Thomas MacMillan File Photo
A top state political spot has opened up — and Jorge Perez finds himself the subject of suitors with complex agendas.
Until this week Perez (pictured) was a banker and a long-serving (23-year) member of New Haven’s Board of Aldermen.
This week Perez still is both of those things. He’s also suddenly a man with a phone that won’t stop ringing with calls from people concerned about whom the Democratic Party fields as candidates for statewide office in this topsy-turvy campaign year.
The calls started after Nancy Wyman’s surprise decision to give up her safe position as state comptroller, a job she has held since 1994 with no real opposition. Wyman announced Monday that she’ll seek to become lieutenant governor this year instead, as running mate with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Malloy.
That has sparked a scramble of Baby Boomers and other pols for a cherished constitutional state government office nine short days before Democrats gather to endorse candidates at their state convention.
On Wednesday state healthcare advocate Kevin Lembo announced he’ll run for comptroller. State Rep. Tom Reynolds of Ledyard made the same announcement late Tuesday. Other names surfacing of possible candidates include Waterbury Mayor Mike Jarjura and former Lt. Gov. Kevin Sullivan.
Meanwhile, attention turned to someone who didn’t state an intention to run: New Haven’s Perez, one of the most prominent Latino politicians in southern Connecticut.
Perez said Wednesday that he has no comment on a possible campaign. “I need to talk to some people” before making a decision, he said. “I’ve been approached.”
Therein lies an illustration of an old political saying:, “no permanent friends and no permanent enemies — only permanent interests.” Or: “politics makes strange bedfellows.”
Hometown Ground Shifts
For instance, New Haven’s Democratic Party political establishment is urging Perez to run.
For the past four years the party machine has all but declared war on Perez, after a hard-fought contest for the position of Board of Aldermen president (which Perez used to hold). Since then Perez has served not as an opponent of the DeStefano administration, but an independent sometimes-policy critic and go-to guy for City Hall opponents. Perez and the party establishment have repeatedly found themselves on opposite side of local primaries.
“Jorge is by far the most qualified [to serve as comptroller] with his political experience and his real-life experience as a banker,” New Haven Democratic Town Chairwoman Susie Voigt said Wednesday.
“It’s a good fit. He’s responsible. He cares about this stuff.”
Mayor John DeStefano said he called Perez after Wyman’s announcement. “I told him to call me if he’s running and I’d be helpful,” DeStefano said. “But it’s ultimately Jorge’s decision.”
New Haven has the largest bloc of delegates, 81, at the state convention. But it has only one possible candidate for the statewide ticket, secretary of the state hopeful Gerry Garcia. Garcia’s supporters say Garcia already has enough support to win enough convention delegates (15 percent) to force a primary even if he fails to woo enough delegates to win the endorsement at the convention — and they’re working hard to win that endorsement. But observers outside the campaign believe he faces an uphill fight in a three-way race. A Perez candidacy would give New Haven a second shot at statewide position.
It would also give the party a second shot to nominate a Latino for statewide office — which it has never done, to the consternation of a significant and growing group of voters.
Finally, by uniting behind Perez, New Haven’s Democratic machine could seek to blunt political opposition at home, where the feistiest and best organized band of independent-minded aldermen in decades has created problems with the City Hall’s ability to pass a controversial new budget. Perez plays a crucial role. As both a banker and accountant (his day job is vice-president for commercial lending at Bank of Southern Connecticut) and former chairman of the aldermanic Finance Committee, Perez has almost unparalleled knowledge of the city budget.
The Top Of The Ticket
Then there’s the gubernatorial race. Two Democrats, Malloy and Ned Lamont, are battling for the party nomination. Malloy is headed for the party’s endorsement at the convention. But a hard-fought primary campaign looms afterwards. Because Lamont, who unlike Malloy is opting out of the public-finance system, has millions of dollars more to spend.
Four years ago Jorge Perez endorsed Malloy for governor when New Haven’s party machine was endorsing a different candidate — none other than John DeStefano.
But this year Perez has joined DeStefano and most of the rest of the party in backing Lamont against Malloy for governor.
In the past day Perez has heard from at least one influential Malloy backer who argues Perez should reconsider that support — and do so as part of a run for comptroller.
That Malloy backer is former state party Chairman Ed Marcus. Marcus said he had a conversation about the comptroller’s race with Perez. He declined to describe what was said in that conversation.
But he did have a read on a possible campaign.
“Jorge ought to throw his hat in. He’s certainly a well-qualified candidate. I personally feel it’s about time there’s a Hispanic on the state ticket,” Marcus said.
Unlike in decades past, party leaders can’t deliver a nomination for a top job to a favored candidate or decide in a back room on how to balance a ticket racially or geographically, Marcus observed. Candidates have to fight for the nomination on their own. Other candidates — especially Kevin Lembo, who until Wednesday had been running for lieutenant governor — are better known around the state because they’ve spent months campaigning, Marcus noted. Perez has two short weeks before the convention to start lining up support, should he decide to run.
Given that fact, Perez would benefit from being allied with and possibly supported by the gubernatorial candidate with the most convention delegates, according to Marcus. Marcus is supporting the Malloy campaign.
“If he wants to shift his position, he will be welcomed with open arms in the Malloy camp,” Marcus said. “That’s a decision only Jorge can make.”
On the other hand, Marcus said, Perez could probably succeed in capturing 15 percent of the convention delegates needed to run a primary.
If he does so, and he runs on a ticket with Lamont, he could conceivably benefit in a primary from Lamont’s larger campaign chest.
By the way, here’s what a comptroller does, according to the office’s website: work “to provide accounting and financial services, to administer employee benefits, to develop accounting policy and exercise accounting oversight, and to prepare financial reports for state, federal and municipal governments and the public.”