New Haven Independent

Lembo (at left in photo) was in New Haven talking to a gathering of bloggers about the position of lieutenant governor. The job has historically meant attending parades and ribbon-cuttings or the occasional task force meeting. It also includes waiting to step in if the governor dies or, as happened in 2004, has a rendezvous behind bars.

Lembo argued that lieutenant governor can become a real job. While (at last count) nine other political figures are running for governor (including current Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele), Lembo on Nov. 24 launched an “exploratory” campaign for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant.

He brought that campaign the other night to Sullivan’s on Chapel restaurant. Lembo worked his way through a portobello sandwich and onion rings as a half-dozen liberal bloggers (including Al Robinson of My Left Nutmeg, at right in photo) peppered Lembo with questions before heading to a bigger gubernatorial campaign event on Crown Street.

Lembo’s mission: Convince people to care about an office few people know much about, let alone see candidates running for 11 months before an election.

Lembo has not endorsed any of the Democrats seeking the governor’s job.

“It’s not a waiting room for governor,” or at least it shouldn’t be, Lembo said of the lieutenant governor’s office. “We’re counting on a Democratic governor [to win in 2010 and] to not go to prison — and to be healthy.”

Lembo has a day job: the state’s “healthcare advocate.” In that job, he fights the bureaucracy on behalf of families burned by insurance companies. He drafts and pushes for bills to reform health care. Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell unsuccessfully tried to eliminate that position after Lembo took on insurance companies.

A lieutenant governor can help a governor craft and push health reform, as well as help investigate how to spend money more wisely throughout state government on behalf of Connecticut families, Lembo said.

Before he gets to that point in his pitch for lieutenant governor, he said, he usually has to answer a more basic question: “Do we elect that person?”

We do. And the lieutenant governor, while a “running mate” of a party’s gubernatorial candidate, runs separately.

Some have called for abolishing the office, as other states have. Then the State Senate’s president would simply become the person next in line if a governor leaves office mid-term.

That would require a constitutional change. In the meantime, Lembo suggested, “if we’re paying for it, why don’t we use it to the greatest extent possible?”

If elected, he said he’d like the next governor to assign him to oversee an in-depth study of state agencies during the transition period between the election and the swearing-in. He’d examine how to consolidate agencies or otherwise seek “smarter” ways of doing business.

“Do we need a banking department and an insurance department? We regulate three banks,” he said.

In his current job he has come to question “all these fiefdoms. We’re buying health care in six different ways. The state buys pharmaceuticals in six different ways,” he said. And the six agencies involved “don’t communicate. It’s an outrage to taxpayers.” Having a single system covering all pharmaceutical purchases with state aid, through one purchasing contract, would work better, he said.

Rhode Island saved $41 million a year that way, Lembo said.

He obtained a federal grant to study how to do that in Connecticut. He was stymied by the refusal of individual “fiefdom” agencies to open their books, he said.

“I’m a geek. I get in the weeds about this. Because it’s important. Every two hundred bucks [saved] is taxpayer money,” he said.

Lembo asked if he’d be open to performing some of the more traditional roles of lieutenant governor if elected.

“Funerals, parades and ribbon-cuttings are fine,” he said. He added that he’d prefer attending ribbon-cuttings for “something important” like “a center for stem cell research” rather than “a Wal-Mart.”