Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Former Governor Lowell Weicker surfaced recently and both condemned, unwittingly, and complimented lame duck Governor Dannel Malloy. Every so often, Mr. Weicker, intent on working the dents out of his legacy, pokes his head above the fox hole, scans enemy territory for a friendly face, and spills some political beans. Ken Dixon of the Connecticut Post asked Mr. Weicker to comment on Mr. Malloy’s decision to pack it in, and he obliged. What Weicker said was, as usual, confusing and contradictory.

I t’s not at all unusual for aides employed by governors and presidents to make their way into lucrative businesses that are, once the aides have left public service, profitably engaged with entities connected in one way or another with their former bosses. Communication directors for presidents or governors occasionally are hired by news networks that report on government operations, or governmental aides join lucrative firms that advise businesses or politicians how best to interface with government bigwigs. The walls that separate politics and corporate entities that do business either with a state or national regulatory octopus are semi-permeable.

It should have been obvious that Luke Bronin, who prevailed over incumbent Mayor Pedro Segarra in a primary, would be the next Mayor of Hartford. In one-party Democratic towns, the victor of a Democratic primary most often wins general election contests. A Hartford paper noted that Mr. Bronin had amassed a campaign war chest of $937,377, an abundance of riches the paper terms “unprecedented,” by which we should understand “indecently obscene.” Mr. Bronin’s competitors in the Mayoralty race – Republican candidate Theodore "Ted" Cannon and Working Families Party candidate Joel Cruz Jr., running for Mayor as an unaffiliated candidate, were impoverished, relatively speaking.  Mr. Cruz raised $19,587, Mr. Cannon $1,500, spending  $1,224 mostly on lawn signs. The money Mr. Cannon spent attempting to reach the hearts and minds of voters will surprise the same sort of people who will be astonished to discover there is a Republican Party in Hartford.

The following address was given to the Wallingford Rotary at IL Monticello Restaurant in Meriden on Sept 2. I want to thank Mark Davis for inviting me to speak to you today. As you know, he’s been involved in the Wallingford Rotary for years. After you’ve put in productive years with Rotary, you acquire bragging rights, and this Rotary has much to boast of. Mark doesn’t hold back. He and others regard Rotary as the best volunteer social organization in the country and he’s proud to associate with this  Rotary in particular, which started in 1923 and has given nearly a million dollars in grants to nonprofits. You are to be congratulated on your energy, business intelligence and community concern.

You’ll walk the floor, the way I do You’re cheating heart will tell on you -- Hank Williams If it had been Christmas, Josh Solomon, the owner of the New Britain Rock Cats  – soon to be renamed the Hartford Rock Cats – might have found a lump of coal in his stocking. But it’s August, and the fiercely patriotic Mayor of New Britain, Erin Stewart, contented herself with a “Dear John” letter requesting a payment of back taxes owed and announcing the end of a once great romance.

Facing what is certain to be a hard fought gubernatorial campaign, Governor Dannel Malloy vowed that he would not intervene (read: invest state tax money in) a pre-arranged deal between officials in Hartford and the owners of the New Britain Rock Cats to reposition the baseball team in Hartford. Chis Powell, managing Editor of the Journal Inquirer  and the paper’s chief political columnist, noted wryly that any such “investment” on the part of Mr. Malloy would be redundant, since state taxpayers already provide Hartford, as well as other large non-self-sustaining cities in Connecticut, with sufficient funds that more than offset any expenses involved in relocating and housing the team. The Malloy administration certainly has sufficient experience in providing tax funds to a number of companies in Connecticut that have moved from one town in the state to another, but this time, perhaps because of the proximity of an election, Mr. Malloy has turned his face to the wall. He...

It was bound to happen sooner or later. In Hartford, Connecticut, a one party town for decades, political favoritism has raised its ugly head – not for the first or last time. Mayor of Hartford Pedro Segarra and Hartford school officials, we learn from a stinging editorial in a Hartford newspaper , “are dead right in asking city auditors to clear the air on whether city Treasurer Adam Cloud had a conflict of interest in allegedly moving a city insurance policy from one broker to another one, Hybrid Insurance Group.” The connections between Hartford’s Treasurer, Mr. Cloud, and the insurance group that was awarded a substantial account are, the paper finds, unsavory: “Hybrid is a tenant in a downtown Hartford building owned by Mr. Cloud and family members. Also, treasurer Cloud's brother, Christopher Cloud, is a lobbyist for Hybrid.” Hartford’s “sharp-eyed chief financial officer,” Paula Altieri, discovered that the insurance policy had been transferred from one bro...