Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

When he last ran for the U.S. Senate, Dick Blumenthal, fresh from a two decade stint as Connecticut’s Attorney General, was facing a deep pockets opponent in World Wrestling Entertainment’s former CEO Linda McMahon. It was generally supposed by the fortune tellers in the media that Mr. Blumenthal would easily defeat Mrs. McMahon without breaking sweat – and so he did. Mr. Blumenthal’s current re-election bid features a reversal of fortune, pun intended. Mr. Blumenthal is himself a multi-millionaire, the eighth richest member of Congress, according to a list of multi-millionaires compiled by Roll Call . Of the top ten richest members of Congress, only three are Republicans.

WARNING TO THE CARELESS READER: WHAT FOLLOWS IS NOT – REPEAT NOT – AN ASSERTION OF INNOCENCE BY REASON OF STUPIDITY IN THE LONG RUNNING ROWLAND/LISA WILSON FOLEY/BRIAN FOLEY CORRUPTION CASE. It’s a he said, he said controversy. The parties in dispute are former radio talk show host John Rowland’s attorneys and the attorneys for Lisa Wilson Foley, who was, at the time she was charged and found guilty of a misdemeanor by prosecutors, a failed candidate for the US House of Representatives in the Connecticut corruption infested 5 th District.

Former Governor John Rowland, now a former radio talk show host, may have been “guilty,” in a metaphorical sense, of using his position to advance the political interest of one particular candidate over another. It has been said that Mr. Rowland had subjected poor Andrew Roraback, at the time a Republican Party candidate for the U.S. House in the 5th District, to a severe interrogation on his radio program, formerly called “Church And State.” Since being appointed to Connecticut’s Superior Court by Governor Dannel Malloy, Mr. Roraback has moved out of the political into the less contentious judicial arena. Apparently, Mr. Roraback had suffered no permanent harm, and losing a Hartford Courant endorsement to his Democratic opponent certainly cost the socially progressive Republican Party endorsed candidate more negative votes than Mr. Rowland’s barbed questions.

The FBI was a major player in the drama. And everything that has happened on the public stage should convince Connecticut’s General Assembly that the state needs an Inspector General to uproot corruption before the FBI enters the theater.  When federal prosecutors turn up on the scene, Grand Guigno unfolds. John McKinney, a Republican running for governor this year who has not yet been drawn by federal prosecutors into the mire, has proposed just that. His proposal has been received in silence by Democratic leaders in the General Assembly who control political business in the chamber. The FBI intervention began when the struggle for the 5 th  District U.S. Congressional seat left vacant after Chris Murphy’s elevation to the U.S. Senate seemed to be a contest between then Speaker of the State House Chris Donovan and an assortment of Republican hopefuls that included longtime State Senate leader Andrew Roraback, a late entry into the Republican primary, and three R...

By endorsing Mark Greenberg’s candidacy for the U.S. Congress in Connecticut’s 5 th District, a seat now held by U.S. Representative Elizabeth Esty, state senate leader John McKinney has tossed a wrench into the political machinery. Mr. McKinney is an announced candidate for governor , a position now held by Governor Dannel Malloy, the first Democratic chief executive in more than 20 years and the nominal head of his party.

Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in Connecticut roughly by a two to one margin. The largest group in the state is unaffiliateds, sometimes called independents. In a primary contest, a Republican hoping to be nominated by his party will trim his message to a right of center audience; a Democrat, contrary-wise, will appeal to a left of center audience. The “center” in American politics is not a static position; it is a statistical average determined by one’s disposition to side with right or left positions.

“ There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics ” – Benjamin Disraeli Actuarial figures supporting claimed budget savings in Plan A2 -- son of Plan A, a slightly revised budget that Governor Dannel Malloy months ago submitted to the General Assembly for approval -- have been called into doubt for some time. The Malloy budget approved by the Democratic controlled General Assembly early in May, for instance, contained a savings line that could not be actuarially verified. The Malloy budget simply assumes a savings of $270 million arising from a commitment from state workers to devise ways of saving money. When Republican leaders -- who have been successfully cut out of the budget negotiation process by Mr. Malloy and Democratic leaders in the General Assembly – questioned the assumptions that underpinned the projected savings, Malloy communications director Colleen Flanagan intemperately responded that the figures had been verified by their actuaries and they we...

The guys and gals who work at the Office of Fiscal Analysis (OFA) are the “go to” people for legislators who do not carry an Encyclopedia Britannica around in their heads. Throw some number on the floor before them and they can tell you if the numbers are accurate or fictional. Even on a bad day, they can tell you how many angels fit on the head of a pin. And in our statistical age, when every “non-partisan” agency is connected at the hip to fiercely partisan politicians, the OFA is genuinely non-partisan -- in the way that math or water is non-partisan. Having examined the estimated savings in the Governor Dannel Malloy-SEBAC budget, the OFA has found that 60% of the savings claims made therein are UNVERIFIABLE. The bad news was brought to the attention of the general public by Keith Phaneuf of CTMirror : “Nonpartisan legislative analysts say they can vouch for less than 40 percent of the $1.6 billion in labor savings figured into the next biennial budget, and are unable to asse...

The special Senate investigating committee inquiring into the DeLuca affair has issued a request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s office, the state police, Waterbury police and the chief state’s attorney, asking for information necessary to discharge its legislative mandate; upon completing its investigation, the committee is empowered to recommend Sen. Lou DeLuca’s expulsion from the senate. It is not known whether any of the agencies that will be contacted by the committee will comply with its requests. Committee co-chair Martin Looney , the Senate Majority Leader, is dubious. Such information, he said, “Is not frequently requested.” Republican co-chair of the committee Sen. Andrew Roraback and others on the committee think it is necessary to acquire the information, which would include an audio tape or a transcript of a conversation DeLuca had with an FBI posing as a confederate of James Galante, the subject of a 93 criminal count racketeering indictment. ...