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As I type this at 5 p.m. Friday, these final two weeks of June have generally been good for Chris Donovan, particularly compared to how the month began for the 5th District candidate.

On May 30 federal authorities arrested the retiring House Speaker’s congressional campaign finance director for alleged fundraising misdeeds. Donovan subsequently fired Robert Braddock Jr. as well as his deputy finance director and his campaign manager, long-time political ally and friend Joshua Nassi.

Then Donovan took some lumps for waiting until June 3 to meet with the press and failing to answer questions to critics’ satisfaction when he did.

Donovan recused himself from presiding over the June 12 special legislative session because a roll-your-own cigarette measure up for a vote was related to the arrest. It was an embarrassing situation for a retiring politician whose career was celebrated by legislative colleagues a few weeks earlier.

But, as I said at the start of this post, things have since been looking up.

News broke that the feds had not just singled out Donovan’s campaign but were eyeing alleged Republican shenanigans in the 5th District involving former Gov. John Rowland.

Donovan’s union and progressive friends continued to show they have his back with endorsements from the Service Employees International Union, the AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org.

Then today the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which also backs Donovan, released a poll by Public Policy Polling showing Donovan ahead in the 5th District primary:

———-

The poll was conducted by Public Policy Polling (PPP) on June 22-24, 2012 for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC). 400 Democratic primary voters, MOE of +/-4.9%.

Which Democrat do you think would be the strongest candidate in the general election: Chris Donovan, Elizabeth Esty, or Dan Roberti?

Chris Donovan ………………………………………… 45%

Elizabeth Esty …………………………………………. 25%

Dan Roberti…………………………………………….. 12%

Not sure …………………………………………………. 17%

In general, do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Speaker of the House Chris Donovan, who is running for Congress?

Favorable……………………………………………….. 51%

Unfavorable ……………………………………………. 24%

Not sure …………………………………………………. 25%

———-

In Donovan’s own words, issued in a fundraising email to supporters, “What a week.”

Of course the federal probe continues to dog Donovan.

A probable cause hearing is pending on Braddock’s arrest.

We in the media will continue to pressure Donovan to release the findings of an independent investigation of campaign finances the campaign commissioned in the wake of the scandal.

Oh, and just in time to wrap up this blog on Donovan ending June better-off than he began the month, The Hartford Courant is reporting one Donovan supporter has decided to postpone a fundraiser because he wants to learn more about what happened.

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Ex-Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s campaign just provided the media with a preview of an advertisement the campaign will begin airing Saturday morning.

Bysiewicz is competing with fellow Democrat U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy in their party’s August primary for U.S. Senate.

She’s been attempting to portray Murphy as a friend of Wall Street executives and millionaires. According to the latest poll from Quinnipiac University, that line of attack hasn’t been working.

The ad makes no mention of Murphy, Wall Street, a primary or Linda McMahon, the GOP’s endorsed candidate for U.S. Senate.

It instead focuses on mastectomy legislation Bysiewicz co-sponsored in 1997 as a member of the General Assembly, two years before she became Secretary of the State.

Bysiewicz’s campaign manager, Jonathan Ducote, in a statement said, “Tomorrow morning, our campaign will be launching its first television ad to highlight Susan’s record of getting things done and show how her advocacy has impacted the lives of so many people around Connecticut in real and meaningful ways.”

Susan Bysiewicz – “Proud” from Susan's Plan on Vimeo.

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Some significant developments this week in Charla Nash’s efforts to sue the state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection for $150 million.

Nash is the ex-Stamford resident who in 2009 was mauled by late friend Sandra Herold’s pet chimpanzee, Travis, after responding to Herold’s request to help capture the loose animal.

The tragedy made national and international headlines. Nash lost her face and has had a transplant. Travis was shot and killed by police. Herold passed away in May, 2010 from a ruptured aortic anuerysm.

Nash blames the DEEP – then the state Department of Environmental Protection – for not acting to seize Travis before the attack.

In order to sue the state, she needs permission from Connecticut Claims Commissioner J. Paul Vance, Jr. It’s a unique process, as we detailed earlier this year.

In April Attorney General George Jepsen submitted a motion to dismiss Nash’s case to Vance.

Today Nash’s attorneys, Bridgeport-based Willinger, Willinger and Bucci, filed their counter-argument with Vance that he should allow Nash her day in court.

Vance this week scheduled “an informal” hearing for 10 a.m. August 10 on Jepsen’s motion to dismiss. The announcement is tucked away on the Claims Commissioner’s website under OTHER NOTICES.

(Vance, hired last summer, has admitted the site needs an upgrade to be more public-friendly.)

I asked Willinger if Nash might be present August 10.

“We don’t know yet,” Willinger said. She continues to recuperate from her injuries at a nursing facility outside of Boston.

Nash has appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s former talk show and on NBC’s Today.

Video/press pool feeds of Vance’s hearing will be available for the media.

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When city, state and federal officials gathered in Bridgeport today to celebrate the grand opening of Park City Green, a nonprofit mattress recycler, client Bob Kaufman was on hand.

You might not immediately recognize the name, but as Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch noted, anyone who watches television should recognize the bearded face of the owner of Bob’s Discount Furniture.

So Kaufman, who has a store in downtown Bridgeport, has volunteered to become one of Park City Green’s first clients and send them a couple trucks of used mattresses a week for disposal.

When you purchase a mattress from Bob’s, his company hauls away the old one. But until now Kaufman said his only options have been shipping them to a landfill or to a recycler in Illinois.

“I think this is a great prototype for the rest of the country to become more regionalized,” said Kaufman.

I asked where he stood on a proposed bill that would have made Connecticut the first state to require all mattress producers and sellers to be responsible for picking up and recycling used mattresses. The idea is to take that costly responsibility away from municipalities and also cut down on the amount of debris piling up in landfills.

The legislation died during the recently concluded session but state Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Daniel Esty, who was also present for the Park City Green event, said he hoped to revive the measure in 2013.

Kaufman said he is often asked to take positions on different issues and avoids doing so. That includes any talk of mattress regulations.

“I want to sell furniture to both Republicans and Democrats,” he said.

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State legislators during the recently concluded 2012 session failed to pass a law making Connecticut the first state in the nation requiring mattress producers recycle old mattresses.

The bill – intended to stop folks from littering the landscape with discarded mattresses – made it through the Senate but was not called for a vote in the House of Representatives before the General Assembly adjourned May 9.

Wednesday state and Bridgeport city officials will celebrate the opening of what they claim to be the first nonprofit mattress recycling facility in the Northeast.

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Mayor Finch, State DEEP and DECD Commissioners to Celebrate

Opening of 1^st Nonprofit Mattress Recycling Facility

WHAT:            On Wednesday, June 27, Mayor Bill Finch will join DEEP Commissioner Esty and DECD Smith, and the Greater Bridgeport Community Enterprises/ Green Team to celebrate the opening of the first, nonprofit mattress deconstruction and materials recycling enterprise, the only enterprise of its kind in the Northeast.

Park City Green is a collaborative business venture of Greater Bridgeport Community Enterprises/The Green Team, Family ReEntry’s Fresh Start Program and the St. Vincent dePaul Society of Lane County, Oregon, with support from the City of Bridgeport and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“This enterprise represents the triple bottom line for the City of Bridgeport and the state,” said Mayor Bill Finch. “It is a sustainable business, taking apart mattresses and recycling the metal, foam, cotton, and wood; it will create jobs in the ‘green’ economy by hiring 25 ex-offenders and other low-income unemployed residents; and, it will help save the City and other municipalities on recycling costs, saving money on the bottom line.”

When fully operational, Park City Green will recycle 100,000 mattresses a year, removing 4,600 tons from the solid waste stream.

Park City Green is located in Bridgeport’s Eco-Industrial Park and is part of the City’s BGreen 2020 Sustainability Plan.

WHERE:         Park City Green, 459 Iranistan Avenue (corner of Iranistan and South Avenues, near the   I-95 underpass), Bridgeport, CT

WHEN:               2 to 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 27

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For those of you who care about the political future of Israel-opposing, Chris Murphy-bashing, lawsuit-filing, ex-Democrat Lee Whitnum of Greenwich…

This weekend we published my report about how infighting among members of the state’s Independent Party complicates Republican Linda McMahon’s efforts to appear on the November ballot as both the GOP candidate and the Independent candidate for U.S. Senate.

When I was working on the piece I phoned Whitnum, who, having failed at her bid for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate recently announced she’d be competing with McMahon for the Independent Party endorsement.

Whitnum clarified that is not the case.

“I’m running as ‘no party’. She’s running as Independent,” Whitnum said of McMahon. “They (the Independent Party) could cross-endorse me if they wanted (but) I’m not counting on that.”

Whitnum said she did not want the ongoing feud among Independent leaders to impact her continuing her Senate candidacy.

“I can’t take that risk. I’ve thought about this a lot,” she said.

Av Harris, spokesman for the Secretary of the State, said Whitnum has filed the necessary paperwork to begin collecting the 7,500 signatures of registered voters necessary for petition candidates to qualify for the November ballot.

McMahon must do the same as she seeks the Independent line.

“You can do it with a party or as a small ‘i’ independent petitioning candidate,” Harris said.

Petition candidates have to turn in signatures to the Secretary of the State by August 8.

Whitnum in an interview earlier this year told me that despite being the Democratic Party’s “bastard child” she had no intention of leaving.

Whitnum in 2008 successfully petitioned her way into a congressional primary against fellow Greenwich Democrat Jim Himes, ultimately losing.

But Whitnum also showed up at the wrong convention when she sought the U.S. Senate nomination in 2010 and, despite appearing in this year’s debates, skipped May’s Democratic convention.

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Is there really a Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in August?

I was beginning to wonder if perhaps ex-Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz had decided after losing ground in the June 6 Quinnipiac University poll to throw in the towel and cede the party’s endorsement to U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy.

Republican nominee Linda McMahon has been working hard trying to make 2012 the year she wins that Senate seat she began pursuing in 2009. She’s got ads on television and fliers in mailboxes.

Murphy, seeing McMahon is, according to Quinnipiac, within three points of tying him the November’s general election, decided it was time to launch one of those jobs tours that candidates of both parties are obsessed with this year.

But Bysiewicz appeared to be taking a late spring break. No press releases. No jobs tours. No more attacks on Murphy’s ties to Wall Street.

And then today her campaign manager, Jonathan Ducote, issued this email to supporters, assuring them not only does she have the momentum, but it’s INCREDIBLE!:

———-

With less than seven weeks to go before the Primary Election, our field operation is in full swing.

All across the state, supporters are doing their part to spread the word about Susan and her vision for Connecticut. Every day, volunteers are hosting meet & greets in their living rooms, making outreach calls to voters and going door-to-door in their neighborhoods.

The momentum is incredible! We’re currently averaging about 1500 calls per hour. But in order to win, we are going to need to make more – many more. And with your help, we can keep growing our call rate. Can you give $10, $15 or $25 to make sure we have the equipment to continue expanding our field operation?

When you chip in, your contribution makes an immediate difference. Take a look at the power of a $10, $15 or $25 contribution in helping to get more volunteers on the phones:

• additional phone line: $50
• monthly phone service:$25
• box of paper: $40
• ream of paper: $5

Will you make a contribution of $10, $15 or $25 today to make sure our team has the resources to get out Susan’s message?

Thank you for everything you are doing to help elect Susan to the United States Senate. Your support is bringing us a step closer to victory every day.

See you on the campaign trail!

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U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy today kicked off his Senate campaign’s jobs tour with visits to Manchester and Stamford.

I caught up with Murphy at the latter stop – Total Image Beauty and Barber.

Most of the news coming out of Murphy’s 5th Congressional District in the past few weeks has involved state House Speaker Chris Donovan’s, D-Meriden, campaign to succeed Murphy.

Robert Braddock, Donovan’s campaign finance director, was arrested for alleged fundraising hanky panky.

Donovan has said he was unaware of what others in his campaign were up to and will remain in the race. He canned Braddock, a deputy finance director and his campaign manager and is also conducting an internal review.

Donovan is being challenged in August’s primary by two other candidates – Elizabeth Esty and Dan Roberti.

Murphy’s been quiet about the Donovan matter so I asked him about it today.

“I have three good friends running for the U.S. House so I haven’t made an endorsement in that race,” he said. “I think Speaker Donovan has taken the right steps to address this issue. I think I’m as eager as he is to see the results of the internal audit of his campaign.”

Murphy added, “I’ve spoken to the Speaker and I’ve told him I think he’s taking the proper steps right now and I think all of us that run for office are always concerned that someone is going to go out and do something without our knowledge or input. I hope that that’s the case here. I trust Chris that this doesn’t go any farther than the people in his campaign that he’s let go.”

While some have questioned whether Donovan should remain in the race, Murphy said he trusts the voters.

“The voters are going to have all the information before them when they come to the polls in August and it ultimately should be up to them,” Murphy said.