New Haven Independent

Long a powerbroker in the black community in New Haven and a charismatic leader in the State Senate where he held key positions, Morris, 74, is the husband of Cheryl Morris, the former First Selectman of Branford.

Tuesday night the Branford Democratic Town Committee, a group Bruce Morris once chaired, asked him to resign his position on the Democratic State Central Committee, where he is one of two delegates from the 12th Senatorial District. Frank Carrano, the current chair of the DTC, said he planned to write Morris a letter, saying this was the will of the DTC.

If Morris does not resign, his term ends this May. At that time, the state committee, which is chaired by Nancy DiNardo, will hold a new election. Each district elects two representatives, one man and one woman, for a two-year term.

Bruce Morris had straddled the Branford political fence for months, keeping his local and state positions while actively running his wife’s Independent campaign for First Selectwoman. She garnered less than 7 percent of the vote. So the question was not why the DTC voted as it did but what took the DTC leadership so long to act.

The Democrats gathered Wednesday night to elect 97 new delegates from the five districts in town. Behind the scenes the DaRos Democrats sought to clean house and to reunify the party. To an overwhelming degree they succeeded.

Bruce Morris did not seek re-election to the DTC, where he had been the longtime chair of the 5th District. Alice Lambert took his place as chair. Mrs Morris did not seek re-election. Jill Marcus, wife of Ed Marcus, the former town attorney, decided not to run for her seat. Also gone were Morris supporters Daniel Baughman, Sr., a former chair of the DTC, Edward Struzinksy, Leno Torelli, Edward Zack, Lisa and Jay Avitable, James Bruno, Jan Doyle, Ralph Coppola and Kevin J. O’Donnell. Margaret Bruno retained her seat on the DTC. She, along with Lisa Avitable and O’Donnell are still members of the RTM.

The meeting was nearly over when Moshe Gai, a member of the DTC and an outspoken critic of the former Morris administration, asked to speak under the topic of “new business.” He read a resolution he had written asking the DTC to declare a vote of no-confidence in Bruce Morris.

“Should Mr. Morris refuse to resign we authorize the chairman of the DTC to communicate to the DSCC that the Branford DTC no longer considers Bruce L. Morris as our legitimate representative in the Democratic State Central Committee.”

At first the audience seemed unsure of what Gai meant. Branford Town Clerk and DTC member Marianne Kelly said she did not think Gai’s request was legal. But when Gai explained that his resolution was meant to show a vote of no-confidence in Bruce Morris, the audience got it. Then Carrano explained that the election of state committee delegates in May is separate from Branford DTC activities. Carrano asked for a vote, and the ayes had it, though not everyone voted.

Afterwards, Carrano told the Eagle he planned to write a letter to Bruce Morris informing him of the DTC’s action.

Although he was chairman of the Branford Democratic Town Committee and a key figure in it, Bruce Morris told the DTC in January 2007, about a year ago, that his wife might run as an Independent. In the spring, it was clear she would leave the party.

Yet Carrano was unwilling to ask Morris to step aside, even when Morris’s campaign targeted not the Republican, John Opie but the official Democratic candidate, Unk DaRos. Whenever she could Mrs. Morris brought up the Granite-gate case, and toward the end of the campaign accused DaRos of stealing granite from the Stony Creek Quarry, an accusation that went nowhere. DaRos won the race handily and is now the de facto leader of the party.
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