City’s political committees can keep things to themselves
STAMFORD — People perceive that political bodies must be public.
But they can be perfectly private.
Stamford has two such groups: the Democratic City Committee and the Republican Town Committee, each the organizing arm of its political party.
The committees recruit candidates for elected office, choose which ones to endorse, help them run their campaigns, staff phone banks and party headquarters, prepare mailings, and register voters and get them to the polls.
But they are private entities, said Valicia Harmon, a staff attorney with the state Freedom of Information Commission.
“They call themselves a city committee, but it’s a misleading name,” Harmon said. “It’s confusing. I’m a lawyer and I had to check, because they sound like public agencies.”
To add to the confusion, several members of the political committees hold public office or work for the city.
“People may think these committees are part of the government, so they think the committees are doing public business,” Harmon said. “But they are not created by the government to do government work. They are created by politicians to do political work.”
As such, they are private. The issue arose March 27, when the Democratic City Committee would not allow press coverage of a discussion on whether to remove District 12 city Rep. Marion McGarry from the party for posting anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic messages on Facebook.
City Rep. Steven Kolenberg, R-16, an associate member of the Republican Town Committee, said he was surprised to hear that political committee meetings may be private.
“Maybe it’s because we have our meetings in the government center, some of us assumed we’re a public organization,” Kolenberg said. “If we’re not public, we usually act like we are,” because of the part committees play in choosing candidates for government office.
Josh Fedeli, chairman of the Democratic City Committee, said the rules of that group are that meetings are open only to registered Democrats in Stamford.
“As a private organization, we will provide access or accommodate members of the media on request prior to a meeting, so we can communicate to our members that the press will be at the meeting,” Fedeli said. “Others can be invited.”
It’s within the committee’s purview, said Tom Hennick, public information officer for the state Freedom of Information Commission.
“Political town committees are not subject to FOI, so they can pretty much do things any way they like,” Hennick said.
In the McGarry case, Democratic City Committee members on March 27 decided to hold a hearing before scheduling a vote on whether to oust McGarry. But that became moot the next day, when McGarry quit the Democrats and re-registered as an unaffiliated voter.
It may be that Republicans would have handled such an incident by calling the discussion into “executive session.” Interestingly, the committee’s use of the term comes from the phrase used for closed portions of public meetings.
“The last time we went into executive session was over a controversy concerning justice of the peace appointments a few years ago. There was anger about it, so the chairman handled it that way,” Kolenberg said. “But we’ve had similar stuff and aired it in public.”
Fritz Blau, chairman of the Republican Town Committee, said the goal is to keep meetings as public as possible.
“If we are talking about strategy or something sensitive, we might go into executive session and ask anyone who is not on the committee to leave,” Blau said. “I have had Democrats show up and try to start talking. They cannot have the floor, but they can stay and listen.”
It’s been the policy for many years, said Blau, who has chaired the Republican Town Committee since 2016.
“This is how I look at it: What are we keeping from the people? How are we going to promote democracy if we close ourselves off?” Blau said. “We are discussing the people’s business. That’s what politics is.”
City Rep. Charles Pia Jr., R-18, vice chairman of the Republican Town Committee, said meetings have been public for the 12 years he’s been a member. One reason is that the number of Republicans in Stamford is about half the number of Democrats.
“I think we decided as a group to be an open, transparent organization and, as the minority party, to allow people to participate in discussions of our ideas and values, and what candidates we like,” Pia said. “We view it as a forum for reaching out to people, and an opportunity for people to get to know us.”