Probate Judge Peter Mariano is due in a Waterbury courtroom Monday morning. Mariano, according to the Waterbury Republican-American is expected to enter pleas on three driving under the influence and two driving under suspension charges. Mariano declined to say how he will plead to the 2021 charges.

Mariano, a Republican, is seeking a sixth four-year term and will ask delegates from Beacon Falls, Middlebury, Naugatuck, and Prospect to endorse him on May 18th. He faces state Representative Rosa Rebimbas at that convention.

Mariano has applied to have his license to practice law restored.

Published May 9, 2022.

The Connecticut State Police will need considerable resources to solve a disturbing mystery in their midst. Scott DeVico, a $130,000 a year executive assistant in the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP), sent an email with “Inbred Jews” in the subject line. A mysteriously aggressive and malicious autocorrect is being blamed.

A Jewish employee of DESPP became aware of the email and was appropriately alarmed at its hateful language. A complaint followed after the employee was not able to get any DESPP official to address the offensive language.

Daily Ructions on Friday morning contacted Brain Foley, DESSPP spokesman and close associate of Commissioner James Rovella. Foley said the department is aware of the issue and explained DeVico claims he was sending an email regarding an upcoming job interview. His email program’s autocorrect changed “Interview” to “Inbred Jews” in the subject line. DeVico did not notice the autocorrect intervention while writing the email he sent to two others at DESPP.

A request for documents Friday morning brought this response from Foley:

Kevin; thank you for your request and we are aware of the documents you were asking for. The incident and documents you are requesting are a part of an active investigation.

To summarize, the executive assistant sent an email pertaining to an upcoming candidate interview. The recipients were our Equal Opportunities Officer and a CSP Lieutenant Colonel. While the body of the email was entirely related to the interview, the subject line read “Inbred Jews”

When a recipient notified the exec assistant of the language, the exec assistant immediately said it must have been an auto-correct and apologized by phone and email to both recipients. 

The executive assistant notified the commissioner of the email and also requested an IT review to determine its cause and to prevent any reoccurrence. 

Regardless of source, we are aware of how painful and frightening these words can be. As a result, and at the request of the employee who sent the email as well as the order of the commissioner, we have initiated an investigation. We have also reached out to the Greater Hartford Jewish Federation as well as the ADL to make them aware of the incident and investigation. 

Our legal affairs unit will forward your documents as they become available. 

The employee who complained about the offending language tells a fuller story in his complaint. That should be acted on with more than an IT review.

The story continues. While we await more information, go to your email program and type in “interview” and as many variations as you can manage and watch for autocorrect interventions.

Published May 6, 2022.

Convention delegates are muting their phones in reaction to a stream of brutal texts. Themis Klarides was on the griddle Thursday night. The Republican U.S. Senate hopeful came in for a shelling on hundreds of mobile phone screens.

Delegates received a text of uncertain origins accusing Klarides of breaching every contemporary Republican shibboleth. The harsh message is built on a flimsy foundation: It assumes Klarides possesses firm beliefs in anything other than politics as a vanity production garnished by the platitudes of the moment.

The text, pictured above, raises Klarides’s ties to widely disliked utility, Eversource, through her recent marriage to one of the company’s top executive. The risk of an Eversource jolt for Republicans during the campaign looms large for delegates who understand the weapon their party may hand to Democrats. Connecticut’s businesses and families continue to pay the highest electricity rates in the continental United States. Klarides and her advisers will continue to hope no one requests and obtains her late summer 2020 texts and emails on state energy policy. The August primary campaign could short circuit if any of Klarides’s House Republican colleagues did not maintain the Klarides era practice of destroying public records by quickly deleting them.

One question for a Senate debate: Who did Klarides allow on those House Republican leadership calls? The convention campaign texts may begin to look mild.

Published May 5, 2022.

Former state Senator Ed Marcus, who broke the iron grip of party bosses on the state legislature, died Thursday morning. He was a candidate in the state’s first year of primaries and served as Democratic party chairman from 1992 to 2002.

Marcus was elected to the Senate from New Haven in the Democratic landslide of 1958. When he became the Senate Majority Leader in the late 1960s, Marcus successfully challenged state and national party chairman John M. Bailey’s control over legislative patronage. The contentious move, according to Bruce Rubenstein, Marcus’s colleague in party politics, allowed the legislature to become a professional and equal branch of government.

Bailey was not pleased. The party boss opposed Marcus’s 1970 bid for the U.S. Senate. That was the first year of party primaries in the state. A candidate needed to win 20% at their party’s convention to qualify for a primary. There was no provision for collecting signatures to be included on the party contest ballot.

Marcus placed third at the Democratic convention, behind the endorsed candidate, Stamford zipper manufacturer Alphonse Donahue, and anti-Vietnam war candidate Reverend Joseph Duffey. Marcus was third in the primary as well. A quirk in the state’s new primary law set the date for statewide and congressional primaries before legislative ones. Marcus was able to seek re-election to the Senate but faced a primary from Joseph Lieberman, also a New Haven Democrat.

Bailey wanted to grind Marcus into dust and on that primary day he did. An army of state employees reported to New Haven that day and helped Lieberman defeat Marcus.

Denied public office, Marcus nevertheless kept his hand in the game. He became state party chairman in 1992. In 1994, he made news by declaring there were too many Jews competing for places on the state ticket. Voters disagreed. Marcus was Jewish.

Marcus maintained a busy law practice in Branford. His political influence was evident in the administration of former Governor Dannel P. Malloy. Marcus convinced Malloy to appoint his daughter, the controversial Shelley Marcus, to a seat on the Superior Court.

Published May 5, 2022.

As endorsements go, it seems vague. Leora Levy rolled out a letter from Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel in the run-up to this weekend’s state party nominating contest.

McDaniel writes that Levy “understands exactly what is at stake for our country during this perilous time as the far-left seeks to wreak havoc on our freedoms and the principles that laid the foundation of our country.” Curiously, McDaniel does not mention that Levy is running for the U.S. Senate.

The intra-party scuffles can bring complications to political relationships. Levy has voted for McDaniel to lead the RNC and boosted her at every opportunity. It might seem churlish for McDaniel not to acknowledge Levy’s role in party affairs as the retired commodity trader strains to gather the support of 15% of state convention delegates.

Levy has been working the phones this week in a final push for delegates, paying particular attention to Republican activists from the 2nd CD.

Delegates are expected to nominate former House Minority Leader Themis K;arides for the race against incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal. Fairfield Republican Peter Lumaj is also in the fight and is seen as winning support from delegates who might otherwise cast their ballots for Levy.

Levy has won the support of several U.S. senators but no state senators.

Published May 5, 2022.

Governor Ned Lamont has been asking around. The Greenwich Democrat is seeking names for a new legal counsel. The inquiries by Lamont suggest the second legal counsel of his first term, Nora Dannehy, may soon leave the administration after little more than a year.

Dannehy is the career federal prosecutor who became a historic corruption buster in 2003 and 2004 as she brought down then-Governor John G. Rowland and members of his administration. Dannehy’s reputation for rectitude may not be the best fit for Lamont as his administration is under a federal criminal corruption investigation involving contract steering. Lamont said he learned of the probe when Dannehy may have mentioned it “in passing.”

Lamont lost his budget director in February. The governor said at the time that Melissa McCaw, whose agency is at the center of the investigation, was seeking a fresh start in East Hartford—a town not often identified with personal renewal—and would serve as its finance director. Lamont favorite Josh Geballe also left the administration early this year. DAS commissioner and COO Geballe had overseen the state’s school construction grants program and made the fatal 2019 decision to transfer it to McCaw’s budget agency in violation of state law. Geballe’s decision meant the head of the program, Konstantinos Diamantis, would receive no meaningful oversight from his friend McCaw.

Suggestions for the legal counsel job may be submitted directly to the governor. Applicants should note that few alumni of Lamont’s office ever mention their experience fondly. We mention that just in passing.

Published May 4, 2022.

The session of the legislature that ends today included an ugly incident of attempted political fratricide by intern research. State Representative Michael Winkler (D-Vernon) assigned his intern (whose name we will not disclose) to dig up some dirt on Democratic House colleague David Arconti.

The intern, as interns will do, took his task seriously and sent a cheerful email to Eversource, the politically influential utility. “I am an intern at the CGA and I was wondering if you could give me any information on a CT Representative by the name of David Arconti,” he wrote to Eversourse investor relations executive Jeffrey Kotkin. “I’m curious to see if Mr.Arconti has ever donated/invested money into Eversource or if he’s ever received campaign funding from eversource. If you could point me in the right direction that would be wonderful, thank you for your time, my phone number is….”

Kotkin forwarded the intern’s message to veteran Eversource in-house lobbyists Peg Morton, Thomas Dorsey, and Daniel Moore. Dorsey forwarded the message to Arconti, who is the co-chair of the legislature’s energy committee, which often seems like a subsidiary of Eversource. Arconti sent it to Franklin Perry, the speaker’s chief of staff.

The February 26th email trail ends there. The intern was reassigned. I asked Winkler what the purpose was of having his intern obtain information on Arconti. Was it an appropriate task for an intern? What did Winkler expect the intern to learn about the legislature by having him ask Eversource if Arconti has invested in the state’s largest utility.

The Vernon Democrat replied, “As part of a research project, an intern was asked to do an on-line search. At no time was a letter requested or needed. All of the necessary information is on-line.” Those non sequiturs did not address the essential questions. When newly elected and re-elected legislators return to Hartford in January, leaders should make it clear that interns are not appropriate instruments for pursuing vendettas or doing down rivals. Whatever nasty beef Winkler had with the mild-mannered Danbury Democrat, the former state employees union official should not have enlisted a college intern to assist in his dirty work.

Neither Arconti nor Winkler is seeking re-election. Arconti declined to discuss the matter.

Published May 4, 2022.

East Haven Republican Patrick Rowland (no relation to the former Republican governor) is a late entry for the party’s nomination for state comptroller. Rowland, a CPA with a background in tax planning, will face West Hartford Republican May Fay if he proceeds with his quest.

Rowland’s email to Republicans took aim at Democrat Sean Scanlon and his patronage plum job at Tweed-New Haven Airport. He wrote in his announcement, “I can BEAT Sean Scanlon because I have the Tax, Research, Accounting, and Economic Policy background to understand deeply the roles of the office and can debate his flawed record as a legislator and as the Director of the Tweed – specifically, the State’s own INDEPENDENT AUDITORS issued a deficiency report (link below) on the Airport Authority criticizing control and management in areas which he would have similar control at the state level.”

“He also helped break a promise previously negotiated by all the pertinent mayors and legislative representatives much for his own benefit and at great peril to the city, region and the citizens who live near the airport,” Rowland continued, “And as CHAIR of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding – he OWNS the fiscal calamity we are suffering from.”

Scanlon is, for reasons that highlight the sometimes irrational nature of politics, the Democrats’ presumptive nominee for comptroller. The Guilford Democrat continues his long ride on the party’s hackerama.

Rowland said Wednesday afternoon that he will run as a petitioning candidate in the general election if he is unable to win 15% of the delegates at the Republican state convention. He criticized Fay for highlighting on her campaign website her opposition to imposing tolls on Connecticut’s working families.

Rowland will be introducing himself to delegates Friday. Fay may, however, have gotten a snootful of the voluble Rowland when he offered to “collaborate” with the West Hartford town council member if she’d make way for him to snag the party’s nomination.

Published May 4, 2022.

A substitute teacher is putting up some impressive numbers in a rookie bid to defeat a veteran fellow Democrat. Muad Hrezi has raised just shy of $500,000 since announcing his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the First Congressional District.

Hrezi, coming at Larson from the far left, has begun circulating petitions to force an August primary. Larson has not faced a primary opponent since the venerable East Hartford Democrat won his first term in 1998.

Hrezi’s pre-convention report reveals he had $165,000 in cash on hand as of the April 19th reporting period closing date. That $165,000 ought to be enough for Hrezi to hire professional signature collectors to oversee the labor intensive process of collecting sufficient signatures to face Larson in August. Larson reports having $841,000 in cash on hand.

For some context on the significance of Hrezi’s early fundraising success, consider that it’s $124,000 more than Republican George Logan has raised in his 5th CD campaign to defeat two-term Democrat Jahana Hayes.

Published May 2, 2022.

Four congressional candidates have begun circulating petitions to secure a spot on the August primary ballot. Candidates who do not receive 15% of the delegates’ votes on any party convention ballot have an alternative route to a primary. They can collect signatures from 2% of the voters enrolled in their party. It’s harder than it sounds, so getting an early start is prudent.

So far, one Democrat and three Republicans have begun the process, according to Secretary of the State Denise Merrill’s office. They are Democrat Muad Hrezi in the First Congressional District and Republicans Mark Hancock in the First Congressional District, Michael Ted Goldstein in the Fourth Congressional District, and Michelle Botelho in the Fifth Congressional District.

Delegates will meet this month to endorse candidates. The parties hold their state nominating conventions this weekend.

Published May 2, 2022.