Lyddy Picks Up Union Endorsement Spurned By Rodgers

By John Voket

Providing some insight into the process of how political support is brokered, Christopher Lyddy, the Democratic candidate for the 106th District seat, announced this week an endorsement from the Connecticut AFL-CIO, the same endorsement that his Republican opponent Will Rodgers said he declined to seek several weeks ago.

According to a short release from Mr Lyddy’s campaign issued August 7, the local freshman Legislative Councilman who is aspiring to fill retiring state lawmaker Julia Wasserman’s seat, received the support of “nearly 400 delegates in attendance” at the recent Connecticut AFL-CIO convention.

“I am honored to receive the endorsement from the 211,000 members of the Connecticut AFL-CIO,” said Lyddy in the release. “Connecticut’s working families deserve a voice in Hartford dedicated to finding real solutions to our energy and health care challenges. I look forward to working on these issues in Hartford.”

Mr Lyddy did not expound further on how he plans to address those energy and health care challenges. To date, Mr Lyddy has only detailed his hopes to create programs and incentives to stem the flight of young people from the state by expanding affordable housing opportunities.

About two weeks prior to Mr Lyddy’s AFL-CIO endorsement, Mr Rodgers, who is Mr Lyddy’s colleague on the Legislative Council, issued a release saying he refused to solicit endorsements from special interest groups. Mr Rodgers said he had been bombarded with nearly 20 different surveys, “most seeking…standing, broad commitments of support” in exchange for endorsements.

He said one such survey was dispatched to him by the Connecticut AFL-CIO.

In summarily rejecting all such “quid pro quo” surveys, Rodgers explained that one of the intents of Connecticut’s public campaign financing initiative was to eliminate the influence of political action committees, unions, and special interest groups by prohibiting candidates who qualify for the program to receive additional financial support from these sources.

“In the same sense that a perception of influence is created, in that a candidate might appear to be beholden to a particular group by receiving contributions, so too could the promise of an endorsement in exchange for a candidate completing one of these quid pro quo surveys,” Rodgers said.

Both Mr Rodgers and Mr Lyddy have qualified for the state public campaign financing program, which does not limit or stipulate the practice of providing endorsements in exchange for completing candidate surveys.