Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

"This is not, I think, what any of us would have expected,” said a disappointed Lieutenant Governor Kevin Sullivan, “from a governor who has set a very high standard for everyone else.” Sullivan, a Democrat, said he withheld comment on what some are calling Moodygate for a couple of weeks so as to give the governor an opportunity to clear her head, but Rell simply had not measured up to her own high ethical expectations of the behavior of other politicians, mostly Democrats. The governor’s Chief of Staff, Lisa Moody, may have broken the law when she distributed fundraising invitations to several of the governor’s commissioners. Investigations by Chief State’s Attorney Christopher Morano and the State Elections Enforcement Commission are underway. The governor has suspended Moody without pay for two weeks, a sanction characterized by New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, one of two Democrat candidates for governor, as “a holiday vacation.” “I have been very reluctant to comment on these...

In handing out invitations to state commissioners and inviting them both to contribute to Gov. Jodi Rell’s campaign and to solicit funds, Lisa Moody, the governor’s chief of staff, was violating a well known regulation. Her claim that the violation was inadvertent is not plausible. As one commentator pointed out, Moody has been attached to Rell by the hip every since the governor’s more uneventful days as Lieutenant Governor and she has earned a reputation as a detail hawk. The open question therefore is: Shall Moody be hanged; or hanged and quartered; or hanged and quartered and burned at the state capitol, her ashes to be sown over the lawn as an example to politicians that Connecticut, at long last, has become serious about ethics reform? Two Democrat gubernatorial aspirants, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano and Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, called upon Rell to suspend Moody immediately. There is no need, DeStefano said, for Rell to wait upon the completion of investigations begun by ...

Governor John Rowland two days ago threw himself on the mercy of the media. In a written statement, Rowland admitted he had mislead the state's Capitol Press Corp and abjectly apologized. And what was the result? It was predictable, after his stunning confession, that he would be publicly mutilated. Nothing so arouses the media as public confessions of deceit. Two newspapers called for his resignation, firebrand liberals demanded the governor be impeached, and other leading Democrats asked that Rowland step down until federal authorities have completed their investigations. Much of the heavy fire came on Sunday, Dec. 13, 2003. The Hartford Courant ran two stories on page one under the headline "Tomasso Oversaw Cottage Work." One sub-headline read "Contractors: He Hired Them While His Company Sought State Job," and the other read "Rowland: Democratic Leaders Say Governor is 'Looking Into That Opened Pit." According to the story, William Tomasso ...