Political Capitol

There was no doubt a time before I covered Connecticut politics that I had absolutely no clue how to spell or pronounce the last name of Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz (Bye-se-witz).

I imagine this is a constant source of frustration for her, judging by a phone press conference I participated in today with attorneys for the Republican National Committee.

The RNC scheduled the 3 p.m. teleconference to discuss allegations of voter fraud in Bridgeport and Stamford by local branches of the ACORN community group.

At one point one of the RNC attornies read aloud from a press release the Connecticut GOP sent out this morning about the Stamford allegations. And that press release referred to Bysiewicz.

“I’m going to kill the pronunciation,” he told reporters. “It looks like ‘Ba-see-wick’.”

I guess I could have tried to correct him, but in order to participate in the conversation you had to dial *1 and then tell the operator your name and organization and wait to be “patched in.” I didn’t. And now I feel kind of bad.

On my way back from lunch early this afternoon I spied Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, posing for either campaign photos or a commercial at Smitty’s Service Center and Gulf station on Westport Avenue.

Duff was standing beside a car with a gas nozzle in hand while a small film/photo crew buzzed around.

Not wishing to ruin the scene and throw him out of character, I drove by.

A few hours later I called Duff to ask what it was all about and got a no comment.

I’m going to speculate he was touting his vote to cancel a planned increase in a state gasoline tax over the summer and allow stations to provide discounts to drivers paying cash.

The Connecticut Business and Industry Association today released a list of endorsed candidates for state House and Senate.

Bonnie Stewart, CBIA’s vice president of government affairs, said the group scrutinizes incumbents’ records on the economy and jobs, reviewing their votes on various issues in committee and then in the full General Assembly.

Newcomers are interviewed.

Stewart said CBIA does not make endorsements based on party affiliation.

“We are a bipartisan organization. We work with both parties. We never think ‘we need more Republicans or Democrats’,” she said.

This year’s list of endorsements, Stewart said, was evenly divided between the two parties.

In lower Fairfield County, for instance, CBIA backed several Republicans, including Rep. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, who is running to succeed Sen. Judith Freedman, R-Westport, and L. Scott Frantz, who wants to succeed Sen. William Nickerson, R-Greenwich.

But CBIA also backed all of Stamford’s unopposed incumbent Democrats and Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk over his challenger, Republican Steve Papadakos.

The organization in a handful of local races did not endorse either the Republican or Democratic candidates. Those included: Rep. Joseph Mioli, D-Westport and his Republican opponent; the candidates vying for Boucher’s House seat; the candidates vying for the House seat being vacated by Rep. Christel Truglia, D-Stamford; and Terrie Wood, the Republican running unopposed for the seat of Rep. John Ryan, R-Darien.

“You could have some people out there we don’t know well enough so we didn’t make a recommendation,” Stewart said. “We don’t just endorse someone for the sake of endorsing them.”

I was somewhat surprised CBIA did not endorse Mioli because he was one of the few Democrats to oppose an increase in the minimum wage this past session.

CBIA also endorsed Norwalk Republican Ellen Wink over her opponent, Rep. Christopher Perone, D-Norwalk, despite the latter’s support for repealing the business entity tax.

Although Stewart said CBIA split its endorsements this year, the organization did not support the re-election bids of top Democratic leaders Sen. President Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, Sen. Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, and House Majority Leader/anticipated House Speaker Rep. Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden.

“We look at them in the roles they play as to how they impact the economy and Connecticut’s well-being,” Stewart said. “This year the feeling was because of certain issues they’ve backed or have not, no recommendation was made.”

Donovan in particular spearheaded a CBIA-panned health pooling bill which, if not vetoed by Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, would have opened the state’s medical plan to small businesses, non-profits and municipalities.

One day after the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy ranked Connecticut third behind Oregon and California in the “race for energy independence” the Governor’s office announced a new conservation initiative.

Beginning Oct. 15 Rell has ordered all state owned buildings closed on weekends except for essential functions involving public safety and public health.

State offices that only operate a single shift will be shut down by 9 p.m. or earlier on weekdays, with one manager per floor in charge of hitting the lights.

Also where possible Rell wants internal heating, ventilation and air conditioning lowered and external lighting dimmed.

Rell, a Republican, is touting the the move as one way to help the state cut costs in the face of mounting budget deficits.

“The savings realized by these actions may not seem like much, taken individually. But in the long run they will be substantial,” Rell wrote department heads.

Unfortunately I received this announcement too late and was unable to reach a Rell spokesman to explain why some of these buildings are open late at night or on weekends in the first place? And what happens if state employees need to stay in the office after 9 p.m. or go in on a Saturday to get a little extra work done? Is there another memo ordering them to better manage their time? Just curious.

The Hartford Courant’s Jon Lender wrote an interesting piece over the weekend about Jessie Stratton, a former legislator from Canton and Avon whose name will be familiar to allies and enemies of former House Speaker Moira Lyons, D-Stamford.

According to Lender, Stratton, a Democrat who sought to challenge Lyons for the position of Speaker in 2002, is now serving jail time after three drunken-driving arrests. His column is entitled: “From Legislative Star To Inmate.”

There was a lot of commentary last week in the national media about how lawmakers and the media itself have failed to adequately explain the impact of the Wall Street crisis and the government’s subsequent “bail-out” on the hockey moms, Joe Six Packs, Main Streeters and any other term you or Sarah Palin want to apply to average Americans.

The problem is unless you have a masters degree in finance the concepts are difficult to understand, as was evident during a hearing hosted today by the state legislature’s banks committee.

The hearing was organized so Treasurer Denise Nappier could explain to lawmakers the impact the Wall Street crisis is having on the state’s pension funds and other areas of the budget.

Nappier probably did her best, but follow-up questions by both the legislators and the press made it clear how generally intelligent people can feel like infants tackling high school calculus.

“I feel the urge to go out and get a drink,” Rep. Arthur O’Neill, R-Southbury, said. Now, he might have been alluding to some of the concerns Nappier had outlined, but I prefer to think he was commenting on being as confused as the rest of us.

Banks Committee Co-chairman Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, finally said to Nappier: “If you had to give a summary of all you just gave to us, how would you characterize what’s happening?”

“We may be a little under water but we have enough floating devices to survive and not drown,” she said.

Check out this brand new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy that ranks Connecticut third in the “race for energy independence” behind Oregon and California.

“We applaud these leading states for embracing a wide range of the proven-effective and readily-available efficiency strategies that wil most quickly move our nation closer to energy independence to the benefit of our economy, environment and national security,” Maggie Eldridge, the report’s lead author, said in a statement.

This might be the first press release Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s office has distributed that begins with a quote from novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Rell on Saturday announced the start of her “Fall into Connecticut” campaign which extends the “staycation” discounts various tourist sites offered residents during the summer, when high gas prices had many people reconsidering travel plans.

So, the Governor advises, visit www.ctvisit.com for a list of attractions.

In the words of Hawthorne quoted at the top of Rell’s press release: “I cannot endure to waste anything precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house.”