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Wednesday January 30, 2008

If you’re feeling better about those SAT-flashback-inducing-optical-scan voting machines, today’s release by Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz of an election-result audit should squelch that a little.
So here’s Alex Shvartsman, Ph. D. of the UConn Voting Technology Research Center, admitting that for every district – about 277 votes – the optical scan machines make an over count of one vote. AND HE DIDN’T KNOW WHY.
“There are some races where we don’t understand the discrepancies,” he admitted. An incredulous reporter asked the Ph. D. how that could happen. “It’s a good question,” Shvartsman replied, shrugging his shoulders and not offering an answer. He did it in a scientific way, though.
To top it off, the state contractors sent unprogrammed memory cards for 3.5 percent of the machines, which then spit out ballots as faulty.
But don’t worry, Bysiewicz said, in any hand recounts the errors will be ferreted out.
And then there are the numerically challenged election officials of Connecticut, many of whom can’t add columns of numbers, have illegible writing or/and send in incomplete results.
“Let me say that the University of Connecticut is very satisfied that our optical-scan machines performed very well and records showed very few discrepancies between machine counts and hand counts,” Bysiewicz said in a news conference this morning in the Capitol atrium, outfitted like a polling place, outside her office.
“There was no evidence of tampering, hacking or fraud,” she said of the memory cards, but then mentioned the 3.5 percent that had no valid information programmed. “This raises as issue of quality control.”
No fooling. Without ballot information, the machines rejected ballots.
At least Bysiewicz is recommending greater privacy zones around the voting booths, where people like your Blogster here instinctively look toward the person next door to cheat off … I mean search for answers from, in tender reprise of our nightmare SATs.
Even better, she’s recommending that near the scanners themselves, where voters deposit their ballots, only the electors should be allowed and poll workers should stay away unless there’s a problem such as the machine rejecting the ballot back out.
In case you’re wondering, there are 769 polling districts in the state. Currently there are 1,916,381 registered voters, including 675,563 Democrats, 408,746 Republicans, and 826,209 unaffiliated voters with the rest minor-party members.
I’m not sure if those minor parties include the rear-guard of “Lieberman for Connecticut,” whose namesake, Sen. Joe “No One Wants to Bring the Troops Home Faster than Me” Lieberman, a Democrat only when it’s convenient, will introduce his buddy, Republican Presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. John McCain, Sunday afternoon at Sacred Heart University.

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Tuesday January 29

The rule in the state Capitol is that you’re not supposed to do politics on state time. Remember back in 2004, when Gov. Jodi Rell suspended her top aide, Lisa Moody, for two weeks after she gave invitations to state commissioners at a staff meeting?
Many, many Capitol employees take out time during lunch or coffee breaks and get on their cell phones to work on campaigns.
But Rell and Lt. Gov. Mike Fedele straddled the line yesterday, when they used Rell’s state-funded Capitol letterhead to promote U.S. Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid.
Today, Nancy DiNardo, state Democratic chairwoman, cried foul.

“I am disappointed that, once again, the governor has seen fit to blur the line between public service and politics. Her use of the resources of the Governor’s office – resources that every hard-working citizen of this state puts at her disposal for use in governing for the benefit of all – constitutes yet another example of Governor Rell’s propensity to act in a manner that is politically expedient rather than right. I think that many of us have grown weary of her habit of paying lip service to the ethical rules that apply to all elected officials in our State and her simultaneous abuse of the privileges of her office. We demand that Gov. Rell apologize for making a political and very personal endorsement at the expense of every citizen of Connecticut. These types of actions are not only unfair to those of us who disagree with her political views – they are unfair to us all.”
Chris Cooper, Rell’s spokesman, said Tuesday that reporters had been asking Rell for weeks over which GOP hopeful she would support on Super Duper Tuesday next week.
“If this were Jodi Rell, a state representative from Brookfield, that would be one thing,” Cooper said. “In her capacity as governor she was repeatedly asked by members of the media and she gave her response as governor. If she were not the governor she would not have been asked.”
Jeff Garfield, executive director and chief counsel of the State Elections Enforcement Commission, said Tuesday that Rell action is not addressed in state law.
“Very succinctly, the election law does not cover the situation that Nancy DiNardo is complaining about,” Garfield said. “We have no authority.”
Chris Healy, chairman of the Republican State Central Committee, said Tuesday that Democrats seem to enjoy plenty of “flex time” when it comes to politics during business hours.
“There is no comparison between one slip of paper to the countless hours of taxpayer-financed politicking by both Comptroller Nancy Wyman and Attorney General Blumenthal,” Healy said. “Both Wyman and Blumenthal spend more time mugging for the cameras than managing their offices.”
Capt. Renaud was “shocked” that gambling going on in Rick’s Cafe in the classic “Casablanca.” We’re equally shocked that Rell was on state time and using state letterhead to plug for McCain.

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Friday January 25, 2008
When you attend the usually monthly meetings of the State Bond Commission – held regularly except when Gov. Jodi Rell is punishing majority Democrats – you can see how fast millions – in today’s case billions – of dollars can be put into motion.
Most of today’s meeting – held in the hour before the fur flew between Rell and Democrats over her politically charged “soft on crime” fallout from this week’s special legislative session on criminal-justice reforms – was classic, archetypal Bond Commission.
A first-floor meeting room of the Legislative Office Building was standing-room only with state bureaucrats and other interested parties, making sure their previously approved bucks finally got allocated.
As items were approved, usually with no discussion and a quick voice vote, a suit or two or three would quietly rise and dissipate the room like smoke through the opening door.
Usually, relatively small items get more scrutiny than the big-buck projects and bond sales that go through without a peep from the commission, made up of Rell, the constitutional officers and leaders of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee.
To his credit, Rep. Craig Miner, R-Litchfield, ranking member of the Finance Committee, wanted to know why $100,000 to replace door hardware at South Connecticut State University, was an expense for which the state has to go into debt.
It was part of a $843,155 item for SCSU. That sparked a bit of a discussion, indeed one of the longer discourses on what state bonding should be used for, in a 44-item agenda.
Miner was filling the role long held by the late Rep. Dick Belden, the Republican from Shelton who died last summer and whose absence is felt every day when legislators talk about debt and finance. Belden was always on the lookout for operating expenses that bureaucrats were attempted to dress up as capital expenditures.
Today, amid fanfare from State Treasurer Denise Nappier, who rarely speaks during a commission meeting, they okayed a whopping $2-billion bond sale so Connecticut can catch up with its long under-financed Teacher’s Retirement Fund.
“This will be a prudent approach to straightening the soundness and integrity of the Teacher’s Retirement Fund well out into the future,” Nappier said. “It’s good for the teachers and it’s good for the taxpayers of our state.” But for those listening carefully, it sounded as if the sale blows through the state’s $1.2-billion cap on long-term debt.
Indeed, Bob Genuario, Rell’s secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, another commission member, confirmed it, adding the caveat that Wall Street rating agencies see the state as addressing the liability of under-funded pension benefits for public school teachers, who are not eligible for Social Security.
“We owe this $2 billion whether we issue the bonds or not,” Genuario said of the rating agencies. “They’ll view this as a net savings.”
“The agencies view this as not part of net tax-supported debt,” Nappier added. “We’re not borrowing money to put in the General Fund. We’re borrowing it to put into the retirement fund.”
Oh yeah, and our current liability is $6.9 billion, thanks to years of legislative and governmental neglect that began to be turned around a couple years ago when teachers pressured and shamed lawmakers.
Nappier pitched it – the deal was cut by the Legislature last year – as an unbeatable scheme in which the state will reap 8.5-percent interest investing the money and pay a mere 5.25-to-5.5 percent in debt service. She said that over the last 20 years, the state has seen a return of between 8.9 percent and 10 percent.
“We can, in fact, weather any storm in the market,” Nappier said.
So come I can’t do this with my checking account? you ask.

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Thursday January 24, 2008

I really don’t think state Rep. Chris Caruso is bitter. He’s been running outside the Bridgeport Democratic Party so long, though, that his ambient sense of disgust has become merriment.
It makes me think that if he HAD won the September mayoral primary and the subsequent City Hall election, he’d never be happier than he’s been – righteously indignant – in various courthouses between Bridgeport and Hartford over the last few months as he fought his 270-vote loss.
Indeed, you’ll be able to judge the outsiders from the insiders when you count the Democrats who’ll line up for Mayor Bill Finch, to contest General Assembly incumbents.
The new mayor plans to use the Town Committee to challenge Caruso, Rep. Bob Keeley and Rep. Jack Hennessy, among others. Finch, who finally gave up the Senate seat this week, desires things his way even up in the Capitol, so he wants his people in the General Assembly.
I can’t think of three stronger incumbents than Caruso, Keeley and Hennessy, however. And for Keeley to get the State Bond Commission to approve the $500,000 for new lights at Black Rock’s Ellsworth Park, he could be state representative for life.
Hennessy, meanwhile, seems set to gum up the town committee on his own terms and run as a petitioning candidate for the Senate vacancy.
Two Democrats in the special mid-March election means Republican Town Committee Chairman Rob Russo becomes senator and does everyone in Connecticut a favor by ending the nominal veto-proof Democratic majority, at least until the anticipated nationwide Democratic tsunami in November.
Caruso, whose challenge to the September primary is still alive in the State Supreme Court, held a news conference today, as chairman of the Government Administration & Elections Committee, to announce a series of hearings next month to gauge public opinion on the optical-scan voting machines.
It’s an honest topic, but I couldn’t resist having a little fun with Caruso, whom I’ve known and enjoyed since about 1983. I like the issue because on Election Day last November, as I inserted my ballot into the machine, it seemed as if every election official at my polling place was looking at my picks.
Besides the privacy issues, Caruso said that he’s concerned that there’s no exact count of the ballots shipped to municipalities by the secretary of the state. “So they give a batch to the municipal without a number,” said Caruso, who was accompanied at the news conference by Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, the other committee co-chair and Rep. Diana Urban, D-North Stonington.
“In the case of a community, they could give 2,000 ballots, 1,500 people vote and the remaining 500 are not accounted for,” Caruso went on. “There should be a system where you sign out the ballots and have an exact number, which would reduce the potential for fraud.”
The news conference was winding down when I piped up and referred to his September loss. “Did Bridgeport get 270 extra ballots? Is that what you’re saying?” I asked Caruso, who immediately smiled.
“I’ll leave it up to you,” Caruso concluded.

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Wednesday January 23, 2008

Last evening, when the General Assembly debated the importance of helping inmates re-enter society after prison, Waterbury Mayor Mike Jarjura was confirming to The Hartford Courant that he wanted to hire John Rowland, the disgraced former governor, to lead that city’s economic development efforts.
Your average felonious inmate exiting prison is lucky to get an entry-level job stocking shelves in a supermarket. Not Rowland, Connecticut’s political con man whose post-prison career has focused on “inspirational” speaking.
Rowland:
* who gave away a $50-million state contract to his buddies at the Tomasso Group for the lucrative contract to build an ill-advised juvenile prison in Middletown.
* who let those same contractors spruce up his vacation cottage so he could cash in when he finally sold it.
* who accepted about $100,000 in luxury plane charters from the Oxford-based Key Air, which enjoyed a million-dollar state tax break.
I always thought John “Why Should I Resign If I’ve Done Nothing Wrong” Rowland was going to come back as the elected mayor of his Waterbury hometown, the place he called “the center of the universe.”
For Jarjura to hasten the process is laughably bad, but not beyond his capabilities.
It was Jarjura, at the height of the impeachment process during the spring of 2004, who called Rowland “the greatest governor Connecticut has ever had.” Yikes. For that alone voters should have rejected Jarjura’s subsequent write-in re-election campaign.
Coincidentally, as a House member, Jarjura voted against a bill, which passed and became law, allowing convicted felons to regain their voting rights when their legal commitments are finished.
The law was drafted to help inmates, mostly minorities, to develop a stake in their community when they leave prison.
It’s different, I guess, for white guys like Rowland, who in the eyes of denial-laden, blathering radio broadcasters like Brad Davis of the Bloomfield-based WDRC, was railroaded from office.
Gov. Jodi Rell, who met reporters in the Capitol this morning to talk about the previous nights get-tough-on-burglars legislation, was noncommittal toward the Rowland job offer.
“It’s an employment decision by the city of Waterbury and the Chamber of Commerce there,” she said uncomfortably of the man for whom she served as lieutenant governor for nine-and-a-half years. “It’s entirely up to them and I really have no bearing on it… I’m not hiring this person.”
Another coincidence is Rowland’s apparent emergence back on the public payroll somewhere.
He was a guy who worked hard to privatize state jobs and bust unions for much of his career as governor.
Jarjura was a conservative tough-on-crime Democrat when he was in the General Assembly and yet here he goes offering money from a bankrupt city to pay part of Rowland’s salary.
The local Chamber of Commerce is supposed to pay the rest. Rowland’s talent was as schmoozer, that’s for sure. He had that fratboy/politician ability, even as he was taking whatever perks he could glom upon.
Senate President Don Williams, D-Brooklyn, who owes his ascent to Rowland, said today that “Time goes by and we all move on, but I’m not sure that’s a perfect fit.”
I do have the perfect hourly job for Rowland: telemarketing for Key Air charter services. It’s the least he could do for an honest paycheck.
The alternative would be – strolling down memory lane – a job at the Home Depot. In December 2003 he lied to reporters about the genesis of the custom kitchen cabinets installed in his Bantam Lake summer place
.”In actuality, we spent more than $30,000 doing improvements to the cottage,” Rowland lied to reporters in Waterbury on December 2, 2003. “We paid for all the improvements.”
That’s why he earned the nickname Johnny Johnola.

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Tuesday January 22 2008
Mayor/Senator Bill Finch finally admitted to Connecticut that he stayed too long at the fair. But it’s not as if he’s going anywhere.
Yes, he will devote himself to the more-than-full-time job as mayor of Bridgeport. But he needs that big-time state funding to keep the city’s head above water, so Capitol lawmakers will see more than enough of him to go around over the next few months and years.
It’s Tuesday night and the Senate just finished its homage sandwich: a farewell to Finch was the bread and the anti-crime legislation was the lunch meat. At about 11 a.m., Finch said some farewells to what they call “The Circle” of senators.
“It wasn’t a decision that was arrived upon easily because of the misguided efforts of some of the other politicians in my city,” Finch said of his waiting for months after the mayoral election before deciding to quit the Senate, where he’s served since 2001.
“It was a very difficult decision because the election results are still being held in a form of limbo,” he said, taking a unnamed swipe at Rep. Chris Caruso, D-Bridgeport, who still has a nominal challenge over the September Democratic primary alive before the state Supreme Court.
“I think it’s a danger to all of our elections and the stability of the smooth transition of power, if we are going to get involved in these kind of legal harangues that seemingly go on and on and hold the city of Bridgeport hostage,” Finch said. “I just think it’s unfortunate that certain members of the Legislature can try to hijack the system.”
Then the Senate did what they do best: recessed, ate lunch and gabbed for a while about the justice-reform legislation they were about to approve in the special, one-day session of the GeneralAssembly.
The debate finally started at 3:30. While waiting for them to get to the debate, I tracked down Caruso outside the House chamber. He said that since the Democratic voter registrar “violated more than 20 election laws and that’s the reason why the Supreme Court is reviewing the case and the State Elections Enforcement Commission has launched an investigation,” he thinks Finch’s criticism is wrong-headed.
“It’s unfortunate now he’s upset that people are holding him accountable for his own words,” Caruso said of Finch’s initial promise to drop the Senate seat, then his multi-week waffling, even after the court declined to overturn the November election.
Later, when the Senate finally finished its business, Sen. Ed Gomes, D-Bridgeport, a retired steel worker, recalled seeing Finch as a boy on a picket line where his father was with other union members. Gomes said he was proud of the man Finch grew into.
“Bill, you’re going to be the mayor of Bridgeport and you’re going to get some grief from me, because down there, there are some people I don’t like,” Gomes said.
Sen. Len Fasano, R-North Haven, stood and said he liked Finch, but he’s heard a little too much about the long-dead architect of Bridgeport’s Seaside Park. “If I don’t have to hear about Frederick Law Olmstead again,” he said of the famous 19th century landscaper who also planned New York’s Central Park, “I’m going to be a happy, happy individual,” Fasano said, half-jokingly.
Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, said she was impressed at something Finch did years earlier, when she was still a member of her city’s Board of Aldermen and testified one day in front of a legislative committee Finch led.
“I was scared to death,” she recalled “He was very kind and listened to me and asked some tough questions and I went on my way.” Six months later, at the big, annual state Democratic fund-raising dinner, Finch remembered her and her issue. “I was absolutely floored,” she said. “That’s what Bill Finch is all about.”
About this time, as the clock was showing about 7:15 p.m., Finch was getting antsy. He had a plane to catch to Washington for his first meeting of the US Conference of Mayors.
“I know you’re in a hurry, so let me boil it down,” said Senate President Pro Tem Don Williams, D-Brooklyn, with a smile. “BeardsleyZoo, property-tax relief, Bridgeport, Bridgeport, Bridgeport.” Then he gave the Senate circle a fact check about Finch’s departure.
“It would be tough for us, if we didn’t know that we’ll still have you here,” Williams said.
“This is not going to be goodbye,” Finch confirmed. “I’ll miss youall, but I don’t want to miss my plane.”

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Friday January 18, 2008

Connecticut political reporters participated Friday morning in a brief, no-follow-up-questions-allowed conference call with David Plouffe, Sen. Barack Obama’s national campaign manager.
It was the kind of no-information session that bodes poorly for voters who might want some substance beyond that famous one-word campaign mantra for 2008: “change.”
Plouffe, in trumpeting his candidate’s first TV commercials to appear in the state Saturday, would not even offer a ballpark estimate of the broadcast buy beyond the boilerplate “substantial.”
It wasn’t too long ago that campaigns weren’t scared to announce the monetary total of a statewide media campaign. But that ended around the time that national Democrats and Republicans started sounding the same and owed their political souls to the same connected industry and business lobbyists.
The format of the conference call was so thoroughly controlled that they allowed no follow-ups from the apparently feared Connecticut newspaper writers. After a question, your mouthpiece went dead. After four reporters asked questions, Plouffe said goodbye, to presumably try to get away with the same controlled access with reporters in other Super DuperTuesday states.
He said there’s “an amazing amount of grassroots activity inConnecticut.” That means that beyond the few thousand bucks for Channel 3 in Hartford and Cablevision in southwestern Connecticut, there’s not too much focus on Connecticut’s meager 60 delegates.
Plouffe (pronounced Ploof and coincidentally rhymed with Proof) said 80 volunteers phone banked in New Haven Thursday night and supporters will be out canvassing this weekend. The TV ads will highlight Obama’s mother’s struggles with healthcare issuesand his proposal to provide $2,500 a year for family health coverage.
“Our message of change and unifying the American people is really resonating in Connecticut,” Plouffe pronounced. Maybe he sees something that’s not apparent to me, who prognosticates here that Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton will split evenly the 60 delegates up for grabs on February 5.
“We consider Connecticut to be a very high priority,” Plouff puffed. He couldn’t say whether the freshman senator from Illinois would visit Connecticut before the February 5 affair, when 22 states will have primaries and delegate caucuses.

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Thursday January 17, 2008

The Connecticut Blog-o-rama is not happy today as we contemplate a General Assembly without Sen. Bill Nickerson. If the veteran Greenwich Republican is not the most-colorfully quotable lawmaker in the Capitol, he’ll do until one comes along.
And someone had better emerge soon, too, because yesterday, about a week short of his 69th birthday, Nickerson announced he won’t seek re-election in the fall, after 22 years making the long drive up from that elegantly upholstered rump end of Fairfield County.
“I have worked with four governors, cast 11,000 votes and driven about a quarter of a million miles on my commute to Hartford,” the ever-smiling Nickerson said in a statement. “There is a time to run for office, a time to serve in office and a time to move on. I have decided that that time has come for me.”
Nickerson, the long-time ranking member of the Finance Committee, is the go-to guy for a pithy, budget-related quote. Always accessible, Nickerson is articulate, funny, opinionated and knowledgeable in a Legislature where most lawmakers are none of the above.
“Bill Nickerson has served in the state Legislature for more than 20
years and Connecticut is a better place because of it,” said Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield. “He is a statesman in every sense of the word, and I feel fortunate to be able to count him among my most trusted friends and mentors.”
So while Nickerson’s imminent departure will be a loss for his district, it’s a chance for a former high-profile political wannabe.
Yes, Ned Lamont, who beat U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman in the contentious 2006 Democratic primary, but lost in the general election, should contemplate the vacancy. He threatened as much after Lieberman won re-election. But how do those Democratic numbers look in GOP-heavy Greenwich?
Well, in the 2006 Senate final, the Nedster didn’t come too close to Lieberman. Republican lightweight Alan Schlesinger netted 1,817 votes; Green Party nominee Ralph Ferrucci got 47 votes; Lieberman scored 11,160 ballots and Lamont came in with 8,258.
On that same Election Day, Nickerson beat the Democratic challenger by 6,018 votes. Still, Lamont should give it a whirl this fall and try to change government from the grassroots.
Unlike last time around, when he hemorrhaged millions of dollars in an ultimately losing proposition, Ned can now participant in the new public-financing program.