Markley Aims For Second Position On GOP Ticket

By Scott Benjamin

SOUTHINGTON -- Joe Markley was initially elected to the state Senate at an age when most people are figuring out how to get their first big paycheck after graduate school.

He lost his bid for a second term but some years later helped organize 40,000 strong at the State Capitol to shout down the income tax that former Gov. Lowell Weicker had signed.

Markley supports efforts now, a generation later, to phase out the income tax, but says it will take more than one four-year gubernatorial term to accomplish it.

He started a second stint in the Senate - nearly seven years ago - when it seems that achieving a balanced budget is more difficult than nailing a piece of Jello to the side of a Stamford sky-scraper.

Two years ago Markley submitted a plan to revitalize the Connecticut Republican Party during an unsuccessful bid for the state party chairmanship.

Now with that experience and a resume that also includes a bachelor’s degree from an elite Little Ivy League school – Amherst – and a master’s degree from an even more elite Ivy League campus – Columbia – he wants to become lieutenant governor.

The fourth-term state Senator from Southington said he is comfortable with all of the Republican gubernatorial contenders that he’s familiar with. However, he said in an interview that he doesn’t plan endorse any of them before the state nominating convention next May.

The field is longer than the Los Angeles Dodgers pitching staff and apparently lacks a Clayton Kershaw, with the possible exception of Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton – since he has been running the Hat City since before Kershaw was in high school and began running for governor before Kershaw annexed his first Cy Young.

Markley said that he is taking a page out of former state Rep. Penny Bacchiochi’s (R-Stafford Springs) playbook by being out and about at least a year before the convention.

She lost narrowly in a three-way primary for the GOP lieutenant governor’s nomination in 2014.

Thus far, Markley has done things slightly differently, since he has largely focused on fund-raising – an estimated $60,000 through the September 30 quarter. He said he hopes by Halloween he will have the additional $15,000 to qualify for the state Citizens Election Program.

Markley, 60, said he then plans to start making his case to the town committees and to “bring along a base by organizing a grass-roots army” for whomever eventually wears the GOP gubernatorial fedora.

As expected, he enthusiastically supports the pledge by Boughton, who is making his third bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, to phase out the income tax.

Opponents of the levy believe it is partly responsible for slower economic growth in the Nutmeg State since it was signed by Weicker (ACP-Essex) in 1991.

“We spent the money because it was available,” said Markley. “We made obligations which were not sustainable.”

In 1977, 40 years ago, then-Gov. Ella Grasso (D-Windsor Locks) signed the first annual budget of more than $2 billion. Gov. Dannel Malloy’s (D-Stamford) proposal for the current fiscal year is about $20 billion – or about 10 times the size of the spending package of 1977.

However, Markley said it will take several years to abolish the income tax, so the action that short-term could provide a boost to a state grappling to resolve a $5 billion budget deficit for the current two-year cycle would be lowering the corporate tax.

“I think it could have a rapid impact on the state,” he declared. “We need to have a competitive advantage over other states.”

Trumbull First Selectman Tim Herbst, a contender for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, has credited Weicker with “reining in” the bond appropriations after signing the income tax. He said that practice was not continued by his three successors – Republicans John Rowland of Middlebury and M. Jodi Rell of Brookfield and Malloy of Stamford – who will not seek a third term in 2018.

Markley said Ben Barnes - the secretary of the governor’s budget arm, the Office of Policy & Management – told him in 2011, the first year of the Malloy Administration, that the governor had a “soft cap” of $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion for bonding. However, Markley said that figure has escalated to $2.5 billion.

Critics have said too many municipal playgrounds and high school press box renovations have been approved.

“There are many things that are nice to do, but you have to determine what is necessary,” Markley said.

The senator said he has a platform for the office of lieutenant governor.

Markley said he wants to offer outreach to businesses in the state.

“I think that some businesses don’t think that they get a fair shake from state government and sometimes are looked at as the bad guy,” he said. “I’d like to see if I could improve that situation and get some of those issues resolved between businesses and the state.”

Markley said he also wants to address personal privacy in the digital age, particularly the hazards of identity theft.

“The rules of privacy have changed,” he explained.

He said another goal will be to make the state Senate more punctual as its presiding officer. He said too often sessions are scheduled for 11 a.m. and start at 1 p.m. or later.

Markley said the General Assembly “is not more partisan now” than during his two years in the Senate during the mid-1980s.

However, he said there is a stark contrast between the Nutmeg State’s last two Democratic governors.

He said Bill O’Neill (D-East Hampton) and his staff were “very accessible.”

“There were people in his office that I could talk to and who knew where I was coming from,” Markley added.

The senator said the rapport between the General Assembly and Malloy “has been very bad.”

“He’s not a particularly inviting character,” Markley explained. “He’s rather thin-skinned. He never admits that he’s wrong.”

“I get the impression with the commissioners that I deal with that they are constrained in what they can say,” he added.

The governor and the General Assembly are now grappling with a budget crisis that has left Connecticut without a spending package for the first three and half months of the current fiscal year.

“I think the General Assembly has done all that it can do,” Markley said, making an apparent reference to the Republican-sponsored proposal that with the support of a small number of Democrats was approved by both chambers last month and then vetoed by Malloy.

The senator said one hurdle is the agreement with the state employee collective bargaining units that was approved in in July, which, among other things, extends the pension and health care benefit provisions an additional five years, until 2017, and prohibits layoffs over the next four years.

“It ties our hands,” Markley explained. “It should never have been done.”

“To make [the budget sustainable] sustainable, we’re going to have to get more concessions than we have gotten,” he said.

He said he also believes the University of Connecticut (UConn) can continue to thrive under the Republican budget proposal, which slashes some of its funding.

Markley said there is only about a $100 million difference between the GOP and Democratic budget blueprints for UConn.

“It’s hard to me to believe that difference is the difference between life and death for the University of Connecticut,” he declared. “They have been very well funded for a number of years. Those day are over.”

On another topic, CTNewsJunkie columnist Terry Cowgill stated in 2014 that the office of lieutenant governor should be eliminated, since most of the duties assigned to the position could easily be taken over by other members in a gubernatorial administration and it would save taxpayers about $500,000 annually.

The lieutenant governor earns $110,000 a year in Connecticut.

Cowgill noted that five states don’t have a lieutenant governor, including nearby Maine and New Hampshire. The presiding officer in the state Senate in those states becomes governor if the incumbent has to vacate the office during his term.

“I haven’t thought about it,” Markley said when asked if the position should be gradually phased out.

Does the structure need to be changed?

For example, twenty years ago when former Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R-Brookfield) was in her first term as lieutenant governor she didn’t have a communications director. She added a part-time communications director in 1999 at the beginning of her second term in the position.

Nancy Wyman (D-Tolland), the current lieutenant governor, has a full-time communications director.

Markley said any changes in how the lieutenant governor’s office operates should be discussed with the next governor.