Could it be Cuomo, Christie envy?

It isn’t easy being the third most famous governor in the Tri-state area, so maybe there’s a bit of Christie and Cuomo envy behind Dannel P. Malloy’s attempted power grab of the heretofore independent agencies that oversee elections, ethics, the free flow of information from government to the people and sometimes, the conduct of governors.Maybe the governor figures that if he can’t be the most popular, he can be the most powerful governor, and how do you get power when you’re the governor? You get control over those who would control you. The governor, who likes to have us see him as a champion of government transparency, is making his second try at having the professional staff of the Freedom of Information, Ethics and Elections Enforcement Commissions and and six other watchdog groups answerable to Dannel P. Malloy. The others are the Offices of Victim Advocate and Child Advocate, the Judicial Selection Commission, the Judicial Review Council, the Boards of State Contracting Standards and Firearms Permit Examiners. Since the days of Ella Grasso, more than three decades ago, Connecticut has prided itself on the independence of these agencies charged with keeping government open and honest.A decade ago, John Rowland, the best gubernatorial reason for having these groups, tried and failed to make them answerable to him and now we have a governor who sees himself as the anti-Rowland, trying to pull off the same caper. It makes no sense.It started two years ago when, in the interest of cutting government spending and other efficiencies, the governor managed to merge the nine agencies’ administrative operations under a new Office of Government Accountability (OGA).To head the new agency, the economy-minded governor could have hired Mitchell Pearlman, the retiring, veteran head of the Freedom of Information Commission, who offered to work for nothing in order to see the agencies through a threatening transition.Instead, he named David Guay, a bean counter whose State Board of Accountancy was about to be merged out of existence along with his job and left Pearlman free to travel the world advising groups that want to emulate Connecticut in government openness. Guay has been a disaster, refusing to answer to the agencies’ executive directors or even acknowledging his job performance evaluations from them and now, the governor wants to make him the boss of all bosses at the OGA.u u uMalloy would achieve his takeover in a number of moves, all in the name of efficiency. First, the lawyers assigned to each agency would become the OGA legal staff under the thumb of Guay, who would presumably decide if their assignments to particular tasks for the Ethics Commission or any other commission should be approved or rejected. Imagine how this might be handled under an administrator with Guay’s nonexistent record in the fields of government ethics or the right to know.In addition, each agency would lose its ability to make and submit its own budget directly to the General Assembly. Instead, the entire OGA budget would become part of the overall governor’s budget. You may be as shocked as I was to learn that evil governors have been known to punish those who offend them by using the power of the budget.This latest “economy” move will save an estimated $187,000, which Malloy could have saved if he’d hired Pearlman for nothing a year instead of Guay.The reason for the independence of these agencies is to keep them as far as possible from the people and offices they regulate. Malloy’s “reforms” would not only close that gap, it would put those being watched in charge of not only the purse strings, but also the decision making. This is really a big deal. Except for the aberration known as the Rowland years, Connecticut has had a pretty clean reputation over the past several years. No small part of this cleanliness is the result of the unheralded work of these three principal watchdog agencies.For the record, I’ve been involved with the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information for many years and have seen what the Freedom of Information Commission has accomplished for the very good cause of open government. Government truly enjoys the convenience of working behind closed doors and without the FOIC, much public business would be conducted under the rubric that “what the public doesn’t know won’t hurt it.” This is a view many public officials subscribe to on occasion, even governors. Simsbury resident Dick Ahles is a retired journalist. Email him at dahles@hotmail.com.