Political 'bad old days' recalled in Connecticut

Corruption elsewhere eclipses state scandals

HARTFORD - The juicy scandals unfolding in Illinois and Massachusetts have many here recalling the bad old days when their state's unofficial nickname was Corrupticut.

Shaking their heads in mock sorrow, politicians like state Representative Michael P. Lawlor will tell you that it appears Connecticut can't compete in the big-time corruption arena any longer.

"Maybe if we can catch a few more, we can pick up the pace," Lawlor joked recently.

Lawlor, who was on the 2004 legislative committee that was preparing to impeach then-Governor John G. Rowland, is now giving Illinois lawmakers advice on how to go about removing a governor.

Rowland resigned in disgrace, spent 10 months in federal prison on a corruption charge, and has some advice for Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois. "He's got to resign immediately for the sake of his family and for the state," Rowland said in an appearance this month on a Fox News Channel show.

"In Connecticut, we've been off the hook for a while," said John Orman, head of Fairfield University's political science department. He said the allegations against Blagojevich "make Rowland look like a saint."

The Massachusetts controversy surrounding House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi has also stirred up memories of Connecticut scandals involving alleged influence-peddling, contract corruption, and favors for political friends and campaign contributors.

DiMasi is one focus of a grand jury investigation into allegations that millions of dollars in state work was granted to a company that was paying some of DiMasi's close associates.

"From my first day in office, I wanted to reform state contracting," said Governor M. Jodi Rell. As Rowland's lieutenant governor, she took over the state's top job when Rowland stepped down in July 2004 to avoid impeachment.

"I wanted to change the image of Connecticut," said Rell. "In order to change our image, we had to do some real fundamental reforms . . . I think we've very much succeeded."

Those reforms included changes in state contracting rules, ethics laws, and a public campaign financing system that was put into effect for the first time in this year's election.

The changes stunned some state workers, such as a few public works employees who couldn't believe that a new ban on accepting gifts from agency contractors even applied to baskets of Christmas goodies.

Rell is now the most popular politician in the state, in large part due to a personal style that prompted some pundits to label her the "Snow White" of Connecticut politics.

A moderate Republican who won a landslide victory in 2006, she is considering running again in 2010.

But Rell acknowledges that Connecticut's political corruption, while it may not be making national headlines these days, hasn't disappeared.

"You're always going to have bad people who do bad or stupid things," she said. "For some folks, it comes down to greed or power."

Leonard Grimaldi, who served an 11-month federal sentence for his part in a Bridgeport corruption scandal, agrees.

"A lot of politicians look around and see their friends making all this money and think, 'Why not me?' " said Grimaldi, who testified for the prosecution in a trial that put then-Bridgeport Mayor Joseph P. Ganim in prison.

Grimaldi, an author who now has his own local politics news blog called www.onlyinbridgeport.com, said elected politicians usually rationalize their corruption by "thinking they deserve it because they've done such a fine job in office."

Connecticut's record since the Rowland era ended includes a state senator's guilty plea on bribery charges and ongoing investigations of alleged wrongdoing in several state agencies.

In the past month, authorities have begun looking into allegations of fraud involving one of US Representative Christopher Shays's top campaign aides and charged a Madison man with attempting to bribe his state representative.

For Shays, New England's only Republican US representative, the fraud allegation was a bitter blow, coming as it did just weeks after he lost the Fourth District seat he'd held for 21 years.

He issued a statement calling the situation "a betrayal of my campaign, its supporters, and the very things I stand for."

The alleged attempted bribery of state Representative Deborah Heinrich, a Madison Democrat, stunned everyone, especially Heinrich.

"First, I was totally shocked, then confused about why he thought I'd actually take it," said Heinrich, who has something of a goody-two-shoes reputation in the General Assembly.

The man accused of trying to hand her an envelope full of money, Anthony Perrelli, 74, has declined to discuss the case except to say Ms. Heinrich "overreacted."