Connecticut Local Politics

Anonymous state employees used Brian Lockhart’s piece on Lisa Moody in the Greenwich Time to take potshots at the outgoing Governor’s Chief of Staff:
“She seems to delight in keeping people, whether commissioners or her own staff, miserable. She’ll play people off against each other, especially the governor’s staff. And she loves to summon people to [...]

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And the plot thickens. The New Haven Independent reports that during a visit to the city this morning, State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, left the door open as to whether he, too, might throw his hat into the race for governor now that Jodi Rell has declared she won’t run for re-election.

He made the [...]

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Former Speaker James Amman on Governor M. Jodi Rell’s decision not to run for re-election and how it affects his chances in the 2010 Governor’s race:
“It’s as I predicted, but no one listens to me because I’m a has-been,” Amann quipped, adding that with Rell out and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on record as not [...]

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Update by Heath, 6:41pm:  Governor Jodi Rell announced at a press conference this evening that she would not run for re-election in 2010. 
According to CTNewsJunkie, the Governor was near tears as she explained to reporters that she’s enjoyed her years as Governor:
“I want to thank the people of Connecticut for allowing me the honor of [...]

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Given by Gov. Rell spokesman Rich Harris in an interview:
The Moody e-mails had been withheld from a reporter inadvertently because the governor’s staff had not correctly used the “Find” function in the Outlook e-mail program when complying with The Day’s records request.
From Ted Mann’s piece More questions for Rell likely over budget-poll focus [...]

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Stamford Mayor Dannel P Malloy has raised $101, 698 for his exploratory committee for governor in the third quarter to Sept. 30th, bringing the total raised since his committee was formed Feb 3rd to $373,583 according to a press release from his campaign.
In this quarter, Malloy received contributions from 629 individuals, for a total of [...]

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Hey, good news time! We in the glorious Valley of the 91st Interstate are smarter than you, especially if you live in Baltimore or Fresno. It turns out that the Hartford/New Haven is number 6 in smart in the whole country, thanks to strong nonfiction book sales, lots of people with degrees and our very [...]

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The plot thickens in the Governor Rell ethics case. Although Governor Rell claimed “the only political advice Ken’s ever given me, and I don’t call it advice…I think he said, ‘I hope you run again…I think that’s the only political thing he’s given me,” University of Connecticut professor Ken Dautrich has a somewhat different [...]

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According to The Day’s Ted Mann, Governor Jodi Rell’s budget strategy over the last several months has been shaped by the results of a state-funded focus group and the political advice of a UCONN Professor’s research:
That political input included the convening of a focus group as Rell was drafting her budget proposal in December 2008, a [...]

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Governor Rell will veto the proposed fee increases offered by the Democratically-controlled Legislature:
““I will veto the revenue bill which contains about $60 million in fees over the next two years,” Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Friday morning after the state Bond Commission meeting.
The public is paying close attention right now and they’re saying ‘Enough already’,” [...]

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Gov. Rell told us, during her press conference in which she announced that instead of signing or vetoing the budget, she was going to take a short break, that to make us all feel better she was going to line-item veto some pork.
It turned out that under the Constitution, she wasn’t allowed to [...]

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Governor M. Jodi Rell’s approval rating has dipped to a new low according to a new Quinnipiac Poll.  59% of those surveyed expressed approval for the Governor’s job performance compared to 34% declaring disapproval.  
Poll Director Doug Schwartz described the new numbers this way:
Gov. Rell’s approval is down six points to 59 percent. She has hit an all-time low, [...]

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Governor Jodi Rell’s approval numbers dipped to just 65%, according to a new Quinnipiac Poll released this morning. 
The score, which stands as the lowest ever for the Governor, shows that despite a bruising budget fight Rell has maintained her popularity with people in Connecticut.  30% of those polled disapproved of Mrs. Rell’s performance.
Dr. Douglas Schwartz [...]

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I’m about to head off to North Carolina for a week, but as I was browsing this morning’s news I was struck by a few thoughts on the Governor’s race.
First, I think that the desire to avoid a “bruising primary” on the Democratic side is wrong-headed. I think the creed of all the Democratic campaign [...]

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Jodi Rell has been busy with the veto pen lately. Most recently, she vetoed a bill that would have allowed MDC to use ratepayer money for museum exhibits, including one at the new Science Center in Hartford. Her reasoning is that ratepayers don’t need another charge passed along to them right now.
Rell also vetoed a [...]

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Governor Rell reversed her previous position and announced today that she has signed the Senate Vacancy Bill, which takes away her power to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat and instead would require a direct election to choose a successor for senators who leave during their term of office.
Both the House and the Senate had [...]

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Gov. Rell has vetoed several bills recently, including:

A bill that would have built on a 2007 law making it more difficult for health insurers to rescind individual policies
A ban on placing an ash landfill in Franklin
A bill forbidding the location of a garbage-fueled power plant in a Waterbury neighborhood (updated for accuracy)
A bill requiring family [...]

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On Face the State this weekend, Jim Amann went after Jodi Rell, accusing her of seeking popularity instead of making the tough decisions.
He also accused Lisa Moody of being the real governor, saying:
“You have to be there. You have to show up. And you certainly don’t let your chief of staff be the governor of [...]

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Dean Pagani has an interesting post up (also published in the Hartford Business Journal) about the failure of the state leadership to really remake government as they had suggested they might, and the failure to get anywhere near any hard choices.
Even the scandal-plagued legislature of Massachusetts is making hard choices, raising the sales tax up [...]

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As expected, the governor has vetoed the death penalty ban. Story here.

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