A grim tale of the realities of Connecticut politics
The Democratic candidates for mayor of Hartford released their campaign finance reports on Monday and told a grim tale about the realities of Connecticut politics.
Fundraising allows the candidates to show they will have the resources to sustain a campaign to the decisive September primary. That primary will decide who becomes the next mayor. Ann Uccello, who died last month at 100, won a second term as mayor in a four-way 1969 race. No Republican has come close since then.
State Sen. John Fonfara raised $325,000 in the first three months of the year. As expected, Fonfara received a lot of $1,000 maximum contributions from lobbyists and their spouses. State law prohibits legislators from soliciting lobbyists for campaign contributions during the legislative session. The law applies only to campaigns for state office — not municipal positions.
Fonfara, the co-chair of the legislature’s important finance committee, has taken advantage of his opportunity. On March
16, a dozen of Fonfara’s Senate Democratic colleagues sponsored a fundraising event for him. It was a command performance. Lobbyists understood the message: Donate while you have business before the Senate. They did..
Two former Republican senators added to Fonfara’s haul with maximum contributions. Scott Frantz, of Greenwich, and Len Fasano, of North Haven, worked with Fonfara in the evenly divided Senate after the 2016 election. Together they forged a budget agreement that began to repair the state’s tattered finances. The prickly Fonfara continues to pay tribute to Fasano for his role in that 2017 legislative resolution.
Fonfara has represented Hart
ford in the House and then the Senate for nearly 40 years. If he loses the crucial Democratic town committee endorsement to another candidate in July, Fonfara will need every dollar he can raise to offset the power of the local party organization.
Arunan Arulampalam, who made a 2018 bid for state treasurer and served for a year and a half as a deputy commissioner in Governor Ned Lamont’s administration, raised $225,000 between January and the end of March. Arulampalam wants to occupy the “I am the future” lane in the race to succeed incumbent Luke Bronin, who is not seeking a third term.
Arulampalam’s campaign finance report included a jarring dose of the unhappy past. He received a maximum contribution from William Tomasso, who was convicted in a bid-rigging scheme that, federal prosecutors claimed, transformed former Gov. John Rowland’s office into a criminal enterprise. It also cost the people of Connecticut tens of millions of dollars.
Arulampalam, a former lobbyist, received $1,000 from Anthony Ravosa.
He is a political operator who raised money for Rowland in 2002 and introduced him to Enron executives months before a quasi-public trashto-energy agency entered into a catastrophic deal with the corrupt Texas energy company that collapsed in 2001.
Former state senator and retired Judge Eric Coleman has raised $110,000 since beginning his campaign last fall. Coleman reports almost no lobbyist contributions. City Council member Nick Lebron raised $57,000.
A battle over legal fees at the Metropolitan District Commission have provided the candidates an opportunity to reveal their executive leadership instincts in this quiet campaign. Members of the regional water authority’s governing commission have been embroiled in a prolonged battle over legal fees.
The commission’s audit committee began an investigation last year of legal fees paid by and billed to the agency. Longtime MDC chairman and former state Sen. William DiBella at first declined to cooperate with a law firm hired to conduct the probe.
When DiBella did agree to answer questions, he provided three hours of meandering responses. DiBella resisted a second interview, but eventually submitted.
The independent report reveals that DiBella used his authority to find and provide legal work for his friend James Sandler, disregarding MDC procedures.
Worse is DiBella’s contempt for an investigation authorized by the agency he leads. DiBella had recused himself from the matter last year. On Monday, he presided over the meeting and mustered the votes to block discussion of the report. DiBella, who lives in Old Saybrook but claims residency at his son’s Hartford home, prevailed with the support of the commission members from Hartford.
Each candidate for mayor should explain if and how he will use his influence as mayor to bust the DiBella bloc of supporters to allow new leadership at the MDC.
Any candidate willing to wink and nod at anti-democratic manipulations at the MDC will inflict far worse on Hartford.