A Capitol Whodunit. Who Gutted Elections Enforcement?

Oh, the state Capitol loves its mysteries.

Try this one: Who wrote a provision in the newly revised budget that shifts control over the public financing of campaigns from the non-partisan State Elections Enforcement Commission to a partisan elected official, the secretary of the state?

Not us, says the governor's staff. Or us, says the secretary of the state's office. Or us, say the leaders of the House and Senate, the committee that approved the budget, and the panel responsible for elections law.

"Somebody had to write the goddamned thing," said Karen Hobert Flynn, vice president of Common Cause.

One would think.

But after a week of making calls and knocking on doors at the state Capitol and Legislative Office Building, Hobert Flynn can't find anyone willing to own up to the changes.

"From our standpoint, there's lots of questions and problems and not a lot of answers," Hobert Flynn said.

"The legislative process has never been accused of being perfect," said gubernatorial adviser Roy Occhiogrosso, who was a House and Senate staffer earlier in his career. "That track record remains unbroken. Clearly, there are things in the package that are imperfect. This is one of them."

One thing is clear: Gov. Dannel P. Malloy put the elections commission in play in February by proposing to consolidate 11 watchdog agencies with responsibilities ranging from overseeing judicial conduct to freedom of information into an Office of Governmental Accountability.

The concept was to have common administrative staffs, while keeping each unit's specialized function intact as divisions within the new OGA.

But when the Appropriations Committee voted last week to send a revised budget proposal to the House, the State Elections Enforcement Commission no longer was moving intact into the new watchdog agency.

Its staff of 52 was scattered. Only eight jobs moved to OGA, while 15 were eliminated, one moved to the Auditors of Public Accounts and 25 associated with the Citizens' Election Program, as the public-financing law is formally known, were earmarked for the secretary of the state's office.

"This is a disaster. It makes no sense. I do not support it," said Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, the co-chairwoman of the Government Administration and Elections Committee, which is supposed to oversee elections law. "This came out of the blue, from behind closed doors."

"I was shocked," said Rep. Russell A. Morin, D-Wethersfield, the other co-chairman.

"That was not mine," said Rep. Toni E. Walker, D-New Haven, co-chair of the Appropriations Committee. She added, "I don't think that's been etched in stone."

UPDATE:

 A revision to the budget bill will end a controversial, 11th-hour plan to shift control of the state's public financing of campaigns from the non-partisan State Elections Enforcement Commission to a partisan elected official, the secretary of the state.

"SEEC is staying a separate agency, with all its parts," said House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan, D-Meriden.

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