Fazio, Lamont trade blame for tolerating corruption in Hartford, D.C.

Republican gubernatorial nominee Ryan Fazio tried Thursday to refocus Connecticut voters on the ethics and performance of Gov. Ned Lamont and away from President Donald J. Trump’s promise to pay every adult American a $5,000 bonus if Republicans retain control of Congress. On the morning after Trump urged voters to pretend he is on the ballot in November, Lamont and other Democrats were happy to take his advice, while Fazio did his best to ignore a president hard to ignore and make the case that Lamont is a “laissez-faire” governor tolerant of corruption and malfeasance in Hartford. “When you are in office, you should take responsibility for what occurs on your watch,” Fazio said at a press conference with Republican legislative leaders and other candidates outside the state Capitol. He ticked off items he deems disqualifying to Lamont earning a third term: A $250,000 no-bid contract to a former education commissioner; a credit card scandal that toppled a university chancellor; a former administration official convicted of soliciting bribes from school construction contractors and accused of conspiring to cancel an audit into Medicaid fraud; and a federal investigation into legislative earmarks. “After eight years in office, the governor has had enough time to clean up Connecticut state government, but instead the scandals and corruption has only metastasized,” Fazio said. Recycling a line used by GOP nominee Bob Stefanowski four years ago, Fazio said taxpayers are paying a “corruption tax.” Less than a mile away on Pratt Street, a brick-lined pedestrian way in downtown Hartford, Democrats reveled at their good fortune in the insistence of an unpopular Republican president staging an unusual midterm convention that abets the Democrats’ goal of defining the midterms as a referendum on Trump. Luke Bronin, the former Hartford mayor and winner of a Democratic congressional primary that all but assures his election to Congress, set the tone at the Democratic event, embracing Trump’s call from a stage in Dallas to treat Republicans on the ballot this year as stand-ins for him. “We don’t have to pretend he’s on the ballot,” Bronin said. “He is on the ballot because the truth is that there is not a single Republican who is willing to stand up to Donald Trump, even as Trump’s reckless war drives up costs, as his crazy tariffs drive up costs, as he tries to interfere in our elections through the postal service and in every other way he can, as he takes corruption to levels we have never seen in this country before.” House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, who has reason to expect that his 102-49 Democratic majority is safe or even likely to grow, was next. “If you don’t like what you see in Washington, if you don’t like the corruption, if you don’t like the blind loyalty to one person, the team behind me is your team,” Ritter said, standing with Lamont, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, Comptroller Sean Scanlon, Treasurer Erick Russell and Attorney General William Tong. Lamont challenged the credibility of Fazio or any other Republican to question his ethics, given their tolerance of a president whose net worth has grown by more than $2 billion since returning to the White House, while his attorney general signed off on a deal ending the IRS examination of his taxes. “You’ve got a president who’s added well over a billion dollars to his income on gross malfeasance and corruption. I didn’t hear a word from any of the Republicans, I didn’t hear one word from Ryan Fazio,” Lamont said. “You know what I heard was crickets.” Fazio, a state senator from Greenwich who had refused to identify his choice for president in 2016, 2020 and 2024 as he ran for reelection to the Senate in a district where Trump was unpopular, initially declined to comment on the president’s offer of a $5,000 payout to adults if the GOP wins this year. “I’m not going to comment on every single federal issue that comes about,” he said. Fazio, who disclosed his votes for Trump once he announced his candidacy for governor, relented when pressed to express an opinion on the promised bonus. “I think it is a very bad idea,” Fazio said. “I support broad-based middle-class tax relief. I always have. I think that is the path to prosperity, straightforward equality under law, pro-growth, pro-opportunity, pro-affordability. I think what was talked about last night — I only read a short account of it, so I don’t know exactly what it is or any context — it sounds like a very bad idea.” The confluence of Trump’s speech, Fazio’s press conference and a Democratic rally in which the governor and his ticket hewed to a message of Connecticut’s fiscal stability under Lamont and U.S. economic instability on the president’s watch illustrated the challenge to Republicans in blue states. Fazio, who is 36 and the youngest gubernatorial nominee in Connecticut since 1990, has significant resources after qualifying for $18 million in public campaign financing, but he is competing for voters’ attention in a time of national and international volatility in a blue state where an incumbent governor has not been defeated at the polls in 72 years. He suggested he would amplify his message about Lamont as a less-than-engaged governor in advertising, without saying to what degree. “We’re going to primarily run this campaign to present a vision to the public of change in Connecticut, and that’s not just one talking point, one 30-second ad. It’s about the full body of what’s being proposed,” Fazio said. “Yes, many people are busy in their daily lives. They’re not going to see every little thing we put out. But we want to give the public as much as we can give in order to paint a picture of what new leadership can look like, and transparency and accountability and affordability in the state can look like.” Fazio is trying to draw voters’ attention to back the inappropriate p-card spending by the former chancellor of Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, who was removed but retained a well-paying faculty job. And the ongoing FBI examination of how Sen. Doug McCrory, D-Hartford, funneled legislative earmarks to Hartford nonprofits. McCrory lost a primary last month. They also called out Lamont for awarding a $250,000 no-bid contract to Miguel Cardona, Connecticut’s former education commissioner who also served as President Joe Biden’s education secretary. Cardona’s firm was hired by the state to do research and make recommendations for an education workforce commission he also leads as chair. Lamont expressed no regret for hiring Cardona. “You say, ‘Oh my gosh, you’ve got a guy who used to be secretary of education leading our [Career] Pathways Commission.’ You’re damn right, because he knows what he’s doing,” Lamont said. “He was commissioner of education for us. He was secretary of education for the president. He knows best practices going on around the country. If you want to give every kid the very best opportunity and pathways, make sure they know what they can do educationally and know what they can do work-wise, he’s the best person for the job.” Fazio, who has served in the state Senate since 2021, unveiled a plan at the press conference to “crack down” on alleged corruption and misspending in the state government if he is elected in November. Fazio’s plan includes proposals that would add additional transparency to the legislative earmark process that was utilized by McCrory to direct money to organizations in his district. It also called for strengthening the state’s Freedom of Information Act and implementing new rules policing no-bid contracts, like the one that was awarded to Cardona in July. Bob Stefanowski, the Republican who competed with Lamont in 2018 and 2022, failed to make the issue resonate when he, too, called on Lamont to end the “corruption tax” on Connecticut taxpayers. A difference this cycle is that at least one of the federal corruption cases that Republicans have cited in recent years has now resulted in criminal convictions. Lamont’s former deputy budget director Konstantinos Diamantis was found guilty last year of soliciting bribes from a pair of construction contractors that he oversaw as the head of Connecticut’s school construction office. Diamantis is set to be sentenced for those crimes next week. Fazio and the other Republican leaders at the press conference said that policing and preventing such corruption needs to be a top priority in the next administration. “Time and again, we are seeing these scandals popping up in the state of Connecticut,” House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said. “We are on a merry-go-round cycle of corruption.” Lamont proposed and helped to pass several reforms to the state budgeting process to increase reporting and oversight around legislative earmarks. The governor also fired Diamantis in 2021, prior to his arrest. Matt Corey, the Republican running for lieutenant governor with Fazio, said Lamont is “reactive” to corruption in the state instead of being “proactive.” And in the case of Cardona’s consulting contract, they noted that the governor personally approved the contract that will provide $250,000 to the former U.S. Education Secretary. On Pratt Street, the Democrats indicated a willingness to compare their record and stewardship of government with the Republican brand established by Trump. Tong, the Democratic attorney general, said Trump is more than a convenient talking point for Democrats: He is a source of material harm in Connecticut that Fazio ignores. “He has a tolerance for the harms, the dangers that this president visits upon Connecticut,” Tong said. “This discussion about Trump is not about Washington. It’s about Connecticut. It’s about the damage he’s doing in Connecticut.”