Old political ties still matter in state politics

Gov. Ned Lamont last week reverted to the old ways of governing through debts and favors at a moment that demands diversity of thought and experience.

Lamont reached into his political past and found a job for chronic candidate Mary Glassman, a Simsbury Democrat and Lamont’s 2010 running mate in his losing primary bid for governor. She will be a senior advisor to Lamont with constituent affairs as her brief. Glassman will forward messages from state residents to government agencies. It could only be more preposterous if Lamont added “Liaison to Oz” to her thin portfolio.

Deficits will overwhelm the state’s reserves, and there won’t be enough money for hospitals, but Lamont found a lush job with few demands for the former first selectman. The fierce urgency of today’s pressing problems must get in line behind procuring a sinecure for Glassman.

Glassman endured a crushing loss in 2018 when Wolcott Democrat Jahana Hayes won the Democratic primary for the 5th U.S. Congressional District. Democratic primary voters rebuked Glassman for her criticism of Hayes for accepting campaign donations from members of the Methodist church the 2016 National Teacher of Year attends.

This is not the first time Glassman has found a soft landing. The Capital Region Education Council created a vague job for Glassman in 2015 “to help school and town officials find innovative ways to increase efficiencies in non-education services.”

The public will require assurance that Lamont and his team are prepared for the daunting public health and economic trials that await us as the COVID-19 pandemic rages across much of the country. The Glassman appointment reveals Lamont is looking back, not ahead; that old political ties matter.

Lamont also chose politics to dictate his first nomination to the State Supreme Court. With suspicions of elites and their privileges coming under more scrutiny, the Greenwich aristocrat awarded the insatiably political Ritter family what appears to be a remarkable consolation prize for rebuffing lobbyist and former Speaker of the House Thomas Ritter’s bid to head the University of Connecticut Board of Trustees. Ritter’s wife, Christine Keller, who first became a judge in 1993 while her husband served as speaker, will ascend to the high court from the state appellate court until she turns 70 in less than three years.

Keller is the mother of House Majority Leader Matthew Ritter, D-Hartford, who is expected to