State Senator Paul Formica will not run for re-election, adding to Republican troubles as they try to add to the paltry 13 seats they hold in the 36-member chamber. Formica is serving his fourth term and rose last year to deputy leader of the Republican caucus.

Formica represents the 20th Senate District, which includes all or parts of eight towns on or near the state’s eastern shoreline. Formica, who lives in East Lyme, was uniquely popular in the district that was long held by Democrats.

Published January 25, 2022.

New Haven Democrat Sarah Locke is the new executive director of the state Democratic party organization. Locke is a co-chair of New Haven’s party committee.

Locke gained important experience in the opera company management aspect of politics. She was Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s 2020 campaign manager. DeLauro faced a wealthy self-financing candidate and did not like it at all. Republican Margaret Streicker’s television ads infuriated DeLauro, who was seeking a 16th term and had not faced a vigorous opponent for decades. DeLauro did not like it. Competition in a democracy is for others. Locke was also an enthusiastic supporter of Democrat Christopher Mattei’s bid for the party’s nomination for attorney general.

Locke appears to have come through the 2020 campaign unscathed. That experience will be helpful preparation for the 2022 campaign. President Joe Biden’s plummeting approval ratings has Democratic candidates even in deep blue Connecticut feeling the vapors coming on. That may be why it took so long to find a new party ED.

There will be many demands on finite party resources. Locke’s job will be to deploy them in the most effective way. She’ll have to say no to candidates more often than she says yes, except for the candidate at the top of the ticket.

For the sake of posterity and entertainment, Locke should keep a journal. It is the only was to remember the rich details of what awaits her.

Published January 21, 2022.

The renovated Bob Stefanowski has more than one message as he begins his second campaign for governor. Stefanowski’s 4-minute video is stuffed with special guest turns.

Dorothea of Morris reveals her electric bill is higher than her rent. Energy bills are likely to loom large in the the race for the Republican nomination if former House Minority Leader Themis Klarides remains in the race. Klarides is married to Eversource executive Greg Butler. The giant utility is widely unpopular across the state.

Tara Carr, elected Brookfield’s first selectman in November by defeating a Democratic incumbent, praises Stefanowski for his virtues as a listener. An army veteran who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, Carr served in Afghanistan. If state Republicans are to emerge from the wilderness, they will need leaders like Carr.

The most intriguing appearance is silent. Carolyn Candelora appears in a final shot, behind Stefanowski on the right. She’s the wife of House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, who served as deputy leader when Klarides was the head of the House Republican caucus.

The ancient promise to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse from state programs will not carry Stefanowski through to November–even with a repeated dollop of a forensic audit. The Madison Republican will need some meaningful specifics is he’s to withstand a sustained and withering assault on the airwaves from incumbent Governor Ned Lamont.

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bob Stefanowski has begun a $1 million buy, Daily Ructions can report. Ads will start running Monday as Stefanowski moves to establish himself as the frontrunner for his party’s nomination.

The ads will appear on the panoply of modern advertising platforms. The ads will reintroduce Stefanowski to Connecticut voters. The Madison Republican was defeated for governor in 2018 by Democrat Ned Lamont.

Lamont is seeking a second term and will once more self-fund his fourth statewide campaign.

UPDATE: The buy so far:

•   WFSB: $190,050
•   WTNH: $71,050
•   WVIT: $147,000
•   WUVN (Univision): $18,600
•   WRDM (Telemundo): $32,000

Published and updated on January 20,2022.

State Senator Kevin Witkos will not seek re-election. The seven-term Canton Republican announced Thursday.

Witkos entered politics with a stunning win in 2002 when he defeated eight-term Democratic state Representative Jessie Stratton in their Avon and Canton district. Stratton was mounting a bid to become speaker of the house when Witkos, a popular Canton police officer, defeated her.

Witkos was the deputy Republican leader during the two years Republicans and Democrats each held 18 seats in the Senate.

Democratic and Republican legislative leaders will meet with Governor Ned Lamont Wednesday afternoon to chart a way forward over Lamont’s public health emergency powers. The group will meet by Zoom at 4:30 p.m.

Lamont, mindful of his re-election campaign, wants his emergency powers enacted into law by special acts. A third year of extraordinary authority bestowed upon him by legislative leaders would signal to voters that his success in dealing with the Covid pandemic does not match the gentle narrative portrayed in the governor’s television commercials.

Some legislative leaders may resist the Greenwich Democrat. One faction does not want to extend Lamont’s authority in any manner. Others would prefer not to have their fingerprints on specific grants of authority that may raise a social media storm.

The meeting is closed because Lamont and legislative leaders have a narrow view of how far the public’s right to know extends into the conduct of the people’s business. Pay no attention to that original Norman Rockwell the governor likes to point to in lieu of transparency.

Posted January 18, 2022.

Bob Stefanowski, who astonished Republicans by winning the party’s crowded 2018 primary for governor, will make official Wednesday his return to the arena. The Madison Republican gave Democrat Ned Lamont some nervous moments during the Democratic wave year. Stefanowski lost the Greenwich Democrat by 45,000 votes.

Stefanowski ran a single-issue campaign with a promise to repeal the state’s income tax. The self-funding Stefanowski advertised that pledge on cable news outlets at the start of 2018 while other candidates delayed entering the race or scrambled for months to qualify for public financing and seeking party convention delegates’ support.

Since his 2018 defeat. Stefanowski has become more familiar to party activists. He impressed many with his ability to locate. acquire, and distribute PPE during the traumatic early days of the COVID pandemic in 2020. The former payday loan honcho has been expanding his brief with opinion pieces published in Connecticut newspapers and the Wall Street Journal.

Stefanowski will face former state Representative Themis Klarides in the contest for the party nomination. Lamont is unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Lamont will fund his campaign from his fortune.

Posted January 18. 2022.

Harwinton Democrat Paul Honig announced Tuesday that he is seeking his party’s nomination for the eleven-town 8th Senate District. Honig is a selectman in Harwinton and has unsuccessfully run for the House.

The University of Pennsylvania graduate is running “on a platform focused on making Connecticut more affordable, growing our economy and supporting a robust recovery from COVID, and protecting our environment,” Honig said in a written statement. After graduating from Wharton (you know who else in politics went there), Honig enjoyed a successful 22-year career in fixed income finance.”

Honig is an active volunteer in the region and lives in “an ultra-energy efficient house” that he and his wife Diane built in 2012.

Republican Kevin Witkos, in his eighth two-year term, has faced Democrat Melissa Osborne in three of the last four campaigns. Osborne was able to narrow her margin of defeat but could not defeat the Canton Republican.

Witkos won re-election in 2018 and 2020 as six of his Republican colleagues fell during an ongoing realignment of suburban voters away from his party. He has not announced his intentions for 2022.

Posted January 18, 2022

West Hartford Republican Mary Fay is running for comptroller. The town council member ran for Congress from the state’s 1st district in 2020. She created her committee declaration on December 30th.

Fay was the $175,000-a-year executive director of the Connecticut State Retirement Authority during its brief life. Fay hurled angry recrimination’s at the authority’s board as it dissolved. She was embroiled in controversy a year ago when on Facebook she appeared to endorse a local Trump supporter’s participation in the January 6, 2021 protest over the loathsome demagogue’s 8 million vote defeat by Joe Biden. Recriminations followed when Fay claimed criticism of her by Shari Cantor, West Hartford’s mayor, and then-Republican council member Lee Gold caused her to receive threats that endangered Fay’s safety.

Democrat Kevin Lembo, who was elected comptroller three times, resigned last week, citing health issues. The Democratic competition for the comptroller’s nomination is expected to be fierce. State Representative Sean Scanlon, currently serving in a prize hackerama job at Tweed New Haven Airport, has been calling town chairs. Scanlon checks no boxes for diversity.

If elected, Fay would be only the fifth Republican in more than 60 years to win a constitutional office.

Published January 4, 2022.

A grim start to 2022 in Storrs and Stamford. The University of Connecticut’s spring semester may begin with online-only class and “will closely resemble the residential quarantine the university followed in the fall of 2020,” Daily Ructions has learned.

UConn posted and then removed the detailed announcement Thursday night—after the deadline for students to cancel on-campus housing agreements. Students will be allowed to begin to move into campus housing on January 29th, two weeks after the original date.

Students will be required to have vaccine booster shots. Oddly, only “discussions are also occurring regarding requiring the same for eligible faculty and staff.” Following the science ought to lead the leaders of the state’s premier public university to recognize that faculty members are likely more vulnerable to the COVID virus and its variants than are students, many in their late teens.

Published December 30, 2021.