Stefanowski pledges to share tax returns but not client list

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski pledged this week to release full tax returns for himself and his wife but avoided the question of whether he will also share a list of clients from his financial consulting business.

“Here's what we're going to release,” Stefanowski said at a news conference in Hartford Wednesday. “My tax returns, '19, '20 and '21, my wife's tax returns, '19, '20 and '21, and all of our investments.”

Stefanowski had previously promised to release a client list along with his tax returns, but declined to say Wednesday whether he still intends to do so. A campaign spokesperson said Stefanowski would release “everything we can legally release” but did not comment on the client list specifically.

After pledging to release his and his wife's joint tax returns, Stefanowski chided his opponent, Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, for declining to share tax returns for his wife Annie, a venture capitalist whose investments have been a subject of public scrutiny over the past year.

“I don't know that I've ever seen anybody filing ‘married filing separately,'” Stefanowski said. “You know why he did that? Because he doesn't want to disclose his wife finances.”

A Lamont campaign spokesperson noted Thursday that Ned and Annie Lamont have provided financial disclosures to the Office of State Ethics but said the campaign does not intend to release Annie's tax returns publicly.

As Stefanowski has derided Lamont for what he sees as lack of transparency, some Democrats have increasingly turned the same accusation back on Stefanowski. Last month, the Connecticut Democratic Party called on the Republican nominee to release not only his tax returns but also the list of clients he has consulted for, and on Wednesday the Lamont campaign raised the issue once again.

“Bob promised to release his tax returns and the complete list of his consulting clients, and yet we have not seen anything from him or his campaign,” Jake Lewis, a Lamont spokesperson, said in an email. “If Bob wants to discuss transparency he can start by being honest with Connecticut voters about the source of the $10 million he's putting into his campaign.”

A former executive at GE, UBS and the payday loan company DFC Global, Stefanowski has worked as a consultant since 2018, when he lost to Lamont in a closely contested gubernatorial election.

Transparency has emerged as a major talking point for Stefanowski and other Republicans, who have criticized Lamont's administration for granting a no-bid contract for COVID-19 testing to Sema4, a Stamford-based company in which Annie Lamont is an investor. Though the Office of State Ethics ruled that the arrangement did not constitute a conflict of interest under state law, Lamont's critics say the governor and his family shouldn't profit off state contracts.

Sema4 has since pulled out of its contract with the state, and Ned and Annie Lamont have promised to donate all profits from the deal to charity.

Lamont in April released his tax returns for 2017 through 2019, revealing that he made $26 million during that time and donated $3.1 million.

In 2018, Stefanowski and his wife released their joint tax returns about 10 days before Election Day, revealing about $16.5 million in income over the previous two years.

Cheri Quickmire, executive director of Connecticut's chapter of Common

Cause, an organization dedicated to accountable government, said her preference would be for both Lamont and Stefanowski to publicly fund their campaigns, thereby reducing the influence of special interests and reducing the salience of other transparency questions.

“We should ask that both of the candidates participate in the Citizens Election Program and that they provide the documents required by the program and that they acknowledge outside money being offered and refuse to accept it,” Quickmire said. “I am concerned by the amount of money that is going to come into this campaign.”

Instead, both Lamont and Stefanowski intend to spend millions of dollars of their own money on their campaigns, while also soliciting donations.

According to a recent Emerson College poll, Lamont currently holds a 13-point lead over Stefanowski nearly six months ahead of Election Day, with 50.5 percent of voters preferring Lamont, 38 percent preferring Stefanowski and 11.6 percent undecided.