Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

It’s OK apparently to offer false solutions to serious problems – a national replication of Connecticut’s gun restrictions will not prevent mass slaughters such as happened at a Country and Western concert in Las Vegas – but profiting politically from wading in blood may be a bridge too far. Concerning U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy’s most recent campaign money grab, Kevin Rennie writes in a Hartford paper, “If a politician is going to try to raise money off the dead and wounded of the Las Vegas slaughter only hours after the attack, be honest about it. U.S. Senator Christopher Murphy wants the money but wrapped his fundraising appeal in a deceptive request of support for control advocates. Murphy’s Monday email sought contributions for Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC, Everytown and Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. When supporters clicked through to the Act Blue donation site, there was a fourth organization splitting contributions, Murphy’s re-election campaign.”

There is a hole in the state’s clean election law. Rigorously observed, the law is supposed to prevent state politicians from wresting campaign contributions from contractors and other business associates whom political officials oversee. The hole is quite legal, but it violates what ethicists sometimes call the “spirit of Connecticut’s clean election law.” The clean election law was adopted in Connecticut soon after then Governor John Rowland was sent packing to prison for the first time on corruption charges. The hole most recently became apparent when Attorney General George Jepsen, once Chairman of the state Democratic Party, persuaded a host of Connecticut lobbyists, business executives and deep pocket one-percenters to cough up campaign contributions for Mark Herring, a friend of Jepsen who finds himself in a tight race for Attorney General of Virginia. The controversy surrounding Jepsen and Herring may or may not be – the reader must forgive the irresistible ...

U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly has shut down a criminal Grand Jury investigation into questionable election funding by Connecticut’s Democratic Party, according to stories in multiple Connecticut papers.  Democrats, one must suppose, are breathing a huge sigh of relief. Grand Jury investigations are always fraught with danger because they are Star Chamber proceedings in which attorneys generally are able to persuade jurors to support charges filed against defendants who are not permitted defense representation. The old joke is that a halfway capable U.S. Attorney would be able in a grand jury proceeding to convict a grapefruit of jaywalking. Apart from a brief announcement that the grand jury had been shut down, Ms. Daly made herself unavailable for questioning. “A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Deidre M. Daly,”  a Courant report read , “would not comment.” The “no comment” means that answers to all the important questions will be buried with the decision not to pro...

Hartford Courant investigative reporter Jon Lender  tells us that the office of the U.S. Attorney is now convening a criminal grand jury “to investigate claims of illegal fundraising by the state Democratic Party.” Truly, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings . Only a few weeks ago, it appeared that Governor Dannel Malloy’s problems had been settled in a questionable agreement accepted by two parties, the state Democratic Party and Connecticut’s State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC). The legal action brought by the SEEC, which stemmed from a complaint issued by former Republican Party Chairman Jerry Labriola, had been terminated when the State Democratic Party agreed to cough up $325,000 to bring to a conclusion a suit that would have required the Malloy administration to bring to public view in a messy legal action – shades of Hillary Clinton -- possibly incriminating e-mails involving the Governor and his co-conspirators.

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.

A little more than a year ago, Jerry Labriola, then Chairman of the State Republican Party, filed a lawsuit and elections complaint that accused the State Democratic Party of producing an ad that had illegally used federal campaign contributions to support the re-election of Dannel Malloy as Governor. A Connecticut law passed after the State House of Representatives had commenced impeachment proceedings against then Governor John Rowland for political corruption barred state contractors from contributing to politicians with whom they might be doing business. The law was widely hailed by good-government advocates – including nearly all the editorial boards of state newspapers -- as a political corruption prophylactic.

                 “What a tangled web we weave when once we practice to deceive” – Sir Walter Scott If a suit filed by the Democratic State Central Committee in Hartford Superior Court in answer to previous suit filed by the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) is upheld, Connecticut’s clean election law will have been judicially repealed. Under such circumstance, the Friends of Clean Elections in the General Assembly – assuming anyone holding elective office is a friend of clean elections in Connecticut – will have no choice but to repeal the law or, as seems more likely, gut and fillet it.

Documents, e-mails and the like that usually provide a backdrop to political campaigns generally are not made public, unless they are subpoenaed by an aggrieved party. Following a complaint made by Republican Party Chairman Jerry Labriola, Connecticut’s State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) has subpoenaed documents and communications involving Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and several of his top aides, according to story broken by George Coli of NBC Connecticut News Live . Mr. Labriola charged in his March 2014 complaint that Democrats illegally circumvented the state's ban on contractor contributions during the last gubernatorial campaign by laundering money through a federal account used to pay for mass mailings benefiting Mr. Malloy.

State Senator Joe Markley of Southington lately has expressed an interest in heading the state Republican Party as its Chairman, which is on the order of Custer expressing an interest in leading the 7 th Calvary against a Cheyenne and Sioux encampment near the Little Big Horn River. Why would anyone want to do that?

Take any group of political activists, put them together for a few years, shake well and you will get a brass band marching in several directions to the beat of each individual drum. This pretty much describes the tendency of any party central committee where entropy is king. Entropy, the inherent dissipation of useful energy, is a part of the natural process. In any machine, even a party machine, the accelerations of shocks of the moving parts represents what the mathematicians call losses of “moments of activity.” The Republican Party in Connecticut has been missing “moments of activity” for quite some time. Many people, perhaps unjustly, point to party chairmen, convenient scapegoats, as being chiefly responsible for an entropy that left unchecked may ultimately result what physicists call “the state of maximum entropy,” which is a euphemism for – death. There are three things the Republican Party must do to win elections: 1) get votes, 2) get money and 3) refine its messa...

“I seen my chances, and I took’em” – George Washington Plunkitt Tom Foley, an announced Republican candidate for governor, dropped an anvil on the multi-footed Connecticut centipede, and -- Ouch! A bill written by Mr. Foley and launched by State Senator Joe Markley was, according to a story written by Mark Pazniokas in CTMirror , “ problematic for many members of the part-time state legislature, including a potential GOP rival.”