Nothing is off-limits in the crowded party competitions for governor. Even a candidate’s hometown is fair game. Look at Republican hopeful Mike Handler. He’s the attraction at a local event in Glastonbury on March 20th. Rival Prasad Srinivasan’s Glastonbury.

Srinivasan won the endorsement of the Glastonbury Republican town committee last fall after local leaders lobbied some committee members not inclined to support their local Republican state representative’s bid for governor to stay home the night of the vote.

Handler’s Glastonbury supporters include Lorraine Marchetti, who nearly won a state Senate seat in 2016.

Handler announced Monday that he has exceeded the $250,000 threshold required to qualify for the state’s generous campaign finance program. He has asked the State Elections Enforcement Commission to begin its pre-application review of his fundraising. Handler will need to win 15% of delegate votes on one ballot of May’s party nominating convention or collect signatures from at least 2% of the state’s registered Republican voters.

State Senator Beth Bye (D-West Hartford) found a curious way to spend Thursday’s International Women’s Day.She piled on the bullying of state Senator Gayle Slossberg over the Milford Democrat’s decision to recuse herself from voting on Justice Andrew McDonald’s nomination to the State Supreme Court’s top spot.

Slossberg, who announced Friday she will not seek an eighth term, has a history with McDonald that includes the jurist launching a 2012 face-contorting rant on his former colleague when McDonald was Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s legal counsel. Slossberg voted for Democrat McDonald’s high court nomination in 2013–along with 29 other senators. Bye is confused as to why Slossberg recused herself this time. (It’s not as if Slossberg took a job with an entity she obtained state money for, as Bye famously did.) Bye does not seem to understand that Slossberg appears to have reasonably believed McDonald’s personal animus toward her–known to both of them and witnesses to the attack–would have been enough to cause McDonald to recuse himself from participating in deliberations on cases involving David Slossberg, Gayle Slossberg’s busy attorney husband.

Gayle Slossberg filed a jaw-dropping affidavit in a 2014 case before the Supreme Court as part of a motion seeking McDonald’s recusal. He declined and participated in overturning a substantial verdict David Slossberg had won for his client.

There was a time–until a couple of weeks ago–when we applauded recusals as virtuous acts. A public official understands that circumstances will bring into question his or her ability to exercise sound judgment. Often officials, including Connecticut judges, will recuse themselves without stating a reason. Slossberg has met the standard we set for officials in Connecticut as they discharge their public trust. Bye is offended by this.

Bye was not a witness to McDonald’s 2012 verbal bludgeoning of Slossberg. Nevertheless, Bye dismisses it as “a tense conversation.” McDonald has not denied the ugly attack. He’s had almost six years to apologize and has not.

Almost two weeks after Slossberg’s explosive affidavit became widely known, no witness has stepped forward to contest its content. There’s a simple reason why. It’s true. Every Capitol denizen knows it’s true. Other women could, if fear did not rule the Capitol village, testify to their own unforgettable bullying encounters with a furious McDonald. They believe Gayle Slossberg.

Dannel P. Malloy and a National Day of Empathy are not two nouns any observant person would connect. Nevertheless, the surly governor’s office is noting that this National Day of Empathy is the time to provide dignity to female inmates incarcerated in Connecticut. Malloy says he wants “fair treatment for incarcerated women.” Here’s an idea. Provide inmates–female and male–with appropriate healthcare.

Malloy makes his announcement three weeks after a female inmate gave birth to her baby in a prison cell. Tell us where the dignity is in that. Read more about that troubling incident and the low level of care provided inmates in this Courant article by Christine Dempsey.

Labor is making its move in the Democratic contest for attorney general. The public employee-dominated movement is promoting Michael “Six Series” D’Agostino in the crowded race. The fast-driving German luxury ragtop driver as champion of working men and women features some challenging optics. The state representative can be seen speeding between home in Hamden, his Hartford law office and the State Capitol in the expensive BMW convertible (starting price: $86,700) with the legislative license plate. Man in a hurry, indeed.

Labor is cool on Stamford legislator William Tong and will not forget former prosecutor Christopher Mattei for dismantling former Speaker the House Christopher Donovan’s 2012 congressional campaign. That investigation nabbed some Donovan staffers and straw donors but failed to indict Donovan. The labor favorite’s campaign never recovered.

Corporate lawyer D’Agostino was a noisy champion of the ruinous deal worked out between Governor Dannel P. Malloy and state labor unions last year. The extension of benefits runs to 2027 and will prove a high hurdle to the next governor’s ability to restore the conditions that begin to allow the state’s economy to flourish.

Republican warrior Chris LaCivita has joined the Bob for Governor campaign. The Virginia Campaign guru will serve as General consultant to the Stefanowski campaign.

LaCivita is familiar with Connecticut politics. He served as general consultant to Linda McMahon’s 2012 unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate, her second. McMahon turned her generous support of loathsome demagogue Donald Trump into a minor position in his cabinet.

LaCivita and Stefanowski provide a start contrast in political interest and philosophy. LaCivita has spent more than a quarter century in politics. Stefanowski declined to cast a ballot in elections for 16 consecutive years of the 21st century, though he did make a maximum contribution to former U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd.

LaCivita gained national renown among politicos when he masterminded the 2014 campaign comeback of Kansas incumbent U.S. Senator Pat Roberts. The marine veteran spent the 2016 campaign cycle on Rand Paul’s campaigns.

Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Joe Ganim is citing a Max Reiss February 28th appearance on WNPR’s Wheelhouse in a fundraising appeal. It was a convivial Wednesday morning on Asylum Avenue talking about politics after the WVIT political reporter had finished giving an update on the state of his twins, as I recall.

Max had news of a campaign poll that put Ganim first. Ganim touts it as “very good news.” Your Daily Ructions reporter, also a guest, shared information about a different poll that found Ganim third–running ahead of Greenwich scion and Hartford Democrat Luke Bronin, who is hindered by his emphatic 2015 promise to serve a full term as mayor. Bronin is still exploring a run for governor and is not making friends with meetings with ambitious Democrats that put his elephantine sense of entitlement on display. Descriptions of some of the meetings confirm what Hartford city hall insiders say. Bronin is a bit of a screamer. Where could the former Malloy legal counsel have acquired that habit?

Two weeks after decrying politics in judicial nominations, allies of Chief Justice nominee Andrew McDonald are deploying political campaign tactics to heave the beleaguered nominee across the finish line. Republican senators were the target of automated phone calls alleging a “far-right conservative conspiracy” to derail the nomination of the associate justice and Governor Dannel P. Malloy ally to the court system’s top spot.

Recipients can have the call forwarded to their state senator to express support for McDonald—or in some cases their opposition to his nomination. No mention is made of overwhelming Republican support of McDonald’s nomination to the court in 2013 or the decisions that have eroded his support in the ensuing five years. Republican senators are providing that information.

The calls are funded by True Justice LLC, a lobbying effort organized by Democrat operative John Stafstrom, according to public records. Stafstrom is a McDonald friend and a partner at Pullman & Comley, where McDonald was a partner before becoming Malloy’s legal counsel in 2011. Stamford lawyer Ernest Teitell is also listed as a True Justice contributor. Pullman & Comley has enjoyed a lucrative relationship with state government during the seven years of the Malloy administration. Teitell’s law partner, David Golub, represented state Democrats in their successful attempt to keep secret emails and other documents from Malloy’s 2014 re-election campaign and the murky financial arrangements that assisted it.

The Belnap Street project to champion the McDonald nomination is expected to intensify until the Senate votes later this month. Feminism may continue to take a sabbatical unless victims of McDonald’s bullying while in the legislature and and then the Malloy administration tell their stories.

There is a risk in delaying the McDonald vote. Should one chamber of the legislature reject McDonald’s nomination there may be insufficient time left in this short regular session of the legislature to consider another Malloy nominee. That would leave the position open for the next governor, who could be a Republican, to fill the job.

Arce and the Bronins in happier times.

Arunan Arulampalam will make his 2018 ballot next to slate mate Angel Arce in Tuesday’s Hartford Democratic town committee primary. Town chairman Mark DiBella is also on the slate. Nice company you keep, fellas.

Jenna Carlesso has an update on the curious reluctance of the Arulampalam/Arce/DiBella endorsed slate to distance themselves from the disgraced legislator.

The Courant’s Jon Lender revealed a series of creepy Facebook Messenger texts that the three-term state representative sent to a 16 year old New Britain girl.

Arce was an early and enthusiastic supporter of Luke Bronin’s successful 2015 campaign for mayor.

UPDATE: In an email to Daily Ructions, Arunan Arupalam urges Arce to withdraw.

It’s endorsement season. The herd of candidates seeking high office is large and busy. Each aspirant is eager–sometimes proud, too–to share the unveiling of supporters. Jonathan Harris this week released a list of 59 supporters of his long-shot bid for governor. Here is a link to his news site.  Candidates and campaign staffers, this is how it’s done. It’s organized and logical. It is not burdened with a sea of repetitious quotes in an island of information. It is in your interest to follow this model.

Gubernatorial hopeful David Stemerman joined Dennis House Thursday for his first television interview. The Greenwich Republican’s appearance on WFSB’s Face the State public affairs program continues an increase in campaign activity after the career investor shutdown his Connecticut business at the end of 2017 to run for governor.

Stemerman made a splash last fall when he funded his campaign start-up with $1.8 million of his own money. He’s recently been making the rounds of town committees but has not yet appeared at party-organized forums.

Face the State is broadcast Sunday at 11 a.m. and is available online.