New Haven Independent

Here’s the solution: DeStefano issues his fellow Democratic candidates, then Rell, a “clean-elections challenge” limiting what money they’ll accept and what money they’ll reject in the gubernatorial campaign.

He had better move fast. Before Rell beats him to it again.

In order to unseat the popular and politically savvy Rell, DeStefano must tie her, subtly, to 10 years of corruption in the Rowland-Rell administration. At the very least he must erase the impression of being another corrupt urban mayor. He’s not corrupt. He’s honest. But it will take little for Rell to portray him that way, given suburban voters’ prejudices and given DeStefano’s early record in office.

Rell did serve as lieutenant governor under disgraced (now jailed) Gov. John Rowland. Her family did receive favors. And she said nothing about publicly known corruption until after John Rowland pleaded guilty to basically selling off state government for hot tubs and plane tickets.

But since succeeding Rowland, Rell has seized the initiative from the Democrats. She has emerged, however cynically or reluctantly, as the champion of campaign finance reform. She’s pushing harder than Democrats for clean-election laws, most recently calling the Democrats into special session to pass an excellent package of bills that the Democrats have stubbornly and sleazily blocked.

Meanwhile, DeStefano is building a campaign kitty that smells like an old-school cesspool. He’s raising money from dozens of businesses to whom he gives city government contracts to rebuild public schools, among other things. He also has his own city employees ponying up money to their boss’s campaign, as well as businesses hoping to do business with the state under a Gov. DeStefano.

DeStefano people aren’t stupid enough literally to order people to participate in this (actually, his budget chief once did). They’re not breaking laws. But the money is tainted. At the very least it has the aroma of coercion. Certainly only Kool Aid-drunk campaign groupies would believe that all these contractors and lobbyists’ clients and city employees give this money purely because they love John DeStefano. Many people believe, rightly or wrongly, that this is the cost of doing business or holding a public job. Pay-to-play politics has existed for too long in Connecticut. It underlies all the scandals that have renamed Connecticut “Corrupt-i-cut” in the public mind.

While DeStefano is exploiting this system to get ahead, Gov. Rell has not only championed a set of reforms that would overnight transform Connecticut into the country’s leading clean-money state (by banning lobbyist and contractor campaign contributions and instituting a voluntary public-financing system, for instance). She is also, according to stories in The New York Times and New Haven Register, figuring out how to run for reelection without the kind of tainted money that provides the helium for DeStefano’s ballooning campaign coffers.

So before she announces a plan, DeStefano needs to put out a plan first. A real plan. Not self-interested window-dressing.

Best would be a promise to refuse to accept tainted money, period. DeStefano won’t do that. Unlike politicians truly willing to put their careers on the line to save the system (like U.S. Sen. Russell Feingold), DeStefano belongs to the camp that hides behind the excuse of being unwilling to “unilaterally disarm.” He vows he’ll work to change the system if elected. There’s reason to believe him, given his support of municipal campaign-finance reform.

DeStefano can stay in the no-unilateral-disarmament camp and offer the next-best solution. He can challenge any other candidates running for governor to join him by abiding by a clean-elections pledge. He’ll do it if they do it. If they refuse, he can then say: I tried, but I’m not willing to play by different rules to let the system’s exploiters win office again.

Under the DeStefano challenge, candidates would promise not to accept money from people doing business with or working for local or state government agencies (including those agencies to whom they appoint commissioners). All serious candidates exploit their taxpayer-supported agencies to run for governor. Dan Malloy, the only other announced candidate, is tapping a pool similar to DeStefano’s in the city he runs, Stamford. If Dick Blumenthal runs, he has a network of staff and contract lawyers from the attorney general’s office to draw on, not to mention corporations with whom his office does business.

DeStefano could challenge Rell to accept the pledge for the general election. He could announce that he’ll follow the pledge in the primary season if the other Democrats do; and he’ll follow it in the general election campaign if Rell does.

The others might call his offer too little too late. Let them carp. They may say: Why not return the money he’s already raised? To which DeStefano can respond: All candidates have raised money from people who work with government. We’ve followed the rules. Let’s look to the future. It’s the rules that need to change, and politicians with courage who need to change them through real action. It’s never too late to start reforming Connecticut’s sewage-infested campaign system. Better to defend trying to clean it up than to make excuses for swimming in it.