Political Capitol

The ever quotable Chris Healy, chairman of the Connecticut GOP, had this to say about the $1,000-per-head cost of U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd’s fundraiser tonight in Stamford.

“I’m relieved there are still some people in Fairfield County who have $1,000 to spend,” Healy said.

Healy, according to Monica Potts, my colleague who interviewed him, was referring to the impact of the financial crisis on the so-called Gold Coast.

But he could also have been talking about the efforts by state Democratic legislators to increase taxes on the state’s wealthy to help address Connecticut’s budget crisis.

Plenty of prominent Democrats from Stamford and from around the state attended tonight’s $1000-per-head fundraiser for U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd with special guest U.S. President Barack Obama.

But the city’s five Democratic state legislators did not make it to the local affair.

Ginny Fox, mother of state Rep. Gerald Fox, D-Stamford, did attend, sitting at a table quite close to Obama’s podium.

Fox, a delegate to last year’s Democratic National Convention, said Political Action Committee dollars were not allowed, which priced some people who otherwise might have attended out.

“Everybody here either paid by cash or credit card or check,” Fox said.

A spokesman for the state Democratic Party confirmed PAC money was not accepted tonight.

So was the experience worth $1,000?

“Oh absolutely,” Fox said. “To sit right in front of him. Oh yes. It truly was. I think everybody in the room would feel that way.”

Tom Dudchik, a one term (1984 to 1986) state legislator from Ansonia/Derby who for years worked for both Republican U.S. Senator Lowell Weicker Jr. and independent Governor Lowell Weicker Jr. has launched a new political web site.

Frequent visitors to the Drudge Report will recognize the influence on the format of Dudchik’s Capitol Report, although Dudchik in an e-mail exchange noted his project is “Drudge looking, not Drudge leaning.”

“Capitol Report, like Drudge Report, is a one stop place for everything political. Interesting edited links. I read each story, and slug the link with my spin on the story. Sometimes what I think is important is buried in the last graph. That’s what I point out. People are busy. I believe they don’t want commentary, just stories,” Dudchik said. “I also believe that there’s great reporting going on all around the state. I want people from Manchester who read the Journal Inquirer to read Brian Lockhart. I want people in Stamford to read (the JI’s) Chris Powell. I want people in New London and Norwalk to read (the Connecticut Post’s/Stamford Advocate’s) Ken Dixon, and I want Greenwich people to read (the New London Day’s) Ted Mann.”

Tom currently lives in East Haddam where he has spent nearly three years raising two foster children

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s longtime Chief of Staff Lisa Moody has landed the administration and Rell’s re-election exploratory committee in some hot water recently.

E-mails have shown Moody’s fingerprints are all over a controversial study to streamline state government that might have crossed too far from the realm of policy into politics when the University of Connecticut professor hired for the job also advised the administration during the budget battle with the legislature’s Democrats.

The $200,000 plus contract is being audited and also the focus of a complaint lodged with state elections enforcement officials.

As The Hartford Courant’s Jon Lender noted recently, this is hardly the first time Moody has caused problems for her boss. Whether the UCONN study controversy is the one that, when the probes are wrapped up, results in her resigning/being fired  remains to be seen.

Which leads to the question of whether Moody’s fate is linked to Rell’s decision to seek re-election in 2010.

Rell has said she will announce whether she is in the race or retiring following the upcoming municipal elections.

Talk among some political insiders is that Rell will not run if the powerful Moody, a long-time friend and confidant, does not or cannot remain part of her team.

During her visit to Norwalk today I asked Rell if Moody’s remaining on board is a factor in her decision-making.

Rell said she is focused on how serving another term fits her family, her lifestyle and whether she has set out to accomplish what she wanted to as Governor or if there is unfinished work to be done.

I asked again and Rell said Moody, besides being a friend, is “an excellent Chief of Staff … I can’t think of anyone that’s more dedicated to the job.”

She then reiterated her decision will be based on the aforementioned issues of family and accomplishments.

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell visited Norwalk Community College this afternoon to announce that on Friday she expects the bi-partisan state Bond Commission, which she chairs, to borrow $18.3 million for the construction of a new Health and Science Center at the school.

The General Assembly as part of the state’s two-year budget puts together a so-called bond package with funds for a variety of projects that then must be released by the Bond Commission. The Governor sets the commission’s monthly agenda, controlling what money gets borrowed for what projects. Some of the funds are never released, which tends to tick off the legislature’s Democratic majority.

Rell has consistently said she is wary of adding to the state’s long-term debt because the payments obviously have an impact on the current budget.

And Connecticut is in the midst of an historic fiscal crisis. It was only one month ago that legislative Democrats enacted, after a summer-long standoff with Rell, their $37.6 billion budget, and it is already about $388.5 million in the red.

For a time bonding had come to a screeching halt. Between January and August six of the Bond Commission’s regularly scheduled monthly meetings were cancelled.

But then the group met in September and meets again next Friday.

Rell during today’s visit to NCC acknowledged times are tough and the state has had to make hard spending choices. She said the NCC project is worth the investment.

“The dividends from this investment, I believe, are well-documented,” Rell told a small crowd.

The expansion will provide new space for the college’s growing nursing and physical therapy programs and expansion of the art department.

Rell was joined by House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk and Rep. Bruce Morris, D-Norwalk, along with Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia, a former NCC student and a Republican facing re-election in a few weeks.

Cafero, whose caucus was nearly unanimous in its opposition to the most recently-approved, 2009-10/2010-11 bond package, spoke in favor of the borrowing for NCC.

“It’s the responsibility of government to make investments in our future and that’s what this is,” said Cafero, who lives down the street from the school.

Rell returns to lower Fairfield County tomorrow for an 11 a.m. press conference at the Cos Cob train station to announce “improvements for commuter trains.” It’s safe to say those improvements include the $8.2 million worth of track replacement work that is also on the Bond Commission’s Friday agenda.

The Stamford Advocate’s transportation reporter, Martin Cassidy, posted an update today on the delivery status of the new Metro North rail cars arriving from Japan.

The cars look pretty sleek and might just convince more folks to consider mass transportation and relieve congested lower Fairfield County roads and highways.

But I was a bit disappointed to learn the cars just sit there looking pretty, transporting passengers to and from New York City. I assumed, being designed in Japan, land of giant monsters and the robots that fight them, that these new cars might have some transforming capabilities.

This is the problem with Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell. She talks a good game about improving transportation, calling these new cars “state-of-the-art.”

But where’s the vision? Every state uses normal train cars.

But train cars that turn into battle ready giant robots? Now THAT’s how you’d get more people to ride Metro North.

UPDATE:

A reader was kind enough to send me a photo of what they envisioned the new Metro North trains would look like.

Now that’s what I’m talking about!

Today’s edition of our newspapers has a follow-up report delving a bit further into legislative computer use following the infamous Associated Press photo that made the rounds last month of state lawmakers playing solitaire during a budget debate.

I interviewed House Speaker Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden for the story but was unable to include all of his comments, including the following about just how far he should go in restricting other activities during lengthy legislative debates.

“People could be doodling on a pad while someone’s talking, too,” Donovan said. “Do I say ‘no doodling’?”

UPDATE:

One Democratic insider who read the above story fired off an interesting reaction this morning.

House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk, who was leading the fight against adopting the Democratic-majority’s two year budget, was the speaker the solitaire players – two Democrats – were ignoring in the AP photo.

“We found ourselves as one of two states at the time that did not have a budget,” Cafero told me this week, recalling how the AP photo caught fire on the Internet. “And at that moment that picture captures … lawmakers doing anything but state business.”

Here’s the e-mail the Democratic insider sent me this morning: “He wasn’t conducting state business that day either. He was running for governor.”

Cafero has formed an exploratory committee for an as-yet-to-be-divulged statewide office.

The e-mail continued: “You know it, I know it and the entire House knew it. Hence, tuning out Larry’s meaningless (except for positioning himself as the most conservative GOP gubernatorial candidate) budget rant was the ABSOLUTELY RIGHT AND PROPER THING TO DO.”

Our newspapers reported over the weekend that Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s administration has been considering ways of ensuring Robert Poliner, the state’s  ex- Property Rights Ombudsman, has a job despite the fact his office was eliminated in the new budget.

Poliner is an attorney and former Republican Party Chairman whom Rell appointed to the brand-new ombudsman position in 2007.

The move, as we reported, is drawing criticism from state union officials as well as some legislators.

Now, according to a reliable source at the DOT, the possiblity of Poliner’s being handed a job within the agency “as basically a political appointee has raised eyebrows and stirred resentment among the DOT’s leadership and professional staff.”