Connecticut Post

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 webweaving 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 illconceived 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 nowdisgraced 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-shotrevenue 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 nobid 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 [email protected]. His Web log, Connecticut Blog-orama, can be seen at http://blog. ctnews.com/dixon/.