Jeffrey Garfield, who repeatedly fought to preserve the resources and independence of the State Elections Enforcement Commission over three decades as its leader, urged Gov. Ned Lamont on Tuesday to veto a bill that would give the legislature veto power over the hiring of its executive director.
“Sadly, the commission’s independence is again under attack,” said Garfield, a featured speaker at an awkwardly timed celebration of the agency’s founding a half-century ago. “We must continue to fight for the agency’s independence, its funding and its future.”
Under a deal struck by the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate and House, the elections commission bill criticized by Garfield sped through the Senate and House with little debate last week, despite opposition from Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and the Connecticut Citizen Action Group.
Garfield and those groups objected to a section of Senate Bill 1405 that would make the five-member bipartisan commission’s selection of an executive director subject to three layers of legislative review and votes: By the legislature’s Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee, the House and Senate.
A ceremony at the state Capitol marked two anniversaries: SEEC was created 50 years ago as an elections watchdog after the Watergate scandal forced the resignation of Richard Nixon; and the Citizens’ Election Program, created after a Connecticut governor, John G. Rowland, went to prison, is turning 20.
Garfield, who retired in 2009 as the commission’s general counsel and executive director, recounted sporadic fights with the legislature over the agency’s funding, staffing and independence.
“For decades, we fought for independence and against being merged with the FOI and Ethics commissions, often under the guise of budgetary savings,” Garfield said. One year, he recalled, a lawmaker told him he was blocking money for an additional position, because a SEEC investigation had led to a friend’s arrest.
SEEC currently has a staff of 35, down from what Garfield recalled as a high of 63 during his tenure.
Connecticut’s elections enforcement commission and the CEP, which has changed the political culture in the General Assembly by minimizing the ability of lobbyists and other interests to finance campaigns, are good government reforms emulated by other states, said Stephen Penny, the commission’s chair.
“That said, based on what happened at the legislature last week, apparently not everyone has appreciated that success,” Penny said.
The Senate voted 34-1 for passage, but slightly more than half of the 91 House Democrats present last week voted against the measure, a noisy gesture heard in the governor’s office. The bill is now on the governor’s radar, and his signature is not assured.
“While we have some concerns around SB 1405, the governor hasn’t made a decision as to whether he will sign. We will review the bill more closely when it reaches his desk,” said Rob Blanchard, a spokesman.
The House vote was 92 to 46, with every Republican in favor. The opposition was generated by the provision ending the commission’s independence in hiring its leader, said Rep. Lucy Dathan, D-New Canaan, who presented the bill during the brief debate.
House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, and House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, were willing to strike the provision, but the Senate leaders were adamant it remain in the bill, according the House leaders.
The Citizens’ Election Program created a voluntary system of publicly financed campaigns for the General Assembly and six statewide constitutional offices: governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of the state, comptroller, treasurer and attorney general general.
At the ceremony, former House Speaker Chris Donovan, D-Meriden, said legislators overcame an initial wariness about taking away a major advantage of incumbency: The ability to raise money in Hartford, often relying on lobbyists to facilitate contributions from clients.
Thirty-two of the 36 senators and 143 of the 151 House members participated in the voluntary program, which enforced strict spending limits in return for public financing.
Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, a former House member and secretary of the state, recalled being told during her first campaign she needed to have a fundraiser directed at lobbyists, preferably at the convenient venue of the Officers’ Club next to the Legislative Office Building.
“I found out that lobbyists contributed to everyone’s campaign — Democrats, Republicans — and business was done based on who gave to them,” Bysiewicz said. “And so that has all changed because of the Citizens’ Election Program, and this program has become a model for the rest of the country.”
A popular practice before it was outlawed at Garfield’s urging was to time fundraisers to the final meetings of legislative committees, when bills would die or get reported to the floors of the House or Senate.
In the audience Tuesday were the sons of two women instrumental to the passage of the CEP: Karen Hobert Flynn, the Common Cause leader who died in 2023, and former Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who died this year. Rell had called the legislature into special session in 2005 when it failed to pass a reform bill in regular session.
