Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Governor Ned Lamont, we are told by Christine Stewart of CTNewsJunkie , is about to bump heads with SEBAC union heads authorized to form contracts with Connecticut’s executive department. No need to wonder whose head will break first. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt solved the problem of the union organization of federal workers in 1937 when, approached by Luther Stewart, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, to allow collective bargaining, Roosevelt nixed the idea for the best of reasons. Roosevelt wrote to Stewart , “… the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people,...

The condition of Connecticut, most reliable political doctors tell us, is not good. And if the condition of the state is failing, its future health will depend upon a radical cure. The treatment of the body politic must be different if the same regimen will deliver a death blow. What are the possibilities of radical change in Connecticut? Slim to none. A major part of the problem is that the executive department-state workers union combine, useful to both, has simply assumed powers and prerequisites that should belong to the General Assembly. For the last thirty years, state government has been run by "strong governors" – one thinks of former Governor Lowell Weicker or present Governor Dannel Malloy, allied with obliging leaders of the General Assembly – who set our feet on the path to the future and command charge of state finances. Now all that sounds intellectually complex, but it really is simple. It means that governors, not state legislatures, are primary de...

Democrat Dan Drew, the mayor of Middletown, has withdrawn from the governor’s race. His name may now be added to a crowd of Democrat MIAs. Drew announced he was running for governor before Governor Dannel Malloy threw in the towel. His gesture of mild defiance could not have set well with the thin-skinned Malloy who, like a post-Capone Capo di tutti capi, likes his vengeance dishes served cold. Malloy’s Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, pleading grandchildren, has decided not to run. Malloy’s Comptroller, Kevin Lembo, earlier decided he did not want to be governor. Attorney General George Jepsen, who easily might have held his position as long as his predecessor, Dick Blumenthal, decided to call it a day after only six years – hopefully setting an unalterable precedent. And Jepsen did not announce for governor. Blumenthal was Attorney General for two decades and might still have been there, a scourge of Connecticut businesses, had not then U.S. Senator Chris Dodd left t...

The editors of a Hartford newspaper have begged, almost on their knees, state employee union leaders to accede to concessions in budget negotiations with Governor Dannel Malloy: “Unions, Please Help   “Connecticut has been kind to its public workers. Now is the state's time of need. Unions, won't you help the state out of financial crisis?   “Unions, please be reasonable. The state is at stake.” While the concessions will not greatly affect long-term spending, these pleadings are necessary for a number of reasons. Although the General Assembly is scheduled to finish shaping and approving a budget for Connecticut by closing time, June 7, the end-date really depends upon unions. “Unions Nearing Deal of Concessions,” a headline proclaims. However, “some union members say it is unlikely that the rank and file members of multiple unions,” represented by SEBAC, would be able to affirm contractual arrangements with Malloy by that date, “but a vote by the end ...

“A budget deal that closely resembles the 2011 budget agreement,” will be good for what ails Connecticut, said Martin Looney, the President Pro Tem in the Connecticut Senate, according to an NBC Connecticut story . “A budget deal that closely resembles the 2011 budget agreement might be needed in 2017,” said Mr. Looney. What ails Connecticut is excessive spending, pretty much everyone in the state now agrees – even Governor Dannel Malloy, who is responsible for both the largest and the second largest tax increases in state history. The first of Mr. Malloy’s tax increases was a not inconsiderable part of the 2011 budget deal that Mr. Looney would apply as a curative to Connecticut’s continuing ailments. Connecticut’s three major tax increases, the first promulgated during the administration of Governor Lowell Weicker, father of Connecticut’s income tax, served as political balm to union friendly governors and legislators. The tax increases relieved politicians of the necessity of...

“Embattled” is a word you do not want waltzing around with your name on the eve of a U.S. Congressional election. “Embattled 5th District Congress candidate Chris Donovan,” the Register Citizen reported , “in a taping of WFSB TV’s ‘Face the State’ Thursday, said he has no plans to quit the race even if his campaign’s troubles start to adversely affect other Democrats and party leaders urge him to leave. Mr. Donovan is under scrutiny by the FBI for campaign financing irregularities. His campaign finance director, Robert Braddock, is under arrest for having conspired to hide the identity of certain donors allegedly involved in influence peddling; and other Donovan connected officials, two of whom are directly connected with his U.S. Senate campaign, have been named in an affidavit supporting the arrest of Mr. Braddock. Thanks to some impressive digging and nagging by a host of reporters , the influence peddlers –tagged anonymously in the affidavit as CC1, CC2 and CC3 -- have now bee...