Forced to choose between honest and open government on the
one hand and the prospect of a winning campaign on the other hand, what
professional incumbent politician would not choose the latter? Better to be a
live elected rat than a dead unelected lion: Such is the overarching rule in
the political barnyard. Another barnyard rule, stated by the propaganda pig in
George Orwell in “Animal Farm,” goes like this:
In the political barnyard, everyone is equal – but the pigs are MORE
equal.
In 2014, Governor Dannel Malloy – present approval rating
among voters in Connecticut 24 percent and dipping – hoped to get an edge up
during his campaign against Republican Party opponent Tom Foley, who lost by a slender 23,000 votes. But because an
earlier General Assembly had reacted properly to the political peculation of
former Governor John Rowland, the cash poor Malloy first had to surmount a
difficulty.
Largely owing to Mr. Rowland’s arrest and imprisonment on
charges of theft of honest services, the General Assembly -- with a curtsy to
former Governor Ella Grasso, who had inspired Freedom of Information (FOI)
legislation that promised to let sunlight into the dank and sweaty halls of political
corruption – had passed ironclad anti-corruption legislation that in the
future, so it was hoped, would prevent state contractors from contributing
campaign funds to incumbents charged with regulating them.
The anti-corruption law passed by a bi-partisan General
Assembly said – don’t do it. And for decades, both Democrats and Republicans in
Connecticut, proud to be practicing law-making in a state that took political
campaign corruption seriously, listening to the angels of their better natures perched on their right shoulders and whispering in their ears, managed to remain
on the right side of their own laws. They didn’t do it. Even the much
denigrated former Governor John Rowland – had he been able, emerging from the
shadow of a prison, to be re-elected to a high political post, such as had
present Mayor of Bridgeport Joe Ganim, a Democratic felon – would not have done
it. Imagine, a governor agilely side-stepping a law that had been put in place
to prevent prior governors from engaging in corrupt activity -- unheard of, impossible!
Ah, but with God, Connecticut’s Democratic Party and Governor
Dannel Malloy, all things are possible.
The Malloy administration stepped around the poo-poo
anti-corruption legislation, and in due course a political ad promoting the
election of Mr. Malloy appeared. The ad included a tiny fig leaf, a notation
indicating polling locations, which opened the door to contributions made by
state contractors to lawless governors through a federal pipeline.
Down at the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC)
fire alarms went off. The SEEC supported a complaint issued by then Republican
Party Chairman Jerry Labriola alleging a violation of Connecticut’s stringent
anti-corruption campaign law. Suits were filed, lawyers foamed at the mouth,
and the mess ended up in court. In a discovery process, the SEEC demanded that
Connecticut’s Democratic Party turn over e-mails relevant to the case. The
Malloy administration blanched, grew faint, collapsed to the floor and assumed
a fetal position. If you want to see the jellied moral center of a politician
collapse, ask to see his e-mails. Democratic Party prospective Presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton got the bends when her top secret e-mails began to
surface before her presidential campaign, and the lady still gets occasional
cramps. Perhaps Mr. Malloy wanted to show the Democratic presidential candidate he most
resembles how one may with impunity violate a law and still reap benefits the
law was designed to curtail.
The recent political
“settlement” concocted between the State Democratic Party and the SEEC will
compel the disputants to holster their legal weapons, and e-mails that might
have shown Mr. Malloy to be every bit as slick as Mrs. Clinton, whose candidacy
for the presidency virtually all incumbent Democratic politicians in
Connecticut vigorously support, will never see the light of day. The settlement
closes the lid possibly incriminating e-mails, and it only cost the Connecticut
Democratic Party $325,000 – a fine not to be taken as an admission of
wrongdoing, according to the settlement agreement.
Charles Urso, once lead investigator for the
State Elections Enforcement Commission, now retired, has called the settlement “a mockery and a sham.” Investigative
reporter for the Courant Jon Lender has followed the case through its tortuous
permutations. Reviewing Mr. Lender’s disturbing reports, one grinds one’s
teeth and mutters under one's breath – “there oughta be a law.”
“There Oughta Be A Law” was a famous comic strip created by Al Fagaly
that ran in newspapers during the 1940s and 50s. In Connecticut, there WAS a
law, but it was ash-canned by Connecticut's Democratic Party, the least popular Governor in the United States, and a legal wrecking crew, all of whom belong in a comic strip.
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