Malloy Cool To DeStefano

Governor Dannel Malloy, we are advised by Newsday, has reacted “coolly Wednesday to New Haven Mayor John DeStefano's plan to ask the Connecticut General Assembly to allow illegal immigrants who live in the city to vote in municipal elections.”

Mr. Malloy explained, "It's not an idea that I'm particularly comfortable with. I think there are obligations that run with citizenship and there are privileges that run with citizenship."

On the other hand, Mr. Malloy was not so offended as to freeze out Mr. DeStefano entirely, as he had done in the case of General Assembly Republicans who wanted a bit of input during the governor’s meandering budget negotiations with state union workers.

Mr. Malloy told Newsday that “he was willing to ‘hear the mayor out’ on his proposal, which follows the lead of other cities.”

This “man bites dog” story first appeared in the New Haven Independent, was picked up by NBC Connecticut and found its way into The Drudge Report. It will not be long before someone in China or Nigeria – Drudge has a long reach – happens on the story and begins to wonder whether New Haven is a country separate from the United States.

DeStefano has announced plans “to lobby the state for a ‘resident voting rights’ bill that would allow any resident of New Haven—regardless of immigration status—to vote in municipal elections in New Haven. He said he’ll launch the effort during this upcoming legislative session, which runs from February to May.”

The bill, Mr. DeStefano said, is about “how you define community, and how you define responsibility in community.”

President of the World Policy Institute Michele Wucker, the author of “Lockout: Why America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong When Our Prosperity Depends on Getting It Right,” offered a novel take on duel citizenship to justify Mr. DeStefano’s possible bill:

“The idea is that when you live in a city, you are essentially a citizen of that city, which is separate from federal or national citizenship. The logic is that everybody is better off when everyone on their block and in their town has a stake in staying on top of issues and working together and to get safe and clean streets, good schools, reliable transportation, and good health care.”

It is not clear at this writing whether the General Assembly would be willing to consider New Haven the equivalent of a separate state, conferring upon its illegal residents a right of citizenship that is usually a prerequisite to voting in municipal elections. But the fearless Democratic dominated legislature should not be underestimated.

The mayor of New Haven has estimated that his city is home to 10,000 “non-citizen immigrants,” half of them above the age of 18. Mr. DeStefano, according to the New Haven Independent story, was launched into the national spotlight in 2007 when during his “quest to make New Haven more inclusive of its immigrant community” he issued a general order preventing police in New Haven from “inquiring into people’s immigration status,” for of course such inquiries might have disclosed that nearly as many members of the New Haven “immigrant community” were “illegal immigrants” as opposed to legal immigrants.

Taking a progressive leap forward, the mayor has now proposed to convert 10,000 non-citizen illegal immigrants into Democratic voters, and 10,000 municipal votes certainly would represent a safe buffer for Mr. DeStefano. The mayor’s success easily could be repeated in other Democratic dominated cities. Many large cities in Connecticut are secure Democratic bastions, and allowing illegal residents to vote sure beats other historic forms of voting irregularities that had been winked at in the good old days of Tammy Hall by Democratic Party bosses. In pre-Civil War New York, the Dead Rabbits, a political gang then supporting New York Mayor Fernando Wood, secured his re-election by forging votes using the names of dead people.

Robbing votes from graves is perhaps too obvious a fraud to pass muster in modern day Connecticut among party bosses, some of whom are mayors. God does not always sleep; neither do newly elected governors or the sometimes drowsy tribunes of the people. Allowing non-citizens to vote is a bit more subtle than the methods employed by Mr. Wood of blessed memory and his Dead Rabbits. Even so, it may be politically risky to ignore obvious distinctions. To many people it is a matter of some importance whether a voter is dead or alive, a citizen or a non-citizen.

Bridgeport... Again.

When a friend discovered some politician knee deep in a ripe scandal, he used to call him up and ask, “Does your mommy know you’re doing this?” His ratio of calls made to calls returned was abysmally low.

Apparently, Mrs. Gloria Beccaro, the 85 year-old retired nurse and mother of William Beccaro, a lawyer for the Connecticut State Senate, didn’t know what her son was doing, according to a columnist for the Connecticut Post.

"They (People for Excellence in Government) list me as chairman?" Beccaro asks. "Why am I chairman? I don't know anything about this."

“Alright then, what does she do for the PAC?

"’They reimburse you most every month for your cell phone service,’ I point out. ‘What exactly do you do for the PAC?’

“Beccaro: ‘Cell phone? I don't know. I don't even have a cell phone. What would they be doing reimbursing me?’"

Pouring over the financial report of the People for Excellence in Government (PEG), Connecticut Post Columnist MariAn Gail Brown discovered, “…reimbursements to the Finches for items purchased at T.J. Maxx, the discount clothing store. But no explanation as to how that directly benefits a political action committee. There's a $25 donation to a charity reimbursed to Sonya Finch. If the charity was worthwhile, couldn't she have sprung for it out of her own wallet. About the only positive thing to be gleaned from People for Excellence in Government's financial reports is that Finch and Wood patronized lots of Bridgeport restaurants.”

The above mentioned Finch is the mayor of Bridgeport. Mr. Finch, according to the report, plowed his sizable campaign surplus of $46,056 into the Campaign For Excellence and, upon taking office, hired Mrs. Baccaro’s son, a longtime friend of the mayor, as a campaign consultant to Bridgeport’s legal department. From 2008 to date, People for Excellence in Government, has reimbursed “Finch, his wife, one of his top aides, Adam Wood, and Wood's wife thousands of dollars for hotel stays, travel and meals... Last year,” Ms. Brown writes, “William Beccaro earned $91,000 as an independent contractor to the city of Bridgeport. This arrangement certainly has the look, the feel and the aroma of you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.”

No one involved in this latest Bridgeport stinky-poo, other than Mr. Baccaro’s mother, is answering even soft bat’em out of the park” questions. And those brave souls who do are armed to the teeth with oleaginous evasions.

The aptly named Derek Slap, for many years a reporter for NBC and now the communications director for Democratic Senate President Donald Williams and Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, handling the barbed query of another Post reporter – "What do Mr. Williams and Mr. Looney think about all this?" -- evaded the question: “The complaint was raised in the context of the Bridgeport mayoral primary. We have confidence the State Elections Enforcement Commission will take a thorough look at the facts, as they always do.”

Right. So, Mr. Williams and Mr. Looney, both of whom as legislators leapt on the ethics in government bandwagon that gave rise to the State Elections Enforcement Committee -- soon to be subsumed into a catch all agency that will include, among other watchdog groups, the Freedom of Information Commission and six other entities under an administrator to be appointed by Governor Dannel Malloy – are what... too tired, too far removed from possible Democratic corruption in Bridgeport, too slippery … to answer the least offensive of questions from a reporter?

Mr. Slap’s response, delivered on behalf of Mr. Williams and Mr. Looney, is a perfectly appropriate evasion coming from autocrats operating out of a one party legislature, in a one party state, concerning a one party town. But really – this is Connecticut!

The public who votes for Mr. McDonald and Mr. Looney might want to ask them, preferably when they are on the stump running for reelection, why such golden tongued Ciceros should need a Charlie McCarthy to answer simple media questions.

Mr. Finch’s operatives are not without resources. A pro-Finch PAC, a Connecticut political action committee called A Better Connecticut, has produced a video that puts Mr. Finch's opponent, Mary Jane Foster, in her place within the Bridgeport scheme of things. The treasurer of the PAC, Philip Benoit of Rocky Hill, unsurprisingly had contributed $750 to the Fiche campaign, a sum that should be added to a prior contribution of $250:



Lennie Grimaldi, who is to Bridgeport what Honore Balzac was to France, notes:

"Finch campaign handlers wouldn’t kick out this spot unless they felt Foster inching too close for comfort, especially in light of the latest news revelations over Finch’s relationship with a PAC. Finch says he’s done nothing wrong. Don’t be shocked if Finch handlers deny association with this attack video that was teed up and ready to go before the latest PAC revelations against the mayor played out in the news."

Wait for it.