Political Capitol

This morning Nancy DiNardo, chairman of the state Democratic Party, announced she had submitted a Freedom of Information request to gather more data on the ongoing story about whether Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s administration improperly mixed policy and politics in hiring University of Connecticut professor Kenneth Dautrich to study streamlining government.

Ted Mann of the New London Day last week reported, after an extensive FOI effort of his own to learn more about the study details, that Dautrich was also providing political advice to Rell and her staff on how best to outmaneuver the Democrats during this past year’s historic budget battle.

Official audits have been launched of the project and the Rell administration has begun withholding additional comment pending the outcomes.

DiNardo, in the statement issued this morning, said “if the official line from Governor Rell and her spokespeople is ‘no comment’ then we’ll simply have to get to the bottom of this in a different way.”

I can’t help wondering if this is overkill on the part of DiNardo.

Aren’t efforts already being made to get to the bottom of this?

The supposedly non-partisan audits are underway and The Day, along with other news outlets, including our Hearst papers, have been doing a pretty thorough job of uncovering/outlining/explaining the issues.

What more, exactly, is there to be gained by the state Democratic Party entering the fray other than to turn this into more of a partisan public spectacle that might turn off the general public to the whole affair?

Already Jonathan Pelto, a former state legislator and former political director for the state Democrats who has no love for the Rell administration, has filed a complaint alleging Rell’s arrangement with Dautrich violated campaign laws. Rell has formed an exploratory committee and may or may not be running for re-election in 2010.

The more Democratic officials and party insiders pile on and seek to keep the story alive, the more, I think, they risk blunting what they obviously are hoping will be a politically-injurious issue for Rell.

UPDATE:

State Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy in a statement to reporters this afternoon called DiNardo’s FOI request “a vapid gesture.”

“The Democrats are not fooling anyone. Each year the legislative Democrats spend hundreds of thousands of tax dollars promoting themselves while passing a record tax increase and deficits as far as the eye can see … This is nothing more than the convenient application of ethics to cover up the Democrats’ disastrous leadership on the budget and the state’s hostility to business.”

His hair.

Stamford’s Democratic Mayor and potential 2010 gubernatorial candidate attended a ground breaking today for the new Charter Oak Communities project on Progress Drive in Stamford.

According to one of our staff photographers, Malloy declined the hard hats offered other attendees. He explained that when he met Vice President Joe Biden recently, Biden remarked that if he only had Malloy’s hair, his desk would be in the Oval Office.

I think this important revelation needs to be factored into the recently released campaign finance reports filed by Malloy and one of his competitors – Democratic Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz.

Although Malloy appears to have a very slight lead over Bysiewicz ($101,698 to $100,460), I’ve got to think Biden’s comment means Stamford’s Mayor is going to be spending a bit more on hair products as he continues to explore a run for governor. So when you subtract that additional expense from his exploratory committee budget, let’s just say he and Bysiewicz are running at least dead even.

Taking away Chief of Staff Lisa Moody’s Freedom of Information Act-accessible e-mail privileges.

Seriously.

Lisa: “Um. Governor, can I please send e-mails again?”

Rell: “LOL!!!”

Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford and Rep. Gerald Fox, D-Stamford issued a joint press release this afternoon in support of a proposal to move Norwalk’s juvenile court operations to Stamford.

The idea, outlined in today’s The Advocate, is an alternative to a more controversial plan floated earlier this week by the state Judicial Branch to relocate Norwalk’s juvenile court from a leased building on Commerce Street to the main Norwalk Superior Court building along Belden Avenue.

That in turn would have necessitated criminal and traffic cases handled in Norwalk be moved to Stamford Superior Court.

House Minoritiy Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk, who obviously has an interest in what happens to court operations in his city, pushed the juvenile court option during a meeting earlier this week with Judicial Branch officials.

In their press release McDonald, a Judiciary Committee co-chairman, and Fox, a committee vice-chairman, said they have had similar discussions.

“Finding ways to streamline our government is an ongoing challenge, and moving Norwalk’s juvenile court operations to Stamford may be the best option given the circumstances,” wrote McDonald and Fox. “We have already discussed this possibility with Judicial Branch officials … Sending Norwalk’s juvenile cases to Stamford is much less disruptive and could allow Norwalk’s Superior Court operations to be preserved.”

Democrats have been jumping all over yesterday’s excellent piece by The New London Day alleging an ongoing $200,000 or so project undertaken by Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s administration to study streamlining government might have become a bit more politically-driven than policy-driven.

The question at hand – Was Kenneth Dautrich, the University of Connecticut professor hired for the job, misusing taxpayer dollars by convening a focus group and advising Rell on potentially politically popular approaches to handling the budget crisis and selling her message to state residents?

It sure seems like the Rell administration was worried about something, considering The Day reporter Ted Mann’s own blog account of how long it took to obtain the data – “Days and months of stalling by representatives of (Rell’s budget staff) and the governor’s office, full of unnecessarily fractious negotiations as we tried to gain access to materials that would show what work was being performed.”

But then House Speaker Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, started making bold, black and white claims like this: “We’re disappointed that the governor has been using state dollars for political purposes” and “For political purposes, you use political dollars. For state purposes, you use state dollars.”

Really?

So what about all of those dueling press releases and statements issued over the course of this year’s historic budget battle by taxpayer-funded press officers who work for majority Democrats, Rell and the Republican minority? Rell and the Republicans sought to portray the Democrats as the tax-and-spend, anti-business party while the Democrats tried to portray the GOP as all about protecting the rich at the expense of the poor. You know, POLITICAL messages that will resonate during the next election in 2010…

Do the Democrats want to propose paying their press staff with campaign cash every time they quietly suggest a reporter look into an issue that could be potentially politically damaging to the other side?

For that matter, should Lisa Moody, Rell’s powerful Chief-of-Staff who always ends up in the middle of these controversies about policy and politics, be paid out of campaign funds since she works so hard at keeping her boss in office? Maybe that should be the case from now on for her and future gubernatorial Chiefs-of-Staff.

What about the Governor’s budget staff? Democrats tend to place greater trust in data generated by the state’s Office of Fiscal Analysis because they view it as the non-partisan agency of number crunchers. Many capitol reporters automatically write “the non-partisan Office of Fiscal Analysis” in stories. Doesn’t that imply, then, that the Governor’s budget folks serve a political purpose? Why are their salaries being paid by taxpayers?

Let’s go even further. If a Governor announces a major initiative – something that, if successful, he or she knows could be used in a re-election bid – should the state employees charged with implementing the project be considered political workers and paid accordingly?

An audit may very well determine that the Rell administration and Dautrich crossed a line.

But the Democrats who are clearly hoping to capitalize on this recent issue need to step back from their taxpayer funded microphones, let the auditors do their job and stop pretending that there’s a crystal clear demarcation at the capitol between politics and policy.

Applied to other state government business, Donovan’s statement doesn’t ring true.

The Day of New London and specifically fellow capitol reporter Ted Mann published a great piece today on how a University of Connecticut professor hired with taxpayer dollars to study streamlining state government has also been helping Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell shape her political message during the budget battle.

Democrats like Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo and Stamford Mayor/potential gubernatorial candidate Dannel Malloy are, of course, jumping all over it hoping to further whittle away at Rell’s public popularity.

The administration will be doing damage control for a few days and seek to put a non-scandalous spin on it.

Whatever your view of the story’s content, you can’t deny that Mann did a fantastic job following up on and owning an issue – the UCONN prof’s hiring – that had been largely forgotten during this year’s historic budget battle.

Excellent job, Ted!

Check it out here. Connecticut is mentioned about halfway through.

State Sen. Sam Caligiuri, R-Waterbury, who wants to be his party’s candidate against Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd in 2010, issued a press release yesterday touting an endorsement from freshman state Rep. Fred Camillo, R-Greenwich.

If Camillo was a veteran state legislator who had worked for several years with Caligiuri I’d understand. But he’s a newbie and has another potential Dodd opponent – Tom Foley – right in his district.

I called Camillo for an explanation.

“I do know Tom,” Camillo said this afternoon. “Not great but I’ve known him over the years. I do think very highly of Tom.”

But Camillo explained he appreciated Caligiuri’s endorsing his legislative bid last year. Caligiuri at the time was urging candidates in the wake of the Cheshire home invasion/triple homicide to sign a pledge that they would vote for tougher criminal justice laws if elected. He also made public appearances to endorse those who did so, like Camillo.

“That’s why I met him,” Camillo said. “We struck up a friendship, we sat together on approps (the legislature’s Appropriations Committee). He sort of mentored me. And when I found out he was thinking about running I encouraged him.”

“I respect all (the Republican candidates). I really do think any one of them would be very, very good in that seat,” Camillo said. “But I have the loyalty to Sam for his assistance to me and out of respect for his record.”

Another local lawmaker – Rep. John Hetherington, R-New Canaan – also endorsed Caligiuri this week.