Bloomfield’s fractious local politics continues. On Wednesday, Democratic Registrar of Voters Troy Mitchell announced his campaign for a full term with an e-mail and attached “a resume of accomplishments.” The long list was written on Town of Bloomfield stationary. Mitchell’s email was sent from his Bloomfield town government account. A registrar ought to know better.

Registrars are called upon to understand and apply detailed election laws. Mitchell has struggled to grasp those rules. A Superior Court judge overturned Mitchell’s arbitrary decision to reject primary petitions from a Democratic Town Committee challenge slate earlier this year. All the challengers were elected in a court-ordered April primary.

Here is Mitchell’s email:

Sent: Wed, May 11, 2022 2:06 pm
Subject: BDTC endorsement of current Registrar of Voters (ROV) remaining in serving as ROV 

Fellow neighbors and members of the Bloomfield Democratic Town committee (BDTC) as the Registrar of Voters (ROV)/Elections administrator of Bloomfield I am seeking the endorsement of the entire BDTC to continue my productive and impactful service for the neighbors/electors of Bloomfield as the ROV. (see attached resume of accomplishments)

 My financial advisory, fiduciary, trustee, and adult education financial instructor service and expertise has provided me the skillset, integrity, and operational aptitude to continue to propel the Bloomfield ROV office to greater heights of efficiency and effectiveness. I’m thankful and proud of my service thus far.  
to continue serving Bloomfield as the ROV, there’s a lot more to do!  I look forward to a “Better Bloomfield” endorsing me to continue as ROV!  

Peace, Grace & Impactful Service!
Troy Mitchell Democratic Registrar of Voters. Town of Bloomfield. 800 Bloomfield, CT 06002 860-769-3540 

PRIVILEGE AND CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE
The information in this electronic mail is intended for the addressed recipient(s) only. This email may contain privileged and confidential material from the Office of the Registrar of Voters Town of Bloomfield, CT. If you are not the intended recipient, please be advised that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information may be prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately by replying to this email or by telephone (860)769-3540. Thank you!

Published May 11, 2022.

Less than two weeks after formally declaring his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for secretary of the state, Matthew Lesser has abandoned the race. Lesser had been maintaining the fiction of an exploratory campaign for statewide office until April 28th. As last weekend’s state nominating convention approached, Lesser stood near a Hartford street corner and announced he was running for the office that has been held by three-term Democrat Denise Merrill, who announced last year should would not seek re-election.

Lesser’s maneuvering to change convention balloting order rules last week allowed a considerable army of detractors to unite in public to thwart him. When balloting for secretary of the state began on Saturday afternoon, the Middletown Democrat’s support had collapsed so completely that he did not receive the unanimous support of Middletown delegates. He never came close to overtaking state Representative Stephanie Thomas. Lesser battled with Meriden’s Hilda Santiago for a distant second place.

As the second ballot delegate switches began, Lesser was reduced to accepting some pity votes from the surging Thomas camp to insure Lesser made it into the two-candidate final ballot where he was swiftly ground to dust by the Norwalk Democrat. Lesser invoked a mercy rule and withdrew from the final ballot as Thomas broke into an early and decisive lead.

Through it all, Lesser promised supporters he would take his campaign into an August primary. Instead, Lesser decided Monday to give up his campaign for secretary of the state and seek a third term in the Senate. He’ll face Rocky Hill’s popular Republican mayor, Lisa Marotta, in November.

Published May 9, 2022.

New Haven Democrat Karen DuBois-Walton is the first candidate from the Saturday’s state nominating convention to announce that she will force an August primary for state treasurer. DuBois-Walton received about a quarter of the delegates’s votes on the first and only ballot for the open seat.

DuBois-Walton will face party-endorsed choice Erick Russell, also a New Haven Democrat. Russell came close to a majority on the first ballot. DuBois-Walton and Greenwich Democrat Dita Bhargava agreed not to proceed to a second ballot, allowing Russell to become the endorsed candidate after mounting an impressive four-week campaign.

Walton-DuBois wrote to supporters Monday, “With your help, we can build a Connecticut that works for all of us.” Governor Ned Lamont will try to make the case to the same voters that he has achieved that goal in his first term.

Bhargava, who ran unsuccessfully for the party’s nomination is 2018 primary against Shawn Wooden, had made no announcement as of Monday afternoon.

Published May 9, 2022.

Probate Judge Peter Mariano is due in a Waterbury courtroom Monday morning. Mariano, according to the Waterbury Republican-American is expected to enter pleas on three driving under the influence and two driving under suspension charges. Mariano declined to say how he will plead to the 2021 charges.

Mariano, a Republican, is seeking a sixth four-year term and will ask delegates from Beacon Falls, Middlebury, Naugatuck, and Prospect to endorse him on May 18th. He faces state Representative Rosa Rebimbas at that convention.

Mariano has applied to have his license to practice law restored.

Published May 9, 2022.

The Connecticut State Police will need considerable resources to solve a disturbing mystery in their midst. Scott DeVico, a $130,000 a year executive assistant in the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP), sent an email with “Inbred Jews” in the subject line. A mysteriously aggressive and malicious autocorrect is being blamed.

A Jewish employee of DESPP became aware of the email and was appropriately alarmed at its hateful language. A complaint followed after the employee was not able to get any DESPP official to address the offensive language.

Daily Ructions on Friday morning contacted Brain Foley, DESSPP spokesman and close associate of Commissioner James Rovella. Foley said the department is aware of the issue and explained DeVico claims he was sending an email regarding an upcoming job interview. His email program’s autocorrect changed “Interview” to “Inbred Jews” in the subject line. DeVico did not notice the autocorrect intervention while writing the email he sent to two others at DESPP.

A request for documents Friday morning brought this response from Foley:

Kevin; thank you for your request and we are aware of the documents you were asking for. The incident and documents you are requesting are a part of an active investigation.

To summarize, the executive assistant sent an email pertaining to an upcoming candidate interview. The recipients were our Equal Opportunities Officer and a CSP Lieutenant Colonel. While the body of the email was entirely related to the interview, the subject line read “Inbred Jews”

When a recipient notified the exec assistant of the language, the exec assistant immediately said it must have been an auto-correct and apologized by phone and email to both recipients. 

The executive assistant notified the commissioner of the email and also requested an IT review to determine its cause and to prevent any reoccurrence. 

Regardless of source, we are aware of how painful and frightening these words can be. As a result, and at the request of the employee who sent the email as well as the order of the commissioner, we have initiated an investigation. We have also reached out to the Greater Hartford Jewish Federation as well as the ADL to make them aware of the incident and investigation. 

Our legal affairs unit will forward your documents as they become available. 

The employee who complained about the offending language tells a fuller story in his complaint. That should be acted on with more than an IT review.

The story continues. While we await more information, go to your email program and type in “interview” and as many variations as you can manage and watch for autocorrect interventions.

Published May 6, 2022.

Convention delegates are muting their phones in reaction to a stream of brutal texts. Themis Klarides was on the griddle Thursday night. The Republican U.S. Senate hopeful came in for a shelling on hundreds of mobile phone screens.

Delegates received a text of uncertain origins accusing Klarides of breaching every contemporary Republican shibboleth. The harsh message is built on a flimsy foundation: It assumes Klarides possesses firm beliefs in anything other than politics as a vanity production garnished by the platitudes of the moment.

The text, pictured above, raises Klarides’s ties to widely disliked utility, Eversource, through her recent marriage to one of the company’s top executive. The risk of an Eversource jolt for Republicans during the campaign looms large for delegates who understand the weapon their party may hand to Democrats. Connecticut’s businesses and families continue to pay the highest electricity rates in the continental United States. Klarides and her advisers will continue to hope no one requests and obtains her late summer 2020 texts and emails on state energy policy. The August primary campaign could short circuit if any of Klarides’s House Republican colleagues did not maintain the Klarides era practice of destroying public records by quickly deleting them.

One question for a Senate debate: Who did Klarides allow on those House Republican leadership calls? The convention campaign texts may begin to look mild.

Published May 5, 2022.

Former state Senator Ed Marcus, who broke the iron grip of party bosses on the state legislature, died Thursday morning. He was a candidate in the state’s first year of primaries and served as Democratic party chairman from 1992 to 2002.

Marcus was elected to the Senate from New Haven in the Democratic landslide of 1958. When he became the Senate Majority Leader in the late 1960s, Marcus successfully challenged state and national party chairman John M. Bailey’s control over legislative patronage. The contentious move, according to Bruce Rubenstein, Marcus’s colleague in party politics, allowed the legislature to become a professional and equal branch of government.

Bailey was not pleased. The party boss opposed Marcus’s 1970 bid for the U.S. Senate. That was the first year of party primaries in the state. A candidate needed to win 20% at their party’s convention to qualify for a primary. There was no provision for collecting signatures to be included on the party contest ballot.

Marcus placed third at the Democratic convention, behind the endorsed candidate, Stamford zipper manufacturer Alphonse Donahue, and anti-Vietnam war candidate Reverend Joseph Duffey. Marcus was third in the primary as well. A quirk in the state’s new primary law set the date for statewide and congressional primaries before legislative ones. Marcus was able to seek re-election to the Senate but faced a primary from Joseph Lieberman, also a New Haven Democrat.

Bailey wanted to grind Marcus into dust and on that primary day he did. An army of state employees reported to New Haven that day and helped Lieberman defeat Marcus.

Denied public office, Marcus nevertheless kept his hand in the game. He became state party chairman in 1992. In 1994, he made news by declaring there were too many Jews competing for places on the state ticket. Voters disagreed. Marcus was Jewish.

Marcus maintained a busy law practice in Branford. His political influence was evident in the administration of former Governor Dannel P. Malloy. Marcus convinced Malloy to appoint his daughter, the controversial Shelley Marcus, to a seat on the Superior Court.

Published May 5, 2022.

As endorsements go, it seems vague. Leora Levy rolled out a letter from Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel in the run-up to this weekend’s state party nominating contest.

McDaniel writes that Levy “understands exactly what is at stake for our country during this perilous time as the far-left seeks to wreak havoc on our freedoms and the principles that laid the foundation of our country.” Curiously, McDaniel does not mention that Levy is running for the U.S. Senate.

The intra-party scuffles can bring complications to political relationships. Levy has voted for McDaniel to lead the RNC and boosted her at every opportunity. It might seem churlish for McDaniel not to acknowledge Levy’s role in party affairs as the retired commodity trader strains to gather the support of 15% of state convention delegates.

Levy has been working the phones this week in a final push for delegates, paying particular attention to Republican activists from the 2nd CD.

Delegates are expected to nominate former House Minority Leader Themis K;arides for the race against incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal. Fairfield Republican Peter Lumaj is also in the fight and is seen as winning support from delegates who might otherwise cast their ballots for Levy.

Levy has won the support of several U.S. senators but no state senators.

Published May 5, 2022.

Governor Ned Lamont has been asking around. The Greenwich Democrat is seeking names for a new legal counsel. The inquiries by Lamont suggest the second legal counsel of his first term, Nora Dannehy, may soon leave the administration after little more than a year.

Dannehy is the career federal prosecutor who became a historic corruption buster in 2003 and 2004 as she brought down then-Governor John G. Rowland and members of his administration. Dannehy’s reputation for rectitude may not be the best fit for Lamont as his administration is under a federal criminal corruption investigation involving contract steering. Lamont said he learned of the probe when Dannehy may have mentioned it “in passing.”

Lamont lost his budget director in February. The governor said at the time that Melissa McCaw, whose agency is at the center of the investigation, was seeking a fresh start in East Hartford—a town not often identified with personal renewal—and would serve as its finance director. Lamont favorite Josh Geballe also left the administration early this year. DAS commissioner and COO Geballe had overseen the state’s school construction grants program and made the fatal 2019 decision to transfer it to McCaw’s budget agency in violation of state law. Geballe’s decision meant the head of the program, Konstantinos Diamantis, would receive no meaningful oversight from his friend McCaw.

Suggestions for the legal counsel job may be submitted directly to the governor. Applicants should note that few alumni of Lamont’s office ever mention their experience fondly. We mention that just in passing.

Published May 4, 2022.

The session of the legislature that ends today included an ugly incident of attempted political fratricide by intern research. State Representative Michael Winkler (D-Vernon) assigned his intern (whose name we will not disclose) to dig up some dirt on Democratic House colleague David Arconti.

The intern, as interns will do, took his task seriously and sent a cheerful email to Eversource, the politically influential utility. “I am an intern at the CGA and I was wondering if you could give me any information on a CT Representative by the name of David Arconti,” he wrote to Eversourse investor relations executive Jeffrey Kotkin. “I’m curious to see if Mr.Arconti has ever donated/invested money into Eversource or if he’s ever received campaign funding from eversource. If you could point me in the right direction that would be wonderful, thank you for your time, my phone number is….”

Kotkin forwarded the intern’s message to veteran Eversource in-house lobbyists Peg Morton, Thomas Dorsey, and Daniel Moore. Dorsey forwarded the message to Arconti, who is the co-chair of the legislature’s energy committee, which often seems like a subsidiary of Eversource. Arconti sent it to Franklin Perry, the speaker’s chief of staff.

The February 26th email trail ends there. The intern was reassigned. I asked Winkler what the purpose was of having his intern obtain information on Arconti. Was it an appropriate task for an intern? What did Winkler expect the intern to learn about the legislature by having him ask Eversource if Arconti has invested in the state’s largest utility.

The Vernon Democrat replied, “As part of a research project, an intern was asked to do an on-line search. At no time was a letter requested or needed. All of the necessary information is on-line.” Those non sequiturs did not address the essential questions. When newly elected and re-elected legislators return to Hartford in January, leaders should make it clear that interns are not appropriate instruments for pursuing vendettas or doing down rivals. Whatever nasty beef Winkler had with the mild-mannered Danbury Democrat, the former state employees union official should not have enlisted a college intern to assist in his dirty work.

Neither Arconti nor Winkler is seeking re-election. Arconti declined to discuss the matter.

Published May 4, 2022.