Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie , whose nose is extremely sensitive, smells something fishy in the relationship between former eight-term state Sen. Thomas Gaffey and state Senate President Donald Williams. After recently running for re-election to his seat and winning, Mr. Gaffey quit the senate when he was convicted of having used his own PAC funds to pay for trips that he also billed to the state over several years. It appears the double billing may have been occasioned by Mr. Gaffey’s fondness for a fetching lady. A second girlfriend, Mr. Rennie reported, also tapped into Mr. Gaffey’s affections: “Connecticut State University System Associate Vice Chancellor for Government Relations and Communication Jill Ferraiolo employed her charms to make Gaffey the chief and relentless advocate for a $1 billion blank check in public funds for CSU to spend on construction at its four campuses.” Far from recoiling in horror at Mr. Gaffey’s indiscreet petty larceny, his influential ...

State senators Thomas Gaffey of Meriden and Joseph Crisco of Woodbridge were not present in the chamber when Republican Sen. John McKinney offered a bill, voted down by dominant Democrats, to establish a standing legislative ethics committee. There is some humorous speculation that Sen. Crisco, recently found to have forged documents for which he was fined $4,000 by the State Elections Enforcement Commission, had secluded himself behind the statue representing “The Genius of Connecticut” in the North lobby of the Capitol, while Sen. Gaffey, fined $6,000 by the same committee for having fraudulently charged both the state and his political action committee for the same campaign travel expenses, was canoodling with a lobbyist for Connecticut’s four state colleges in the cramped elevator that connects the building’s first and second floors. The issue of a standing ethics committee was first raised after Republican Sen. Lou DeLuca had failed to resist the blandishments of an FBI plant pre...

Kevin Rennie’s two reports on state Sen. Thomas Gaffey's have gone unanswered, which is not to say there have not been repercussions. “Joey from Glastonbury” -- very likely a pseudonym, since “Joey” is commenting on the Harford Courant’s site, which allows pseudonyms – writes: “I think this article proves last weeks (sic) piece was nothing but garbage. Last week Rennie put the idea out there that Gaffey supported the CSU 2020 because of a romantic relationship. Now Rennie writes that Carter's friendship with Gaffey goes back much further. There are no violations. Three years ago Carter sold tickets at face to Gaffey (legal on all fronts) and Carter made a political contribution (legal on all fronts). Rennie doesn't report on what other political contributions Carter might have made nor if he ever sold tickets to others in past years. Considering up until a two years ago, UConn gave out dozen of tickets to each game this column is just an assignation (sic) attempt on Carter...

Because Lou DeLuca complained of maltreatment and suggested that the Gaffey potboiler be handled in a way similar to his own case, both commentators and politicians, among them President Pro Tem of the state senate Don Williams, felt constrained to point out the differences. Williams said, "For Lou DeLuca to have brought this up is an outrage. For somebody who was investigated by the FBI, the chief state's attorney's office, and but for the fact that law enforcement was able to break up the hit that he ordered on a relative, he would be in jail. For him to start talking about Tom Gaffey, who broke no law … we're talking about two different universes." All true. Apples are not oranges. The characters to whom we’ve been introduced during the DeLuca drama are not at all the same as those wandering the stage in the Gaffey drama. There are no FBI agents posing as mobsters under state Sen. Thomas Gaffey’s bed, and Gaffey did not refuse a bribe and then decline to report...

With the first two paragraphs of a column by Kevin Rennie that ran in the Hartford Courant on Sunday, we were off to the races. “Lust for power is merely ambition,” Rennie wrote. “Lust and power together, however, can make trouble. The question is whether that potent cocktail cost taxpayers $1 billion this year because of a secret relationship between a high-ranking legislator and a state university vice chancellor. While they were pushing the bonding package, they were bonding.” The “lust” to which Rennie refers is the affection and high regard that State Sen. Thomas Gaffey, D-Meriden, chairman of the Education Committee and vice chairman of the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee, had for Jill Ferraiolo, associate vice chancellor for government relations and communications at the Connecticut State University System. CSUS was created during the gubernatorial administration of Lowell Weicker, who pulled up his deep-rooted Connecticut stakes and moved to Virginia rece...