UPDATE: 1:30 p.m. Thursday
James Millington, Fairfield’s Republican Town Committee chairman, clarified Thursday that John McKinney is not a candidate for first selectman, as the governor’s office stated Wednesday night in response to criticism from McKinney.
“John McKinney served our town and our state with distinction for years as our state senator and we are proud that he is still an advocate for holding politicians to their promises and to the truth,” Millington said in an email to Hearst Connecticut Media.
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The former top Republican in the Legislature says Gov. Dannel P. Malloy deceived his constituents about raising taxes during last year’s midterm election.
“I think he lied to the people of Connecticut,” John McKinney, who retired as state Senate Minority Leader at the end of 2014, told Hearst Connecticut Media Tuesday night.
McKinney said Malloy reneged on his pledge not to raise taxes, which a budget deal hammered out between the second-term incumbent and majority Democrats over the weekend would do.
“He took the tactic of, I will do and say anything to the people of Connecticut to get re-elected,” said McKinney, who sought the GOP nomination to challenge Malloy but was passed over by his party in the primary.
Malloy’s office questioned the timing of McKinney’s jab at the governor, which came as lawmakers were poised to pull an all-nighter on the controversial fiscal package.
McKinney is on the early short list of GOP contenders for governor in 2018, though some Republicans in his hometown of Fairfield are trying to draft him to run for first selectman this year.
“Can someone remind John McKinney that he’s running for first selectman and not governor?” said Devon Puglia, a spokesman for Malloy. “We wish him well in gaining attention for himself with 27 hours left in the session.”
McKinney said Malloy’s $40 billion two-year austerity plan, unveiled in February, was untenable.
“He gave his party in control of the Legislature a terrible budget,” McKinney said.
McKinney’s indictment of Malloy is consistent with comments he made earlier Tuesday to the Hanging Shad, the political blog of radio host Patrick Scully.
While McKinney was in the legislative minority, he projected an amicable working relationship with Malloy. That diplomacy appears to be over, with McKinney saying that Malloy is so eager to score points with the political left as the next head of the Democratic Governors Association that Malloy has told members of his party to freeze out GOP lawmakers.
“Because this governor is trying to assume a national partisan role, he’s been unwilling to reach out to Republicans,” McKinney said.
Rather than raise taxes on businesses for data processing services or scaling back property tax credits, McKinney said, Malloy should have squeezed $1.6 billion in promised concessions out of state employee unions that were never fully realized.
McKinney said the state could have made up $700 million by suspending overtime, longevity pay and health care contributions, as well as furloughing employees.
Instead, McKinney said, major corporations such as GE, which is based in Fairfield and issued a statement Monday panning the tax increases, are feeling the pain.
“I think what you’re seeing from them is the feeling that they’ve been burned,” McKinney said.