donald Trump, one of his opponents in the contest for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Ramaswamy is an unrepentant defeatist in freedom’s battle with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. The Ramaswamy plan for Ukraine is to allow Russia to keep what it has taken in exchange for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin agreeing to end his military alliance with China. Ramaswamy would give Putin 72 hours to decide. He would consign millions of Ukrainians to enslavement and genocide under the Russian yoke.

Do not be surprised if Ramaswamy appears in Greenwich carrying an umbrella and wearing a pair of striped pants.

Republican National Committee member from Connecticut Leora Levy may make a courtesy call on the Saturday night event. National committee members often greet presidential candidates when they visit their state. Levy, who was the party’s 2022 U.S. Senate candidate, was in New Jersey Tuesday night. The Greenwich Republican attended Donald Trump’s post-plea party at his “but now I can’t” declassify Bedminster club and summer residence, according to the Washington Post.

Levy may want to drop in on Saturday’s event to amplify Ramaswamy’s threat to pardon Trump if he is convicted by a Miami federal jury. Trump gave Levy a final heave over the finish line with a late endorsement in her Republican Senate primary against party-endorsed candidate Themis Klarides and Peter Lumaj.

Published June 14, 2023.

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.