Robert Kennedy led the tributes to President Kennedy at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. The evening was scheduled for a night after delegates nominated Lyndon Johnson. Johnson feared RFK’s appearance on the podium would cause delegates to nominate the martyred president’s brother if they had not yet picked their nominee. Johnson’s fear of Robert Kennedy would distort the Texan’s administration until Kennedy was assassinated nearly four years later.

Published August 27, 2022.

Governor Ned Lamont may doubt his own polls. The Greenwich Democrat’s internal polls, Daily Ructions has learned, find him enjoying a wide lead over Republican Bob Stefanowski in their rematch. Lamont’s Thursday tweet from his campaign account, posted above, was unusually harsh.

Lamont has spent millions from his fourth generation family fortune cultivating an image as a nice guy in touch with everyday life. (The frequent use of the word “folks” is often a sign of a public plutocrat straining to seem ordinary.) It’s unusual for Nasty Ned to show his public face.

Stefanowski may have prompted Lamont’s disproportionate response by highlighting the federal criminal investigation of the State Pier project in New London and its escalating costs. Stefanowski called the increasing price tag of for the redevelopment of the State pier into “a state-of-the-art heavy-lift capable port facility” part of a “corruption tax” that the Madison Republican intends to talk more about in the final two months of the campaign.

The cost of the New London project has increased from $93 million to $255 million with little more than shrugs from state officials. The Day’s David Collins reported recently that federal law enforcement authorities have subpoenaed six years of Connecticut Port Authority records. The port authority has been a persistent headache for Lamont. He appointed his then-deputy budget director, Kostantinos Diamantis, to oversee the project in 2019. It was, Lamont declared, “up to Kosta to deliver the goods.” Diamantis, whose name Lamont will not say, departed from the administration last October. Federal criminal law enforcement authorities have also sought documents related to him.

Lamont now and then allows his penchant for displays of petulance slip into public view. The abandonment of discipline is never good. A governor confident in his record and the campaign he’s running this year, does not need to revive the “PayDay Bob” theme from 2018. Ned Lamont is not built to complain about how other people made their money. This is the provenance of surrogates and mouthpieces.

Stefanowski made his fortune made his fortune in the grimy world of payday loans. We know that. It’s one reason Lamont won a 3% victory over Stefanowski on his third try for statewide office. It’s imprudent of Lamont to invite the origins of his and Stefanowski’s wealth to occupy the campaign’s centerstage. The founder of the Lamont family fortune, Thomas Lamont, was a world famous financier who bankrolled Benito Mussolini’s fascist government. Thomas Lamont, according to acclaimed historian Ron Chernow, was Mussolini’s “accomplice.” Lamont, Chernow discovered in his research, advised “Benito Mussolini to liken his invasion of Ethiopia to the heartwarming settlement of the American West.”

This seems like an imprudent path for Lamont to trod. Scrutiny of the accumulation of great wealth always tells a tale the beneficiaries of a fortune would rather remain vague. It’s not how Thomas Lamont’s most notable descendant should want to spend the next 10 weeks.

Published August 26, 2022.

Melissa McCaw, Governor Ned Lamont’s former budget chief, will teach a class in budgeting at the University of Connecticut. McCaw served as Secretary of the Office of Policy and Management from January 2019 until she resigned in February to become head of finance for East Hartford.

McCaw will teach Public Finance and Budgeting to Master of Public Administration Fellows on five Saturdays between October 22nd and December 3rd at UConn’s Hartford branch.

At OPM, McCaw presided over two programs, school construction and the State Pier project, that are the subject of federal criminal investigations.

McCaw’s friend and colleague Kostantinos Diamantis expressed interest in the MPA Fellows program, according to an April 22, 2021, email the sent to Mohamad Alkrady, Director of the School of Public Policy. Diamantis told Alkadry that he was not the only Diamantis interested in the MPA program. “Also my daughter who is EA to Chief States Attorney is also interested I added her to this email.” [sic]

Anastasia Diamantis is no longer an executive assistant to the Chief State’s Attorney. Richard Colangelo retired as Chief State’s Attorney after coming under fire in an independent investigation of his hiring of Ms. Diamantis in 2020. Kostantinos Diamantis was suspended from OPM and retired from his position as head of the state’s school construction financing program in 2021. He has attempted to rescind his retirement.

Published August 25, 2022.

Former state Senator Alex Kasser’s divorce action against husband Seth Bergstein grows odder and odder. Kasser claimed in a July 8th motion that her same-sex relationship that began when her partner was Kasser’s subordinate caused the Democrat to be shunned in her hometown of Greenwich.

Kasser claims in the court document, “As a result of Defendant’s (Bergstein) defamation and public gay-shaming, the Plaintiff and her partner were shunned in their hometown and eventually had to leave and move out of state just to get away from the distress and damage Defendant has caused.”

A brief chronology of the personal drama Kasser frequently shoved into the public arena shows the opposite of her claim. The Greenwich Democrat, elected in 2018, announced in May 2019, the first year of her first term, that she’d “found purpose as a public servant and love with a partner who respects and supports me, I feel fulfilled and free.”

Kasser filed for a divorce from Bergstein shortly after the 2018 election. She she announced in 2020 she had changed her name from Bergstein to Kasser. Kasser transformed the personal into the political by proclaiming the misery she had endured what she has repeatedly characterized as an abusive marriage.

But Kasser’s community did not shun her. It re-elected her to a second term in 2020. The first Democrat to represent the Greenwich-centered district in 88 years more than doubled her margin of victory in 2020. Kasser was embraced, not ostracized. The former Connecticut resident defames the people she represented by accusing them of shunning her because she publicly rejoiced in her same-sex relationship with a subordinate.

Kasser resigned her seat in the state Senate in June 2021, six months into her two-year term. She wrote, “I can no longer live or work in Greenwich as it is loaded with memories of the 20 years I spent raising my children here.” Kasser continued, “Because of the enormous time and energy this consumes, I can no longer serve my constituents to my fullest ability.” Kasser made no mention of the community shunning her—because it had not.

Kasser’s motion also asks that Bergstein “be barred from bringing the adult Bergstein children into this divorce proceeding, through motions or at trial.” Adult children, however, may possess relevant knowledge of the truth of Kasser’s myriad claims against Bergstein and may be able to provide credible testimony in the high stakes dissolution of the wealthy couple. The three Bergstein children, who Kasser claims her husband has turned against her, may be as estranged from their mother as she claims. That does not disqualify them as witnesses to the ugly allegations Kasser continues to hurl at Bergstein.

In an August 8th motion, Kasser seeks a court order allowing her to withdraw from a frozen joint account “$2 million as reimbursement for attorney’s fees and expenses since January 7, 2019.”

The 17-day trial is scheduled to begin October 25th and conclude December 6th.

Published August 24, 2022.

Republicans Jessica Kordas and Mary Fay are each scrambling to meet the Citizen Elections Program’s August 29th at 5 p.m. deadline to qualify for the full $968,000 taxpayer-financed campaign funding bonanza. Kordas, the party’s nominee for attorney general, and Fay, its candidate for comptroller will need to submit and application with a minimum of $86,600 in qualifying contributions.

In her July campaign finance report, Kordas, a Norwalk lawyer, reported receiving $54,260 in contributions and $1,240 cash on hand. Fay, a West Hartford town council member, raised only $20,000 as of June 30th. Kordas’s own efforts with a collective push by party leaders ought to get her over the line with a cushion by Monday. Fay may be more of a challenge for a party that has come to rely on wealthy candidates to finance their own campaigns. The universe of reliable Republican donors in Connecticut has shriveled since Jodi Rell raised more than $6 million in her 2006 landslide re-election campaign.

After Monday at 5 p.m., applications submitted by major party candidates seeking statewide office come with less money. Between August 30th and September 12th, the wire transfer from the state to the candidate’s campaign committee bank account is reduced by 25% to $726,187.50. The money paid to the candidate continues to decrease every two weeks until the final deadline on October 14th.

Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat seeking a second term, and Sean Scanlon, the Democratic nominee for comptroller, have qualified for public funds.

Published August 23, 2022.

Three Lamont administration commissioners have asked the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) to release more water from its Colebrook reservoir into the Farmington River. Failing to do so is “environmentally irresponsible,” claimed David Lehman of the Department of Economic and Community Development, Katherine Dykes of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and Brian Hurlburt of the Department of Agriculture.

“The Farmington is one of the only major rivers in Connecticut that hosts a robust, naturally reproducing wild trout population. Boating/fishing is the largest contributing sector to Connecticut’s $3.3 billion outdoor recreation economy. Current flows are approximately half of median levels and do not support these recreation opportunities during the peak summer tourism season,” the trio of commissioners wrote in an August 8th letter to MDC CEO Scott W. Jellison. The commissioners declined to included the word “drought” in their bossy missive. The letter was copied to Governor Ned Lamont.

Jellison pointed out in an email reply to the commissioners and others that the quasi-public agency that provides water to towns in greater Hartford has been meeting its required releases into the river during the drought. It has been releasing between as much as 128 million gallons a day into the Farmington River. With the 2019 expiration of MDC’s agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers, the water supplier no longer has access to a significant source of water in the Colebrook damns and reservoirs.

The MDC, Jellison informed the commissioners, has a storage allocation in Colebrook of 3.5 billion gallons. It has been drawn down to 1.4 million gallons. That water is “ potential emergency drinking water” as well as essential to aquatic life in the reservoir.

Jellison artfully pointed out in his reply that the commissioners ought to know that Dykes possesses the authority to request the Army Corps of Engineers to release more water from the 10 billion gallons under its control in the Colebrook reservoir system. Significant releases from the Army Corps would help the fish but do not enough to allow “for recreational canoeing, kayaks and tubing for very long.”

Published August 19, 2022.

Daily Ructions is pleased to include among its diverse readership people involved in all aspects of political campaigns, including candidates. There are times when politicians require a reminder to behave in a manner most of us view as instinctual. For those lacking in basic grace, pay attention as a lesson begins.

When you, a candidate, has won your contest, you should expect to receive a call of congratulations from the loser. Perhaps the vanquished will pay a visit to your headquarters to deliver those good wishes in person if logistics, aides, and the spirit allow.

Assuming congratulations are offered by phone, let the disappointed candidate speak. If you cannot refrain from interrupting, do so only to offer your thanks. Do not interrupt a few syllables into his or her real or feigned good wishes to commence a harangue fueled by petty slights. Do not, and there is no room for negotiating on this rule of civilized behavior in a democracy, announce the loser never should have been a candidate in the first place or ought to have dropped out to make way for you.

If a victorious candidate engages in such ill-mannered behavior, the losing candidate may not get to the crucial congratulations stage of the conversation. The well-wisher with curdle good intentions may withdraw his or her incomplete felicitations, hurl a vulgarity at the winner, and terminate the call.

The bitter winner is never attractive. To stoke bad feelings at the conclusion of a primary campaign seems especially foolish since the winner will require unity and goodwill. Arguing over the recently concluded past is not the way to achieve it. Civilization preserves and advances itself through these small acts.

Published August 12, 2022.

State Representative Rosa Rebimbas won 58% of the vote in Tuesday’s Republican primary for judge of probate in Tuesday’s primary. She defeated incumbent Peter Mariano by more than 400 votes in the four-town district.

Mariano was arrested three times last year for driving under the influence and twice for driving while his license was suspended. Video recordings revealed that Mariano repeatedly tried to avoid arrest by reciting his connections to Naugatuck’s police chief and deputy chief. The five-term incumbent chose to primary Rebimbas after he lost the party’s endorsement at a May nominating convention.

Democratic delegates nominated Mariano at their convention–after the Republican served four days in jail. The Democratic nomination assured Mariano a spot in the November general election. He would have been unopposed if he’d defeated Rebimbas on Tuesday.

Beacon Falls, Middlebury, Naugatuck and Prospect comprise the probate district.

Published August 10, 2022.

Faulkner would have struggled to describe the heat of this August Tuesday. Poll workers might be able to help. Spare a thought for the poll workers who are at the frontlines of democracy across the state. Many are checking in voters, handing out ballots, and keeping watch over voting machines in buildings without air-conditioning.

Poll workers are at their stations at 5:15 a.m. and many remain after voting concludes at 8 p.m. They ought to be able to perform their essential tasks in buildings that are more hospitable on a day when the temperature reaches nearly 100 degrees.

Published August 9, 2022.

Republican Mary Fay, the party’s candidate for State Comptroller, issued a terse statement Monday afternoon. The West Hartford town council member has not endorsed Themis Klarides in Tuesday’s U.S. Senate primary.

Fay has not endorsed a candidate in what has become an intense contest between Klarides and Greenwich Republican Leora Levy. She appeared to be gaining ground on party-endorsed Klarides for several weeks. Levy’s sharp turn to the right was magnified when she sprang a rambling, grievance-laden endorsement from Donald Trump on party voters Thursday night. The brief ode to Levy was surrounded by unhinged rants about Blumenthal and Republicans who have won elections.

The Klarides campaign, which has struggled to organize itself and present a substantive message, was not prepared for the Trump intervention. It has turned to social media and paid texts to unleash a torrent of endorsements by Republicans in elected office, including one purporting to be from Faye.

Fay, who is in a race to qualify for public financing of her campaign, understands there is nothing to be gained by inserting herself into the Senate campaign between Klarides and Levy.

Fay faces state Representative Sean Scanlon in November. Scanlon is the executive director of Tweed New Haven Airport, one of the great prizes of the state’s political hackarama. No job posting, no competition, just have the right friends.

Published August 8, 2022.