Stefanowski seeks to stop tolls; says GOP needs better outreach

By Scott Benjamin

MADISON – Bob Stefanowski “has become the face of the Republican Party in Connecticut,” Sacred Heart University Political Science Professor Gary Rose tells the Hartford Courant.

Two years ago today the face of the Republican Party was a registered Democrat. The Madison business executive reportedly was considering seeking the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, according to Democratic political consultant Roy Occhiogrosso – as has been reported by CT Hearst. Occhiogrosso was a senior advisor to former Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Essex) during the first two years of his administration.

Stefanowski registered again as a Republican, launched a bid for the party’s gubernatorial nomination, skipped the GOP state nominating convention but petitioned to get on the ballot. By having volunteers go door to door to collect signatures and running television commercials for seven months he generated support and easily captured a five-way primary last August.

He was up by two points in the final Great Blue Research/Sacred Heart Poll which was taken the week before the general election. However, Democrat Ned Lamont of Greenwich prevailed by 44,000 votes in a three-way race.

Stefanowski had more than 650,000 votes, the most garnered by a Republican gubernatorial candidate this side of former Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s (R-Brookfield) 2006 landslide.

There was some sentiment that after three successive elections with a nominee who was a businessman with limited government experience that the Republicans needed to look elsewhere for a gubernatorial candidate, even though each time the party was within striking distance of victory. Greenwich businessman Tom Foley lost by 6,400 votes to Malloy in 2010 and then by 28,000 ballots in a rematch in 2014.

And some might have automatically written Stefanowski off since departing Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Essex) had the worst polls numbers of any governor, and Stefanowski had lost a race that could have been a boat ride.

Stefanowski isn’t committing to making another bid, but party officials say he’s acting like he will.

He has been speaking at No Tolls rallies to help quash Lamont’s bid to place gantries on the Schuyler Merritt Parkway and Interstates 91, 95 and 84. He has written columns for CT Hearst and the Courant – a stark contrast to last fall when reporters complained about their lack of access to Stefanowski.

Stefanowski, who had executive positions with General Electric and UBS, didn’t vote for 16 years, but now he is a member of the Madison Republican Town Committee as is his wife, Amy, who became its chairman and also has been elected to the Republican State Central Committee.

In 2018 he focused on phasing out the income tax that was established in 1991.

Fiscal issues remain first and foremost.

“He lied about tolls,” Stefanowski said of Lamont’s pledge last year to only put tolls on out-of- state trucks and not all of the traffic traversing Interstates 95, 91 and 84 and the Schuyler Merritt Parkway. Instead the governor is now seeking to put gantries on those highways and says up to 40 percent of the tolls will be paid by out-of-state residents.

Stefanowski has embraced the Republican legislative plan to reprioritize the state’s bonding to pay for the estimated $100 billion in repairs that an ad-hoc committee recommended four years ago.

“If he had the votes they would have put it up in the Legislature by now,” he said of Lamont’s decision to seek approval of the tolls plan in a special session this summer.

When it is mentioned that the CT Move group is seeking to get the toll plan approved as a counter force to No Tolls CT, Stefanowski said the members of the pro-tolls group are “lobbyists” and not the rank and file.

He wrote in the Courant that Lamont and the Democratic majorities in the Legislature should have found five percent savings in a $43.4 billion two-year state budget and avoided any decrease in tax exemptions or increases in taxes and fees.

“I think we’re focused on the wrong side of the equation,” said Stefanowski regarding the need to cut taxes instead of increasing spending.

“He’s expanding the number of things that the sale tax applies to,” the former GOP gubernatorial nominee said. “That’s a tax increase.”

“This will be one of the largest tax increases in the history of the state,” Stefanowski said of the Democratic-approved budget that will take effect on July 1.

“They keep coming after us for more money but they never try to cut any costs,” Stefanowski complained in an interview.

However, Malloy, who is about to become the chancellor of the Maine public higher education system, cut the full-time state work force by 13.1 percent over this eight years and reduced the prison population to its lowest level since 1994.

Stefanowski said, in general, he agrees with Lamont’s decision to curtail the state Bond Commission appropriations to save an estimated $700 million per year.

“I think a debt diet makes sense,” he said.

But Stefanowski said the governor hasn’t addressed a state employee pension fund that is only 29 percent funded, according to the report issued last year by the state Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth.

The state employees declined Lamont’s request to accept new limits on the annual inflation increases for their pensions. The state budget includes savings on their health care costs.

CT Mirror budget reporter Keith Phaneuf said at a League of Women Voters forum in Wilton in April that 85 percent of the current state employee and teacher pension payments are related to the decisions by governors prior to Malloy to not adequately fund those state employee pensions and those programs. He has said that no money was put into the teacher pensions from 1939 until 1971.

“It’s a fair point as to why a governor didn’t fund it,” said Stefanowski.

However, he said the fringe benefit obligations are “$100 billion under-funded.” Thus, he said, the state should consider “buy-out options” with some of the state employees.

“Maybe we do some things going forward – because it is a big problem,” Stefanowski said

He said that he agrees with state Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner David Lehman of Greenwich that Connecticut’s cities can attract millennials even though more of them have wanted to reside in large cities. Connecticut’s collection of bedroom communities were apparently more attractive a generation ago when major cities were considered to be dangerous.

Lehman has said Connecticut’s cities need to offer a similar lifestyle at a fraction of the cost of New York City and Boston.

“Connecticut has all it takes to be successful,” Stefanowski said. “We have great universities, we have a great work force. We have defense and financial services and an insurance sector. But the tax policy and the regulatory policies are driving companies out of this state.”

He said that during the campaign he spoke with business owners who had received offers from Florida and North Carolina to move there because the taxes were lower and there was a more friendly business climate.

The Money Talks web site recently reported that Connecticut is the 10^th worst state for getting a job.

Regarding the paid family medical leave legislation that Lamont is expected to sign, Stefanowski said, “I think giving people access is a good thing.”

“My issue is making it mandatory, particularly for small businesses.”

He added that “it is very strange that the state employee unions are not required to participate. I think it should be offered to state employees.”

On a separate subject, Stefanowski said he objected to the governor’s decision to sign a gradual increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2023.

“I’m all for people trying to make more money,” he said. “However, it puts a stress on businesses. They can leave the state.”

On another issue, Malloy was hailed by CT Mirror as being the “national leader” on criminal justice reform. Connecticut’s program was profiled earlier this year on CBS’ “60 Minutes” shortly after the former governor had left office.

Stefanowski said he partly agrees with Malloy’s policies.

“I’m all for people who have done the right thing - that should be reflected” he said. “But I think this early release program has gotten a little carried away.”

On another topic, the Board of Regents was established during the first year of the Malloy administration and has combined the online Charter Oak College with the 12 community colleges and the four state university campuses.

Stefanowski said he is “not close enough” to determine how well the merger has worked.

“They are spending $700 million,” he said. “There have to be some cost efficiencies.”

Since being established in 2011, the Board of Regents has had a president resign as a result of granting salary increases that had not been approved by the board. Another president stepped down after faculty at a number of campuses approved resolutions of no confidence after he sought approval of a wide-ranging revamping of the system.

Recently faculty at some campuses approved resolutions of no confidence in Mark Ojakian, the current president and former chief of staff to Malloy, and in the members of the board. That apparently resulted in part from their plan to eliminate some of the top administrative positions at some of the community colleges and place them in the central office in an effort to address projected budget deficits.

“I’m not close enough” to make an evaluation, Stefanowski said when asked about the friction between the faculty members and the Board of Regents.

On the national economy, Stefanowski praised Republican President Donald Trump’s program, which has produced the lowest unemployment figures in 50 years. Later this month the economic expansion would become the longest in the country’s 243-year history. It began during the early stages of former Democratic President Barack Obama’s tenure.

Trump’s massive tax cut was partly written by famed supply-side economist Art Laffer and by Redding’s Larry Kudlow, the former CNBC commentator who is now the director of the National Economic Council. They also wrote the state tax cut plan that was the central feature of Stefanowski’s 2018 platform.

However, Stefanowski expressed mild reservations about the president’s imposition of tariffs on China and Mexico.

“I’m a free trader,” he said. “I don’t like tariffs. But I think he’s using them more as a negotiation item. I think he actually is a free trader.”

On state GOP politics, Stefanowski said he is “not taking a position” in the race between incumbent J. R. Romano of Branford, and challengers Dick Foley of Danbury and David Mathus of Darien for the two-year term as state chairman that will be decided on June 25 by the 74 State Central Committee members.

The former gubernatorial nominee insisted the party needs to improve its ground game.

Hedge fund manager David Stemerman of Greenwich, who placed third in last year’s Republican gubernatorial primary, and Mathus have said the party should have an operation similar to the Democrats Fight Back CT organization, which was developed by U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Cheshire) and, according to CT Mirror, made one million phone calls and visited 250,000 homes during the 2018 cycle.

“We absolutely should be doing more canvassing,” Stefanowksi said. “We should do it earlier. The Democrats do an amazing job.”

He said the party also should upgrade its Internet micro-targeting operation

Stefanowski said he “could go either way” on eliminating the state nominating convention, which he bypassed in 2018.

The General Assembly would have to take action to allow the GOP to take that step. However, Romano has said he would be willing to discuss filing a federal lawsuit to give the party the option of not holding a convention.

“The convention has some value as people get to talk about issues,” Stefanowski said.

“I think the convention should be earlier,” he said. “It doesn’t give you a lot of turnaround time.” He also said the primary should be held earlier.

Under the current system, the state convention is held in May and the primary in August.

Romano has said that the party could take the $80,000 it costs to stage the convention and use for voter outreach.

“That’s a fair point,” Stefanowski said.

The state Republican Party currently has the capability of opening its primaries to unaffiliated voters.

“I think there are pros and cons to it,” said Stefanowski. “More people would be participating.”

But “there are a lot of hard-working people in the Republican Party,” he said of the potential frustration from GOP stalwarts to allowing the unaffiliated voters to participate.

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill (D-Hartford) has said that if one of the parties did it, they would have an advantage.

“I think that’s fair,” said Stefanowski. “It’s the biggest constituency.”

During the campaign it was hardly noted that Stefanowski has written two books on mergers and acquisitions.

“Material Adverse Change” (Wiley Finance, 216 Pages) was published last year and focuses on what can happen when a company commits to an acquisition “and there is a lag between then and the regulators’ approval and raising the money to finance.”

“That’s a very risky time, particularly if the present ownership does something out of the ordinary with the company,” Stefanowski said.

He also is a product of the highly-touted GE management program.

He said the company spends a “billion dollars a year” on training in negotiations, public speaking and financial strategy.

“You learn to effectively evaluate employees,” Stefanowski said.

Currently, he serves on two corporate boards and does consulting work.

Politics has been called a business of building relationships.

“That was harder for me because I’d never been in Connecticut politics,” Stefanowski said. “I hadn’t been a mayor for many years, like Mark Boughton has been in Danbury.”

But didn’t you experience learning curves when you first arrived at GE and at UBS?

“I’m used to a learning curve,” he said. “But sometimes politics is not logical.”