Connecticut Post
Governor’s pollster only part of the real scandal
Updated: 10/16/2009
I, for one, am slightly relieved that
when the overripe onion finally
got peeled back, Gov. Jodi Rell
turned into a politician like all the
rest.
It was always plain that Lisa
Moody, the governor’s web-
weaving chief of staff, loved her
job and its associated political
intrigues more than Rell wanted to
be governor.
But Rell fell into the state’s top
job, thanks to John “Why Should
I Resign If I’ve Done Nothing
Wrong?” Rowland, a schmoozer
who loved being called “governor”
until he was forced out in July
2004 by his felonious nonchalance
and sense of entitlement.
He went from turning down a pay
raise in 1998 because of an ill-
conceived gubernatorial challenge
from former Congresswoman
Barbara Kennelly, to serving 10
months in prison for, among other
things, accepting about $90,000
in luxury charter flights from Key
Air of Oxford.
Rell is no schmoozer and
fortunately for Connecticut, she’s
no John Rowland, whose staffers
greased the skids for the New
Britain-based Tomasso Group to
build the unneeded $56 million
Connecticut Juvenile Training
School in Middletown after
Tomasso work crews performed
improvements to the now-
disgraced governor’s getaway
cottage on Bantam Lake.
The infamous hot tub was one of
the few touches that were actually
legal, since it was a gift from a
long-time Rowland employee and
her husband.
Rell has plunged into some hot
water of her own after reporters
caught her misrepresenting a little
scandal that’s going to taint her
administration.
It will either force her to run for
re-election to clean up a legacy,
or she’ll retire next year under
the political fire that has given
Democrats a taste for possibly
winning the governor’s office
back in 2010 after 20 years in the
wilderness.
The joke will ultimately be on
the Democrats, whose majorities
in the House and Senate this
year papered over an $8 billion
deficit, raising taxes on the state’s
wealthiest earners; burning
through the $1.4 billion emergency
reserve compiled during the good
times; and grabbing $1.6 billion in
federal stimulus money.
By the time this budget ends
on June 30, 2010, there will
be another multibillion-dollar
deficit caused by what is called
the structural hole in the budget,
without that $3 billion in one-shot-
revenue wallpaper.
So, in a sense, the Democrats may
get what they deserve.
What Rell deserves is as much
public grief -- and exposure -- as
possible on the $223,406 no-
bid contract with UConn public
policy professor Ken Dautrich,
who appears to have wanted to
schmooze his own way into the
governor’s inner sanctum.
It also appears that at least
some of the money, which itself
was taken from a $2 million
“discretionary” account of the
governor’s budget office, may
have been used to provide political
advice to Moody and Rell. At the
very least, it could be a violation
of the election law on in-kind
contributions: free services to
politicians that have a value in the
eyes of state regulators.
The state Auditors of Public
Accounts, along with the attorney
general, is looking into the
issue and a former Democratic
lawmaker has filed a complaint
with the State Elections
Enforcement Commission.
Rell, who earned the instant
reputation as the anti-Rowland,
whose pledge of ethics reforms
helped give her -- at one point not
so long ago -- record high esteem
in state polls, is conveniently using
the investigations as a reason to
clam up.
It’s too bad. People should really
know -- as soon as possible -- why
UConn and Dautrich, a former
university pollster, were chosen
for the no-bid contract and why
Dautrich seems to have produced
political advice for Rell and
Moody.
Senate Majority Leader Marty
Looney, D-New Haven, a lawyer
in real life, immediately seized on
a $2,000 focus group that included
nine suburbanites -- obviously
Rell’s political base -- and no one
from Connecticut’s cities.
If this comes back to bite Rell,
Moody and Dautrich, who is under
investigation by UConn authorities
to see if he violated university
ethics guidelines, I expect it’ll
entail some meager fines, at most.
But the larger disgust that
you taxpayers should embrace
is the very existence of the
“contingency” accounts, better
known as slush funds, which are
agreed upon during closed-door
budget talks between Democrats
and Republicans.
They go back at least 20 years and
are convenient ways for caucus
leaders to help prop up weaker
senators and House members,
while solidifying their own
political power.
In the two-year 2007-09 budget,
which ended June 30, the speaker
of the House and the Senate
president each got $2 million
a year to spread around their
Democratic districts as they saw
fit.
Rell shared her $2 million a
year with the House and Senate
minority leaders. About a year
ago, she declared that she wouldn’t
spend the second year’s $2
million, to help spare the state
budget.
However, Senate President
Pro Tempore Don Williams of
Brooklyn and former Speaker of
the House Jim Amann of Milford
kept the second year’s $2 million.
Indeed, Amann burned through
nearly all of the money during his
last year in office, leaving Rep.
Chris Donovan of Meriden with
a laughable $1,500 by the time he
took over as speaker last January.
The slush funds are an outrage
and a pox on Connecticut
taxpayers who deserve much
better from their governor and
their legislative leaders in this 21st
century era of transparency and
openness.
Ken Dixon’s Capitol View appears
Sundays in Hearst’s Connecticut
Newspapers. You may each him
in the Capitol at 860-549-4670 or
via e-mail at kdixon@ctpost.com.
His Web log, Connecticut Blog-o-
rama, can be seen at http://blog.
ctnews.com/dixon/.