Chris Powell: Would she run with giddy superficiality?

In downtown New Britain, Conn. The city was once an industrial dynamo.

MANCHESTER, Conn.

Outlining last week her potential candidacy for the Republican nomination for governor of Connecticut, New Britain's Republican mayor, Erin Stewart, said that while her likely Democratic opponent, Gov. Ned Lamont, is a nice guy, "he's not evoking excitement in anyone."

But hadn't Connecticut just had too much excitement from the first few days of the new administration of President Donald Trump? Who wants more?

Asked what she would do differently than Lamont, Stewart chirped, "Everything!" -- which was just evasion. 

Stewart couldn't say much more for herself than that she had revived New Britain in her 11 years as mayor, as if the governor hadn't been a big help with that, and that Connecticut needs a "new generation of leadership," as if anyone cares much that she is 37 and the governor is 71. 

Any Republican who can win six elections for mayor in a city as Democratic as New Britain must have at least congeniality going for her, but as Stewart introduced her potential candidacy she was giddy and superficial. Like any Republican running for governor in a state as Democratic as Connecticut, Stewart will have to give voters better reasons to replace the entrenched regime. 

There are such reasons, but if, as expected, Lamont seeks a third term next year, his not being as exciting as Trump won't be one of them. Those reasons will have to involve policy and arise from insightful analysis that explodes the conventional wisdom that Connecticut is in great shape and offers compelling alternatives.

Since Connecticut's Republican Party has been reduced to a small minority in the General Assembly and lacks any statewide constitutional officers or members of Congress, maybe wishful thinking will persuade it that a bright, young personality is its best chance. After all, there is no one of much renown and ambition on the party's bench. 

But whoever the Republican nominee is, giddy superficiality will wear thin fast, especially since news organizations won't give any Republican the fawning treatment they give Democrats. 

SCAPEGOATING ISN'T FREE: New Haven's firing of four police officers involved in the case of an arrested man who became paralyzed during his transport to police headquarters in 2022 was politically correct. But it has started to cost the city money.

The officer who drove the van carrying the man has been reinstated by the state Board of Mediation and Arbitration, which determined that firing him was grossly excessive for his supposed offense. The officer continued to drive the van to police headquarters instead of waiting for an ambulance after the man complained he had been badly injured, his neck broken when the van stopped short to avoid a collision and he went flying off his seat. The van's passenger compartment had no seatbelts.

So the state board replaced the officer's firing with a 15-day unpaid suspension, and now he will receive a year and a half of back pay.

The state board has upheld the firing of an officer who was accused of treating the injured man callously at headquarters. The appeals of the two other fired officers continue.

It was a terrible incident and the city paid the man $45 million to settle his damage lawsuit, but the proximate cause of his injury wasn't any misconduct by officers but the city's longstanding failure to install seatbelts in prisoner vans. City government made scapegoats of the officers to satisfy public anger.

So now New Haven will pay for city government's negligence a second time.

PROFITABLE PUNISHMENT: An employee of the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services has been charged with creating fraudulent voter registration cards during a registration event in Torrington last September. She is accused of changing party affiliation entries on the cards from unaffiliated or Republican to Democratic.

Judging from recent state government employee disciplinary cases in the Public Defender Services Commission, the Administrative Services Department, and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, she could be in big trouble. That is, she may be facing a year or two of paid leave.      

Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).