Griebel wants to promote the "radical middle"

By Scott Benjamin

HARTFORD – Oz Griebel is continuing his quest to rally the “radical middle.”

The former independent candidate for governor says the unaffiliated voters, many of whom don’t sway far right or far left – should have a greater voice in determining who oversees a $43.8 billion biennial budget and a pension system that is so woefully under-funded that it needs an infusion of capital equal to the combined winnings for all the contestants since Pat and Vanna became the stars of Wheel of Fortune.

Griebel of Hartford and his running mate for lieutenant governor, Newtown attorney Monte Frank, said during the 2018 campaign that partisan gridlock has resulted in poor solutions.

Sacred Heart University Government Professor Gary Rose said on WTNH-Ch. 8-New Haven’s “Capitol Report” in July that governors and legislators over generations have left Connecticut with a state employee pension system that is only 29 percent funded and crumbling roads.

Griebel and Frank - who were vastly outspent by Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) and Republican contender Bob Stefanowski, the Madison businessman – annexed just 3.9 percent of the vote.

Griebel, who has served as the President/CEO of the MetroHartford Alliance, contends that the Republican and Democrats in Connecticut state government “may not agree on policy issues, but they agree on closed primaries.” He said that has “frustrated” the electorate and resulted in partisan politics at the State Capitol.

“It is a vertical vision right now with just the registered party members in the primaries, because the Republicans play to their base and the Democrats do that same and there is very little effort to appeal to the political center, where more voters tend to be,” he said in an interview.

He noted that Stefanowski won the five-way Republican primary with just 29 percent of the vote – about 42,000 registered Republicans.

Griebel, who came to Connecticut in 1993 as the president of Connecticut operations for the Bank of Boston, said unaffiliated voters feel “disenfranchised” since they can’t vote in primaries, which is the case in some other states. He said 40 percent of the voters are unaffiliated.

“It’s not exactly democracy in action,” he said. “It’s a Democratic-Republican duopoly.”

The No Labels organization, which promotes bipartisanship, has endorsed open primaries, noting that unaffiliated voters pay for the costs of holding the balloting.

Griebel said he has contacted some of his ticket’s supporters and plans to hold meetings this fall to discuss contacting legislators and distributing petitions in support of open primaries.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties have the capability of opening their primaries to unaffiliated voters, since that is not determined by state statute.

Brookfield Patch has reported that Secretary of the State Denise Merrill (D-Hartford) has said that she believes if one of the major parties took that step it would be “an advantage” for them.

The argument against opening the primaries has been that it would devalue the importance of registering with a major party since any registered voter could participate.

Griebel, who placed a distant third in the 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary, said that it is “not my place” to tell the major parties whether they should have conventions. However, he said that format forces candidates to spend more than a year primarily communicating with slightly more than 1,000 delegates who will vote at the convention.

“The public is frustrated that throughout the nominating process so few people participate,” he said.

Brookfield Patch has reported that Greenwich financial manager David Stemerman, who placed third in the Republican primary last year, said that Connecticut is one of only four states that selects its candidates at a statewide convention.

Griebel said he also plans to facilitate discussion groups this fall on the merits of ranked choice voting, which on a statewide basis has only been adopted in Maine.

“Voters rank the candidates for a given office by preference on their ballots,” according to Ballotpedia.

The Committee For Ranked Choice Voting has stated that it “ensures that candidates with the most votes and broadest support win, so voters get what they want.” Supporters believe that a greater number of moderate candidates will be nominated and the contenders usually focus more on issues, in part, because they fear that personal attacks on a particular opponent could hurt their chances of being placed at least second on many of the ranked choice ballots.

However, Louis Jackson wrote in Governing in 2013 that, “It’s more complicated for voters to understand, at least until they get used to it.”

As for the bigger step, Griebel said discussions of establishing a third party in Connecticut are probably a year away.

He said that if there is going to be an established third party in Connecticut, it should be better structured.

“I made a ton of mistakes,” he said regarding his 2018 campaign. “One of the clear ones was starting in January of the election year. You haven’t built the credibility with the voters. You haven’t built the credibility with the media. You haven’t built a financial foundation.”

The ticket was endorsed by the Hartford Courant. However, partly due to the close race for governor, which resulted in Lamont winning by just 45,000 votes, in the waning days of the campaign some political groups called on Griebal and Frank to withdraw.

Their ticket was endorsed in 2018 by the SAM (Serve America Movement) Party, which was established in 2016 and ran a candidate for governor or New York State in 2018. SAM is seeking to become active in other states.

Will Griebel make another bid for governor?

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.

Regarding issues, Griebel, who was a consultant to the General Assembly in 2000-2001 and spearheaded the creation of the state Transportation Strategy Board and served as its chairman from 2001-2005, said he is disappointed the policy on road improvements is still “”sitting fallow.”

“The governor [Lamont] focused on just tolls, and not on money that is needed [in general] for the infrastructure,” he said of the recent efforts to finance improvements to the roads and trains.

“Electronic tolls need to part of the discussion,” said Griebel who also served on the 2015 committee, chaired by former state Rep. Cameron Staples (D-New Haven), that recommended a $100 billion transportation infrastructure improvement program over 30 years.

The state has been plagued for years by clogged highways, particularly along the interstates in the Stamford and Waterbury areas.

About 15 years ago, the Transportation Strategy Board recommended funding transportation improvements by utilizing part of the sales tax, increasing the gasoline tax and electronic tolls.

“Nothing came out this [2019] session, that I’m aware of, that increases the special transportation fund,” Griebel lamented.

He said he doesn’t believe that Lamont will call for a vote on the tolls since all Republicans legislators are resolutely against them and there are enough Democrats in opposition because tolls are “an anathema” in their districts.

The Republicans have proposed reprioritizing the state bonding to pay for the infrastructure improvements.

However, Griebel said, “They don’t have the votes for that. It’s been on the table for years.”

“Besides, if you bond for it, that doesn’t mean that you still don’t come up with the revenue sources,” he added regarding the need for funds from the sales tax or higher gasoline taxes.

“I don’t see any discussion on what source of revenue will be used,” he said. “Bonding without also identifying the revenues is fairy tales. If you don’t increase the gas tax or don’t divert some of the sales tax, where is the money going to come from?”

On Connecticut’s economy, Griebel said a year ago that a lack of confidence by businesses in the state’s ability to offset budget deficits and unfunded pension obligations was the main reason for Connecticut is the only New England state that hasn’t recaptured all of the jobs it lost in the 2008 recession.

He said that, “$81 billion in unfunded liabilities that’s going to remain a drag on fiscal stability,”

The state Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Competitiveness reported in March of last year that the long-term unfunded liabilities could be as much as $100 billion.”

“I think it’s gotten worse,” Griebel said recently about the lack of confidence among businesses that the state will correct its fiscal obstacles. “There hasn’t been a change in the underlying fiscal structure.”

“It’s not just the problems on the fiscal side, but also in having a trained work force for the jobs that are here,” he said.

Employers have complained for years that they can’t find qualified candidates for some positions.

Griebel said if he was governor, he would consider a surcharge on the income tax for the state’s billionaires if it would be directed to the unfunded pensions and if concurrently the state employee collective bargaining units would more aggressively adopt defined contributions pension programs for their members, which are less costly.

He said that all of the players would need to participate in addressing the pension crisis by following a “collaborative” plan similar to the proposal he has made to resolve Hartford’s insolvency.

Griebel said during the 2018 campaign that if the state could resolve its fiscal problems, his administration could over time generate 200.000 additional jobs.

On another topic, regarding the proposed merger between Raytheon Technologies and United Technologies (UTC), Griebel said the decision to move the new company’s corporate headquarters from Farmington to Boston will cost Connecticut about 100 high-paying positions,

Over the longer term, he is concerned about maintaining the current manufacturing base at the Francis Pratt and Amos Whitney facilities in Connecticut.

Griebel, who currently works as a business consultant, said, “The growth [in United Technologies] has not been in East Hartford or Middletown, it’s been in North Carolina and Florida” where the company has divisions for its Collins Aerospace operation.

The Associated Press reported that UTC recently announced a $45 million investment in Florida.

On another topic, during last year’s campaign, Griebel said that if he became governor he would attempt to have more private-sector members working at the Department of Economic & Community Development and the Connecticut Economic Resource Center (CERC), a subsidiary.

He said he believes that to some extent CERC has taken that step by having Indra Nooyi of Greenwich, the former CEO of Pepsi, and James Smith of Middlebury, the former CEO of Webster Bank, serve as its co-chairmen.

Nooyi assisted the state last year in attracting Infosys, a technology and innovation company, to Hartford. Smith was co-chairman of the state Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Competitiveness, which distributed a report in March of last year that indicated that the pensions for the employees in the state collective bargaining units were only 29 percent funded.

Griebel said there is value in having high profile former executives leading the state’s economic development outreach.