NU’s CL&P becomes first payer to play after Election Day

Pay to play is the not-so-grand old game of making political contributions in exchange for influence at best and votes at worst. It’s been a hard game to play in recent years for some, but the principal players, contractors and others regularly enjoying state business are returning to the playing field after being barred for a time.

The polls had barely closed when Connecticut Light and Power, the electricity provider for more than a million state residents, celebrated the re-election of its candidate for governor, Dan Malloy, by announcing a 26 percent rate hike.

The utility could surely have made the announcement before the election, but if it had, it would have called attention once again to the Malloy campaign contributions by executives of its parent company, Northeast Utilities and possibly hurt their candidate. So it waited for all of a week after the election and the state’s regulators waited just another week before giving their approval. 

You’ll recall the Malloy contributions were “suggested” by NU’s chairman Thomas J. May, even though NU has been on a list of contractors whose executives were supposedly barred by state law from contributing to state election campaigns. 

“The next gubernatorial election is upon us, and I am asking each of you to join me in financially supporting Connecticut’s Governor Dannel P. Malloy,” wrote May in a personal email to 48 managers that was obtained by The Hartford Courant. May is a resident of Westwood, Mass. and can’t vote in Connecticut. The managers, who gave nothing in 2010, responded enthusiastically, sending more than $50,000 to the Malloy campaign. Half of the 48 executives live in Massachusetts, Vermont and Maryland, but Connecticut’s Malloy — or maybe Chairman May — was just irresistible.

The 48 didn’t actually contribute directly to the Malloy campaign. That would have been illegal. Instead, May told his minions how to launder their Malloy contributions through the Connecticut Democratic Party’s account for federal candidates, but the money ended up helping Malloy. 

It’s been widely reported how most of the reforms passed in reaction to John Rowland’s corruption have been undone by Malloy and the Democratic legislature. Although the reforms promised to keep the damaging, corrupting influence of special interest money out of elections by barring contributions from contractors and others doing business with the state, they didn’t even last a decade.

The Malloy campaign was able to get its hands on some of the money from NU and other contractors in the federal account and spend it on Malloy for governor mailings, poorly disguised as get out the vote leaflets. They first asked permission from the Federal Elections Commission and when permission wasn’t issued fast enough, they took the money anyway. 

The State Election Enforcement Commission told NU its sleazy circumvention of the anti-contractor law was “offensive” but it didn’t violate anything more than “the spirit and intent” of the state law. The federal election regulators will probably be heard from in time for the 2016 election.

You may have noticed electric bills are terribly difficult to understand, as are the announcements of rate hike requests. In August, candidate Malloy objected to a rate increase sought for various parts of the electric bill that will cost the average customer an extra $10 a month as of Jan. 1, if approved.

While sympathetic to the utility’s “new business challenges” — he had already received the $50,000 — the governor urged the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to “fashion an innovative and common sense response that will ensure the long-term fiscal health of our major electric utilities without penalizing rate payers.” 

And who wouldn’t want “an innovative and common sense response” that would make our utility healthy without penalizing the rate payers who already pay the second highest bills in the nation after Hawaii? 

The August request is still pending, but whatever happens, Northeast Utilities will surely realize a healthy return on the $50,000 so gladly given by its generous executives from four states. Paying to play pays.

Simsbury resident Dick Ahles is a retired journalist. Email him at dahles@hotmail.com.