🔒Amid FBI probe, McCrory faces mounting pressure as Lamont cuts earmarks

On the question of his ability to continue delivering earmarks and other state grants, long an important element of Sen. Doug McCrory’s representation of a struggling urban constituency, it was a day of reckoning. The FBI’s investigation of the Hartford Democrat’s role in delivering millions in earmarks, and his relationship with a woman who greatly benefitted from them, played a direct part in Gov. Ned Lamont’s line-item veto of earmarks Tuesday. One of the lines Lamont cut cost McCrory’s employer, the Capitol Region Education Council known as CREC, $750,000 in this fiscal year and next. Another blocked a $330,000 grant to a nonprofit in his district, Our Piece of the Pie. On the same day, McCrory resigned his seat on the board of the Community Investment Fund, a legislative panel with final approval over the annual dispersal of up to $175 million in competitive grants available to 55 eligible communities. Funding was temporarily cut to $120 million this year, freeing dollars for a less-restrictrive grant program. His resignation came a week before the CIF board is to hold quarterly meeting to act on about $60 million in grants. In a resignation letter first reported by Hearst Connecticut, he called an audit of the $15 million he helped direct to a community organization, Blue Hills Civic Association, a “distraction.” “I believe this work is too important to risk jeopardizing it,” McCrory wrote. Lamont previously had asked McCrory to step down from various leadership posts while the FBI investigation is pending with no known end date, including his post as co-chair of the Education Committee. With the exception of the CIF seat, he has declined. On Wednesday, McCrory was a featured speaker at a press conference with Democratic leaders, Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney of New Haven and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff of Norwalk, to advocate for reform of Connecticut’s education funding formulas. “I spent my entire career here trying to make every child receive a quality education, no matter what ZIP code they lived in,” said McCrory, a former educator in his 21st year as a lawmaker. “That’s been my my goal ever since I stepped foot in this building. We’re not there yet.” Last summer, a federal grand jury issued subpoenas seeking emails, financial records and other information from the state Department of Economic and Community Development and the state’s Minority Business Initiative Advisory Council, on which McCrory sits. The grand jury also subpoenaed “All documents concerning any personal or non-professional relationship between Douglas McCrory and Sonserae Cicero-Hamlin,” who is the director of several of the organizations named in the subpoenas. McCrory has not disclosed the nature of his relationship with Cicero-Hamlin, a posture he maintained Wednesday. “I know Sonserae a number of years. She’s a friend of mine. She’s a constituent,” McCrory said. “She’s brought great programming in the area of small business access to capital, and I appreciate the work, and a lot of people, individually and organizations, have benefited from it.” He refused to say they had a romantic relationship. “I’m not married. That’s my personal business,” he said. “I think that’s a very slippery slope when you start talking about people’s relationships with legislators, or whatever the case may be.” “You come and meet people all kind of ways. You meet them through church. Politically, you meet people all kind of ways,” he said. “I don’t think it’s that important that people know what I do in my personal life.” A federal grand jury disagreed last summer. Since then, McCrory has done his best to maintain an air of normalcy. He has told Democrats he can survive. He is raising money for reelection in the 2nd Senate District of Hartford, Bloomfield and Windsor. Rep. Bobby Gibson, D-Bloomfield, who is on friendly terms with McCrory, opened an exploratory campaign that caused speculation McCrory has signaled he might not run. But Gibson has terminated that exploratory campaign and opened one for reelection to the House. Ayana Taylor, a Windsor school board member, is running for McCrory’s seat. Rep. Maryam Khan of Windsor also is exploring a run. McCrory downplayed his influence over Lamont’s decision to cut the earmarks and other grants from an emergency-certified bill passed last week without the typical review by legislative committees or public hearings. “Everyone suffered from the line-item veto,” McCrory said after the news conference. “I don’t think it’s personally about me.” The funding for CREC would have continued support for a teacher training program geared at expanding the diversity of the teaching corps. The senator said it has produced 170 teachers over five years. “It’s a great program,” he said. McCrory said there was no bar on his advocating for the funding to CREC, which operates magnet schools in the region, among other things. “I worked at Hartford for 12 years, 13 years. I voted for things that supported Harford, OK? I worked for CREC for the last eight years,” McCrory said. “I don’t benefit financially from this program.” McCrory began his education career teaching at the Rawson Elementary School in the Blue Hills neighborhood of Hartford and later became an administrator at Lewis Fox Middle School. He said he currently is employed by CREC as the director of family and community engagement.