Andy Bromage photo

Rep. Chris Caruso says EEC fines have been a “slap on the wrist” of sitting state officials.

Jeffrey B. Garfield just retired as head of Connecticut's Elections Enforcement Commission, ending more than 30 years as the official watchdog of our campaign laws.

In theory, Garfield was an ever-vigilant guardian ready to rip the entrails out of any scum-sucking politician who violated our sacred election system.

In reality, Garfield and the EEC more often played the role of flaccid, placid lapdog than ass-chewing election Rottweiler, particularly when it came to incumbent state elected officials.

Garfield's departure has triggered gushing praise for his long service as well as questions about how effective his enforcement efforts were in the past and whether recent reforms will be able to prevent abuses in the future.

Connecticut is ready to spend tens of millions of dollars on next year's taxpayer-financed elections for governor, other statewide officers and the state legislature. (That assumes the federal courts don't overturn the whole thing as unconstitutional.)

Garfield's replacement, Albert P. Lenge, insists recent reforms have already made the EEC a tougher, more effective agency. "It's a brand new day," Lenge said this week. Let's hope so.

Connecticut pols used to rave about how we had the strictest campaign laws and enforcement in the nation. All too often, however, state incumbents caught screwing around with campaign money were let off with slaps on the wrist and comments about unintentional errors.

Back in 1999 and 2000, for example, a state Senate Republican leader named William A. Aniskovich of Branford was forced to pay back more than $14,000 in improper campaign contributions. The EEC and Garfield declined to issue civil penalties or findings of wrongdoing, excusing Aniskovich's actions as an "ignorance of the law," "clerical errors," a "lack of diligence," and that there was no "intent to violate."

Garfield also declined to investigate reports that $8,000 went missing from a Democratic legislative political action committee run by then-state House Speaker Tom Ritter. The PAC's fund-raiser was Peter D. Hirschl, who pleaded guilty to helping his brother-in-law, former Republican state Treasurer Paul Silvester, accept bribes and launder campaign contributions.

The EEC seemed more eager to go after challengers and municipal officials than to take on the people who controlled the commission's budget. The commission almost never launched an investigation on its own, preferring to wait for formal complaints. Garfield said the commission didn't have the resources to go out looking for violators.

Proof of how weak the enforcement was came in an eruption of federally prosecuted corruption cases that included convictions of ex-Gov. John G. Rowland, Silvester, ex-Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim and ex-state Sen. Ernest Newton III. Those scandals finally led in 2005 to passage of public campaign financing and reforms intended to insulate the commission's enforcement arm from political pressure.

"Had they [Garfield and the EEC] been stronger, had the whistle been blown sooner, you probably wouldn't have seen the level of corruption that came about," said state Rep. Chris Caruso, a Bridgeport Democrat who formerly served as co-chairman of the legislature's Government Administration and Elections Committee.

Garfield officially retired from his $122,804-a-year post as EEC executive director in July, taking with him an annual pension of about $94,400. He was hired back as a consultant for the EEC at $4,341 a month, a gig that ended last week. (Garfield failed to respond to a request to be interviewed for this article.)

Lenge, who served as the commission's deputy director and general counsel since 1995, doesn't agree with many criticisms of the EEC's past performance and also argues recent reforms have made the agency even stronger.

As proof of how tough the new EEC can be with state incumbents, Lenge points to recent fines levied against Democratic state Sens. Joe Crisco of Woodbridge and Thomas P. Gaffey of Meriden earlier this year.

Crisco was fined $4,000 for falsely signing others' names to sworn documents for his 2008 reelection campaign and for allowing a secretary to sign the name of Crisco's campaign treasurer to an affidavit. Some might have called it forgery, but the EEC didn't recommend prosecution.

Gaffey was nailed with a $6,000 civil penalty, the largest ever handed out by the EEC to a sitting elected state official. Gaffey was caught double billing for thousands of dollars in travel expenses such as luxury hotels, charging both the state and his political action committee for the same items.

"Those were strong enforcement actions," said Lenge. Caruso thinks the penalties should have been much heavier.

"There's been a tradition within the EEC to level fines of a few thousand dollars on sitting state officials," said Caruso. "In public opinion, really those are slaps on the wrist."

Lenge says the emphasis on bigger fines ignores the effect an EEC reprimand can have on an incumbent's reelection. "Just a finding [of wrongdoing] or a reprimand sometimes sends a strong message," Lenge said.

He also disputes there was ever an EEC tactic of going after easy targets like local or challenge candidates.

Lenge said creation of an enforcement unit that is insulated from the director and the rest of the EEC staff has made the agency more independent and more likely to take on powerful incumbents. He also argues the commission has lots more resources now, with a staff that's grown from seven in 1995 to 52 today. The EEC is now auditing every single 2008 legislative campaign and will initiate investigations if need be.

Garfield gets lauded for working to win approval for a public financing system and other reforms in Connecticut's loophole-riddled campaign laws. Politicians like state Senate Republican Leader John McKinney say Garfield and the EEC, on the whole, "have done a very good job."

This Friday, there's a $90-per-person retirement dinner for Garfield at Hartford's Marriott Hotel. Word around the state Capitol is that many tickets are being sold to lawmakers and lobbyists, folks Garfield was supposed to be policing all these years.

It'll be interesting to see who shows up to say farewell to this supposedly tough elections cop.