House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora (R-North Haven) Tuesday appointed Hartford area lawyer Herman Woodard as a member of the Public Defender Services Commission. Woodard, a Republican, replaces former state Representative William Dyson, a new Haven Democrat whose term expired soon September 30th. Woodard’s appointment is effective immediately.
Woodard, a popular defense attorney, joins the commission as months of tumult continue to rack the vital state agency. All commission members but Dyson resigned in April after an attorney for Chief Public Defender TaShun Bowden Lewis accused them of creating a pretext for discrimination by declining to act on her recommendations for promotions. Relations with new board members have been more contentious as members continue to stand their ground in support of frontline lawyers and agency administrators.
The commission meets today for what may be an extended executive session to discuss personnel matters.
Read and subscribe to Now You Know–The Cultural Lives of Others, a free Substack newsletter. The current edition’s guest is CNBC senior producer Katie Kramer. She never knows a dull day.
December 5, 2023Comments Off on Candelora appoints Herman Woodard to Public Defender Services Commission, replacing Bill Dyson.
University of Connecticut President Radenka Maric must have been ill-prepared for her October meeting with Governor Ned Lamont to discuss the future of Farmington-based UConn Health. On October 26th, Maric, Board of Trustees Chair Daniel Toscano, Trustee and UConn Health Board of Directors Chair Sanford Cloud and UConn Health Interim CEO Bruce T. Laing signed a letter acknowledging Lamont’s interest in “issuing an RFI or RFP to explore alternative option for the clinical enterprise at UConn Health.” The letter then dives into a long explanation on why Lamont would be wrong to proceed, raising points she ought to have fluently made at the meeting.
The quartet told Lamont, “We are extremely concerned that if any responses include selling the clinical enterprise [the hospital], the two schools’ [medical and dental] accreditation–and therefore their ability to continue to operate–could be in considerable jeopardy.” This is the last resort nonsense argument. Harvard Medical School, like many medical schools, does not own or operate a hospital and is in no jeopardy of losing its accreditation. The world renown school has, according to its website, “agreements with 15 clinical affiliates and research institutes, vital partners that provide patient care and clinical training.”
UConn Health remains a costly drain on state finances. That’s why earlier this year Lamont publicly asked State Comptroller Sean Scanlon to explore options for the hospital’s future without annual bailouts from taxpayers. Maric’s letter inadvertently emphasized in bold the hospital’s continuing financial troubles. It claims UConn’s 10-year financial forecast predicts state support will decline to $105.4 million in 2033. By its own estimate, UConn Health will require more than $1 billion in taxpayer support in the next decade. The letter omits Lamont’s support for the state to take on UConn and UConn Health’s pension and retiree benefit costs.
Maric and company “question the need to issue a broad RFP or RFI, particularly because, as you know, we fear this will cause significant damage to UConn Health including its schools, its reputation, and most importantly, retention and recruitment of the best and brightest faculty, staff and students, many of whom build their lives and careers in Connecticut.” Maric, a scientist and UConn’s former vice president for research, innovation and entrepreneurship, favors sclerosis.
Maric, Toscano, Cloud and Laing may have had only a flash of alarm over Lamont’s plans to seek options and ideas. The day before the letter was sent to him, UConn’s Board of Trustees met. There is no mention of the issue on the agenda or in the draft of minutes to be adopted at December 7th’s meeting. Those minutes state under UConn Health activities, “There was no Report on Committee activities.”
The agenda for the December 7th trustees meeting lists the monthly item on UConn Health activities, but no attachments of information for trustees and the public.
October’s draft minutes include a reference to an executive session–and a dodgy justification for secrecy. It states the reason for the closed meeting was “Preliminary drafts or notes provided the public agency has determined that the public interest in withholding such documents clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure.” To retreat into an executive session to discuss the draft of a letter would be an extraordinary abuse of the law by a public university. UConn’s trustees and its powerful bureaucracy would know that.
Nearly three weeks after requesting a copy of the October 26th letter to Governor Lamont, UConn had not provided a copy of it as of publication of this story. Daily Ructions obtained it by other means.
Read and subscribe to Now You Know–The Cultural Lives of Others, a free Substack newsletter. The current edition’s guest is CNBC senior producer Katie Kramer. She never knows a dull day.
December 5, 2023Comments Off on UConn’s Maric lectures Lamont on future of UConn Health as Governor searches for financial relief from annual deficits. Scientist predicts apocalypse in Farmington.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who died yesterday at the age of 100, was long a friend of the Connecticut Republican party organization. Dr. Kissinger, who lived much of each year in Kent, was mentioned as a possible U.S. Senate candidate in 1979 though nothing came of the speculation.
I remember the evening not for the speech but for what came before it that night. Before Dr. Kissinger spoke, Jonathan Bush, George H. W. Bush’s youngest brother, also who lived in CT, took the podium and directed the audience to a page or insert in their programs. There we would find the lyrics to “George Bush for President” to be sung to the tune of Irving Berlin’s timeless “God Bless America.”
There’s a reason we honor great lyricists. It is a rare talent. Berlin is one of the few (along with Cole Porter) 20th century American songbook legends who wrote both music and lyrics. He had not provided the substitute lyrics that night.
Jonathan Bush had enjoyed several ultimately disappointing years as a Broadway chorus boy after a stint in the military but before a successful career in finance. He answered the call of the greasepaint that night. I remember it well.
I was a candidate that year and full of enthusiasm for politics. Though young, I also possessed a well-developed instinct for an uncomfortable moment. As soon as I saw those godawful lyrics, I knew I was witnessing a terrible idea unfold. I paid no attention to Jonathan Bush as he belted out the terrible lyrics to the Irving Berlin chest-sweller made famous by Kate Smith. Bush strained to convince the audience to join in.
Through more than one chorus, my eyes did not leave the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate as he stood and looked out at the audience. His lips did not move, and neither did the rest of his stony face, as I imaged he contemplated in horror the demands of politics.
Read and Subscribe to Now You Know–The Cultural Lives of Others, a Substack newsletter. This week’s guest is CNBC Squawk Box senior producer Katie Kramer. She delivers the goods.
November 30, 2023Comments Off on Dr. Kissinger came to Hartford and refused to sing.
A puny 636 vote win in his 2022 re-election campaign marked state Senator Tony Hwang as a tempting 2024 target for Democrats in the 28th District. Hwang, seeking his 5th term last year, defeated district newcomer Timothy Gavin by just over 1% of the vote. Hwang’s close call continued a trend of once Republican suburbs across the nation becoming reliably Democratic.
Fairfield County, once the powerhouse region of Republican fundraising and victories, has witnessed a clear-out of Republican officeholders. Hwang, whose hometown of Fairfield was the scene of a November 5th Republican drubbing, could be next.
Democrat Rob Blanchard can read augurs as well as anyone. The former Middletown council member won a seat on Fairfield’s Representative Town Meeting this month and is being urged to take on Hwang next year, Daily Ructions has learned. Blanchard, 35, has a Democratic pedigree that ought to allow him to draw on resources not available to other first-time legislative candidates. He was a top aide to former state Senator Ted Kennedy when he considered a 2018 run for governor. Blanchard served as a close advisor to Governor Ned Lamont in his 2018 campaign and during his first term as governor. He now serves as Comptroller Sean Scanlon’s chief of staff and Assistant Comptroller.
Hwang’s 2022 opponent, Gavin, had lived in the district, which includes Fairfield, Bethel, Easton and Newtown, for just six months when he nearly tipped over the incumbent. A presidential election year–such as 2024–will likely see a surge in Democrats who did not vote in 2022 casting ballots. They are not ticket splitters.
Blanchard would bring a skill to the race that Hwang has not confronted before. The Philadelphia native and Syracuse University graduate is a skilled practitioner of the takedown without fingerprints.
November 28, 2023Comments Off on Blanchard mulls race to unseat Hwang in 28th Senate District. Incumbent Republican presents tempting target after Fairfield Democrats sweep local elections.
A big day for Plan Bs in state government. The Lamont-Bysiewicz administration, after a holiday weekend of lobbying, appeared to recognize Monday that it did not have eight votes on the legislature’s Regulations Review Committee to adopt comprehensive Electric Vehicle regulations proposed by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).
After days of scrambling and sweet-talking committee members, Monday did not bring a breakthrough in committee support. The administration is expected to withdraw the regulations and pass on a vote that would have brought a high-profile defeat of the administration by a legislature his party controls.
Prudence has scored a win over pointless defiance. The public retreat will serve notice on Governor Ned Lamont that DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes may have become more of a burden than an asset in steering environmental and energy policy through the General Assembly and into law.
November 27, 2023Comments Off on EV regulations expected to be withdrawn as intense maneuvering fails to move votes for Lamont administration’s EV regulations on eve of committee meeting.
The state legislature’s bipartisan Regulations Review Committee will meet Tuesday to discuss and vote on controversial regulations that set the state on a path to banning the sale of gasoline powered vehicles by 2035. Interested parties in support and opposition to the rules predict the new rules will bring a catastrophe whether they are adopted, rejected or deferred. The phase-in of the mandatory switch to electric vehicles would begin in 2026.
The rhetoric continued to add to climate change during the holiday weekend. Veteran state Representative Bob Godfrey (D-Danbury), a member of the committee, told recipients of a message he sent that the Koch brothers are behind Republican opposition to the regulations. Republicans deny the allegation.
The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) sent the proposed regulations to the committee with an ominous threat to committee members. “In addition to the public health impacts of Connecticut’s continued noncompliance with federal health-based air quality standards,” the memo states, “continued failure to meet these standards complete DEEP to impose ever more stringent and costly emission reduction requirements on stationary source owners and operators.” This could also become a disruptive policy for state businesses.
The committee has seven Republicans and seven Democrats. The co-chairs are House Democrat Lucy Dathan and Senate Republican John Kissel. If the committee rejects the proposed regulations they will go before the General Assembly in the next regular session, which begins in February. Some legislators may be reluctant to vote on a measure that begins to squeeze the sale of gas powered vehicles in two years.
The push was on Sunday afternoon to boost attendance at Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz’s November 29th PAC event. The Bysiewicz invitation includes a list of Democrats who will join the three-time gubernatorial hopeful Wednesday to raise money for her Power of Women PAC at a Glastonbury winery.
The PAC had $46,000 on hand as of October 29th, according to its most recent campaign finance report. The committee has raised $124,000 since it was formed earlier this year. Bysiewicz was once an advocate of limiting the influence of special interests through the proliferation of political action committees. The Middletown Democrat was also critical of Governor Ned Lamont’s lavish self-financing of his 2018 campaign for governor—until she abandoned her bid to become Lamont’s running mate.
For something different, read and sign up for a free subscription to the current edition of Now You Know—The Cultural Lives of Others, a Substack newsletter. This week’s guest is powerful New Haven Democrat Vincent Mauro. He is not a co-sponsor of the Bysiewicz event.
November 26, 2023Comments Off on Luxenberg returns after DUI arrest for Wednesday Bysiewicz PAC event—at a winery.
The popular BBC television program That Was The Week That Was scrapped its programming for Saturday, November 23, 1963, and created a tribute to John F. Kennedy. The most memorable part of it was this song, The Summer of His Years, Herb Kretzmer wrote the lyrics, and David Lee composed the lyrics. The remarkable Millicent Martin–who lives in today in Los Angeles–learned the song and performed it that Saturday night.
Mahalia Jackson and Connie Francis were among the American singers who recorded versions of “The Summer of His Years.” No version was met with a universal welcome. How to mourn and pay tribute to our martyred president in popular culture was a challenge.
Judy Garland was in the midst of her one-season television show on CBS. Garland had been a friend and active supporter of JFK. She wanted to devote an episode of her hourlong show to patriotic songs to her fallen friend. CBS executives, a tough lot even for television, vetoed the idea, insisting the nation would soon forget about the assassination. The determined Garland inserted her own tribute into the conclusion of an episode–omitting it from written running order that was submitted to the network suits. Her instincts did not fail her.
Read and subscribe to Now You Know–The Cultural Lives of Others. It’s free. This week’s guest is political polymath Vincent Mauro–chief of staff at the Senate Democrats caucus (until December 15th) and chairman of the New Haven Democratic organization.
November 22, 2023Comments Off on In the Summer of His Years. A British Tribute to JFK 60 Years Ago.
Leaders of the Connecticut Public Defender Attorneys Union, represented by AFSCME Local 381, are disappointed by our Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Mr. Daryl McGraw’s, degradation of women through a public Facebook post.
We do not condone demeaning actions or communications towards any marginalized groups. It is unacceptable for anyone, and especially someone with Mr. McGraw’s title, to say things that perpetuate any of these victimizations.
The union supports a DEI program. We understand that the Division of Public Defender Services must work to eradicate such behavior within our own agency. However, we cannot accept the head of the DEI program, the person who is supposed to guide us through this process, engaging in such behavior himself.
We demand his immediate resignation.
Leaders of the Connecticut Public Defender Attorneys Union called for the resignation of Daryl McGraw, the Division of Public Defender Services Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, for a misogynist post he put on his Facebook page. Union leaders condemned the post’s “degradation of women.”
Daily Ructions broke the story Wednesday morning. Before noon, McGraw sent a response by email to agency colleagues. It ignited a storm of replies. McGraw wrote, in part, “I became aware that the post, initially shared on my personal page, had an unintended impact within our division, leading to some people being upset. I deeply regret any discomfort this may have caused, especially to those who felt affected.”
Public defenders and others in the agency wondered what impact other than alarm and dismay McGraw thought his post would have on others who saw it.
McGraw’s graphic on his post declared that “Grown women want to…get bent over the balconies,” holding out the prospect of stepping up one’s game. The controversy adds to the tumult that has racked the agency this year under the leadership of Chief Public Defender TaShun Bowden Lewis.
Read and subscribe to Now You Know–The Cultural Lives of Others. This week’s guest is popular WVIT meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan. Learn what he does with his brains.
November 15, 2023Comments Off on Public Defenders union calls for resignation of DEI director over “degradation of women” Facebook post.
