This year, in eight or nine or maybe even more towns -- this kind of thing is notoriously hard to keep track of -- candidates who thought they had followed the rules to get on the ballot suddenly found out they hadn't and they weren't. Versions of this drama seem to have played out -- each time a little differently -- in East Hampton, Middletown, Easton, Windham, Bethel, Simsbury, Westport, Fairfield and Ridgefield. In some cases, the candidates gave up and walked away. In others (like Windham) , the town clerk independently decided that the candidates and their party had made every effort to follow the rules and could stay on the ballot. At least four towns wound up in court.
Especially frustrated were candidates who followed exactly the same procedure that worked for them in previous elections. But not this time. The glitch was a new requirement that the candidate sign a nomination form -- although no such standard form exists for town candidates. The new requirement does not apply to candidates running on the Republican or Democratic lines.
How could this have happened? Based on conversation with Secretary of State Denise Merrill and others, I have concluded that a large part of the impetus for the amendment to the law came after Chris Dodd, in the year he retired as an active politician, was temporarily listed as the 2010 nominee of the Connecticut for Lieberman (CFL) party.
Here, the plot thickens. CFL was the vehicle for Lieberman's 2006 Senate run, but (apparently) even though it achieved a coveted statewide ballot position, nobody -- not even Joe Lieberman -- ever registered with the party. So after that election, some anti-Lieberman forces enrolled as CFL members and effectively hijacked the party to do things it was never intended to do. A separate faction emerged, contesting control of the party, and it seems to have been this second faction that listed Dodd as a nominee. Even though he wasn't running. (This was either because somebody just loved Dodd to pieces or because somebody hoped reflexive voting for Dodd would be large enough to keep CFL's ballot position.) Dodd found out about it and insisted that he be de-listed.
At that point, it seemed to make sense to create a rule so that nobody could run you for office without your consent. It didn't make sense to exempt major parties from this rule because (a) more often than you might think some Joe Blow finds out that he's on the ballot for Probate Judge, even though nobody asked him and (b) it understandably deepened the persecution complexes that are any third party's inalienable right.
Wow. That was like one of those old Susan Howatch novels based on the Plantagenet kings.
Anyway, it has caused an almost unfathomable mess. The Middletown case is still awaiting a court decision, even though absentee ballots have been printed up with what may be the wrong configuration of candidates and endorsees.
And it can all be traced back to two politicians who, theoretically, are gone from our lives.
