As treasurer of a Super PAC, Charlie Spies spent $142 million in support of Mitt Romney in 2012, using 90 percent of the money to attack Romney’s rivals. He is a believer, defender and advocate of the right to make unlimited, independent campaign expenditures. And he is Tom Foley’s lawyer.
Mark Pazniokas
Mark is the Capitol Bureau Chief and a co-founder of CT Mirror. He is a frequent contributor to WNPR, a former state politics writer for The Hartford Courant and Journal Inquirer, and contributor for The New York Times.
Posted inPolitics
Malloy raising money in California
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is somewhere in California raising money this weekend from someone for the Connecticut Democratic Party. Just don’t ask where, from whom or for how much. Malloy is attending “multiple events” in the company of Jonathan Harris, the executive director of the state party, but their locale, the cost and who might […]
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Settlement ends SEEC investigation of Foley
State elections officials accepted a settlement Wednesday with Republican gubernatorial hopeful Tom Foley over a $15,504 poll he commissioned last spring through his out-of-state, independent political group, Voters for Good Government.
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SEEC seeks criminal investigation of Rep. Christina Ayala of Bridgeport
The State Elections Enforcement Commission voted Wednesday to seek a criminal investigation of Rep. Christina Ayala, D-Bridgeport, and her mother, the city’s Democratic registrar of voters, Santa Ayala, after finding evidence of a conspiracy to commit voter fraud. The first-term legislator used a false address to vote in nine primaries and general elections, including the […]
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Jepsen’s uneasy relationship with labor
Nearly three years after taking office, Attorney General George C. Jepsen still struggles to define his relationship with Connecticut’s political left, especially the major public-employee unions that play a significant role in Democratic politics. The petition he filed Friday with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a review of a labor victory over former Gov. John […]
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Merrill apologizes, ceases e-newsletter
Secretary of the State Denise W. Merrill said Tuesday she was ceasing a monthly emailed newsletter whose existence became controversial not for its content, but for the provenance of its address list: Merrill’s personal contacts, including her 2010 campaign. Merrill defended the concept of the newsletter, saying every public official should communicate regularly with constituents. […]
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Foley, on long-ago arrest: ‘It was dropped, and that’s it’
Republican gubernatorial hopeful Tom Foley was confronted Tuesday with fresh questions about an incident in 1981 in which he was arrested and jailed overnight after occupants of another car accused him of repeatedly ramming them after a party in Southampton, N.Y. The Hartford Courant reported that it has obtained two police reports of the incident […]
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Jepsen, Rowland separately seek SCOTUS review of labor case
Attorney General George Jepsen and former Gov. John G. Rowland separately petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to overturn a lower court’s finding that layoffs ordered by Rowland a decade ago were intended to illegally punish union members. The state argues that the decision in May by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the […]
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A lawyer asks, Who misled Sandy Hook families about FOI?
The Connecticut Freedom of Information Act has guaranteed public access to grisly crime-scene photos for years, yet there is no record of any being published, including from high-profile crimes such as the Cheshire home invasion. Dan Klau, the president of the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government, argues in an interesting piece that a legislative task […]
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Connecticut buys a tennis tournament
The administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has agreed to pay $618,000 for the rights to the New Haven Open at Yale tennis tournament in what a top state official says is an unprecedented government investment in professional sports. The purchase was announced Thursday in a conference call by Ben Barnes, who oversees the state […]
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Tight money race for CT GOP gubernatorial field
Three of the four major Republican gubernatorial contenders filed reports Thursday showing they each raised about $30,000 in the period ending Sept. 30, with Tom Foley hitting the mark in 20 days, compared to 34 days for Toni Boucher and two months for John McKinney. Mark Boughton, who created an exploratory committee Aug. 14, raised […]
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‘What we have…is failure to communicate’
Sen. Joseph Markley, R-Southington, filed a freedom of information complaint Wednesday over the failure by the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to give him data about the Risk Reduction Earned Credit program. Michael P. Lawlor, the governor’s chief criminal justice adviser, said Markley requested a document that does not exist: a list of inmates […]
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SCOTUS challenge to contribution limits provokes anger in Hartford, but no plan
As the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday on a challenge to a long-standing restriction on campaign contributions, a small knot of protesters stood outside a federal courthouse in Hartford, decrying big money in politics. Fran Goldstein, a Common Cause member who drove to the courthouse on a 106-mile round trip from Weston, agreed […]
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Peter Wolfgang: In prayerful search of Connecticut’s Great Right Hope
Peter Wolfgang’s hope for 2014 is that when Republicans finally awaken, they see what he sees: an untapped vein of social conservatism deep within the hostile, liberal political landscape that is Connecticut. The Grand Old Party disappointed him in 2010 and 2012, and Wolfgang has every expectation of being disappointed again next year in the gubernatorial election. He sees no GOP candidate willing to talk about cultural issues.
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As Dannehy departs, Jepsen names new senior team
Attorney General George Jepsen said Monday he has named Perry Zinn Rowthorn of West Hartford as deputy attorney general to succeed Nora Dannehy, who is leaving the public sector for a position with United Technologies Corporation. Zinn Rowthorn, who is now the associate attorney general for litigation, will be succeeded in that post by Margaret […]