Seabury Maritime provided more than $3,000 in gifts to port authority officials and to one of their spouses.
Office of State Ethics
Posted inPolitics
Clash by Stefanowski, Lamont over COVID testing contract makes issue of Connecticut’s ethics code
Exchanges by the governor and a likely challenger spotlight ethics rules drawn by lawmakers who narrowly define conflicts of interest.
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Connecticut’s $90M lobbying industry has a new player: former Speaker Joe Aresimowicz
Former House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz is becoming a lobbyist, but a revolving-door law limits him for a year.
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A tighter ethics code? Maybe third time is the charm.
The Office of State Ethics is trying once again to tighten the ethics code. But just a little.
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Connecticut’s search for a new ethics watchdog
Carol Carson, who is credited with returning stability and credibility to the role of ethics watchdog in Connecticut, is departing after 11 years.
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Voting in your employer’s interest? No conflict in Connecticut
The House speaker is an AFSCME employee. A freshman senator used to lobby for a water company. Neither is barred by Connecticut’s narrowly drawn ethics rules from using their elected positions to advocate for their employers. In a state with a part-time, citizen legislature, almost anything goes so long as elected officials or their families don’t end up with money in their pockets as the direct result of legislative action.
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Subtle GOP protest expected as House elects Aresimowicz speaker
Rep. Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, can expect to be elected speaker of the House on the first day of the 2017 legislative session Wednesday without either opposition or support from the growing Republican minority – a calculated, if subtle, protest of Aresimowicz’s continued employment by a major public-sector union, AFSCME Council 4.
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Ethics opinion: Aresimowicz can be House speaker, union staffer
The Office of State Ethics has advised Rep. Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, that nothing in the state ethics code bars him from continuing his job with AFSCME, an influential public-employee union, as he becomes speaker of the House of Representatives next week. Labor costs are certain to be a major issue in 2017.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy releases funds withheld from CT watchdog agencies
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration relented Friday in its controversial battle to cut the budgets of state government’s autonomous watchdogs — as it has other agencies’ budgets — to help balance Connecticut’s finances.
Posted inMoney
Fasano seeks AG’s opinion on cuts to watchdogs’ budget
Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, requested a legal opinion from the attorney general Tuesday on the legality of the Malloy administration’s plan to cut the budgets of autonomous watchdog agencies.
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Stakes grow in Malloy’s third challenge of watchdogs’ autonomy
The latest challenge to the fiscal autonomy of state’s watchdog agencies by the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is raising unprecedented legal questions likely to eventually require Attorney General George Jepsen and Comptroller Kevin P. Lembo to publicly contradict or confirm the administration’s position.
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CT GOP delegates, this meal is brought to you by…
CLEVELAND — The daily breakfast buffet for the Connecticut delegation to the Republican National Convention is courtesy of United Concrete Products of Wallingford, a state contractor. An afternoon cruise Wednesday aboard the Goodtime III was paid for by the Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans, two tribes trying to win legislative approval to jointly develop their first casino off tribal land. But overall, sponsorships are down.
Posted inHealth, Politics
Anthem-Cigna controversy exposes gaps in ethics rules
Insurance Commissioner Katharine L. Wade’s controversial refusal to recuse herself from ruling on the Anthem-Cigna insurance merger has provoked a reappraisal of ethics regulators, who heavily rely on the self-reporting of public officials, and an ethics code that may be clearer to lawyers than lovers of English.
Posted inHealth, Politics
Comptroller says Wade should recuse herself on Cigna merger
Comptroller Kevin P. Lembo publicly urged Insurance Commissioner Katharine L. Wade on Thursday to recuse herself from Connecticut’s review of the Anthem-Cigna merger, saying even a positive legal ruling from ethics officials would not overcome the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Posted inHealth, Politics
Ethics panel to rule if Wade has conflict in Anthem-Cigna merger
Insurance Commissioner Katharine L. Wade’s first contact with state ethics officials was to inform them in September why she intended to act on the merger of Anthem and Cigna, not to seek a ruling on whether they saw a potential conflict due to her family’s long association with Cigna. Now, while she’s deep in the review of a merger that could transform the health insurance industry, Wade is going to get the legally binding ethics opinion that she and the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy never saw the need to request.