Good morning and welcome back to the Tip Sheet, a weekly newsletter from Tom Dudchik’s Capitol Report written by Mike Cerulli.

Happy Budget Address Week, everyone! On Wednesday, we’ll hear from the governor on his vision for the next biennial budget. To say that this address is highly anticipated would be an understatement. This week, we're analyzing some of the key challenges facing Lamont as he prepares for his second major speech in as many months. What should we be watching for? Let's dive in...

Tip Sheet Analysis: The dangers of a Groundhog Day budget address

It’s official: The world’s most famous groundhog has predicted six more weeks of winter. Punxsatwany Phil might not be the most accurate meteorological rodent, but he’s certainly the most well known – a status he owes in part to the success of the film that bears the name of Phil’s big day.

Thanks to the 1993 Bill Murray-led comedy, the words “Groundhog Day” are as synonymous with Punxsatawny Phil as they are with the concept of an endless time loop.

For Governor Ned Lamont and the circle of advisors helping him craft his budget address, the lessons of 1993's Groundhog Day are timely – and not just because Phil made his big prediction yesterday. On Wednesday, Lamont will have the task of avoiding a Groundhog Day budget address.

At the risk of sounding too harsh, there’s a reason the Tip Sheet was able to predict many of the governor’s lines in his State of State address early last month. Listening to the governor speak can sometimes feel like you’ve stepped into the shoes of Murray’s cynical weatherman character, only instead of reliving the same day, you are reliving the same speech over and over again. By now, even casual observers know all of Ned’s Greatest Hits: budget surpluses, basketball, New Haven pizza, tourism…the list goes on.

Call it the “Five A’s” of every Ned Lamont speech: accounting, apizza, Auriemma, and Anthony Anthony.

Those common themes are practically the “I Got You Babe” of Connecticut politics – signifying that, yes, you are once again listening to a Lamont speech.

Now, to be clear, there is value in such repetition. Lamont is clearly an adherent to the wise political adage that the point at which a politician feels they’ve repeated a message too many times is probably the point when the average citizen sifting through our fractured media environment hears that message for the first time. When you’ve got a message you think is effective – and the latest polling numbers suggest it is very effective – why not put the “greatest hits” on repeat?

But less than a month after from a State of the State address that hit all the familiar talking points, Lamont will likely need to draw on more than just his standard “Five A’s” approach for this year’s budget address. Like the classic rockers he so admires, Lamont could consider mixing up the setlist a bit. Of course, no one expects Springsteen to forgo "Born to Run." But The Boss does leave "Glory Days" off the setlist every once and a while. For Lamont, that variety might be instructive. After all, legislators, municipal leaders, nonprofits, and the business community are all expecting more specifics than platitudes. All of those groups want to hear Lamont articulate a clear position on the future of the fiscal guardrails – a topic he only vaguely alluded to in his State of the State.

As he seeks to address the concerns of the fractious interest groups who will be represented in the room on Wednesday, Lamont will also be battling for the attention of the hundreds of thousands of Connecticut voters who will consume his address in 15-second sound bites online and on-air. To the extent those voters are paying attention to political news in February during an odd-numbered year, their attention is largely being taken up by the firehose of news out of Washington D.C. Penetrating the public consciousness in this new reality will require more than the usual chipper lines. Will he find new talking points to replace some of the old standbys? Will he tie his spending priorities to a vision of the state’s future that resonates with everyday Nutmeggers? And how will he engage rhetorically with the new president?

Crafting a budget address that clearly stakes out a position on spending, competes with the drumbeat of the Beltway news cycle, and avoids rhetorical repetition while laying out a clear vision is no easy task. And unlike Murray’s Phil Connors, Ned Lamont only has one try.

Osten: Does any of this really matter?

Ok, so let’s say the governor is able to pull off a hat trick on Wednesday and hit all the aforementioned bases in his speech. Will any of it really matter?

Maybe not, if you ask Cathy Osten. The powerful co-chair of the appropriations committee penned a thoughtful op-ed for Hearst papers last week that outlined the budget situation as she sees it.

“Governor Lamont will propose his budget ideas in the coming week, then state legislators will take about two months dissecting it before coming up with our own plan,” Osten wrote. “Then both of these plans will be tossed in the shredder in favor of closed-door budget talks.”

Straight talk from one of the most powerful legislators in the building.

Read Sen. Osten’s op-ed here.

Lamont to the Courant: Push back on the utilities

If the governor wants to make headlines on Wednesday, he might consider harnessing some of the attitude that he brought to an exchange with Hartford Courant reporter Ed Mahony following a press conference at UConn on Friday. Lamont had just fielded questions in a post-press conference gaggle. Most of the questions centered on the lawsuit filed by the state’s largest utilities against the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) and its chair, Marissa Gillett.

In the gaggle, Lamont came out swinging at the utilities – accusing them of a concerted campaign against Gillett.

“There’s a full-court press to get her out of there,” Lamont said. He also lambasted the millions Eversource spends on lobbying and public relations efforts in Connecticut.

After the gaggle, Lamont apparently hadn’t gotten all his thoughts on the matter off his chest. In a separate, spontaneous exchange, Lamont confronted the Courant’s Mahony over an article Mahony had written about the utilities’ lawsuit.

Most of the article, Lamont told Mahony, centered the utilities’ arguments with less attention paid to arguments defending PURA and Gillett. Mahony pushed back, defending his reporting while a concerned press staffer looked on.

The exchange was rare for a governor who enjoys a cordial, sometimes teasing relationship with the stalwarts of the Capitol press corps.

Public anger at the utilities is always a deep well from which to draw political capital. The governor seems to now be drawing upon his own feelings toward those same companies. In public and in private, Lamont has expressed mounting, almost personal frustration with Eversource and some of the company’s executives in recent days.

One key source of the governor’s frustration with Eversource following the utilities’ decision to sue PURA?

“Nobody notified me,” Lamont said.

Long time listener, first time caller: Cafferelli’s radio win

If you had to rank every member of the Lamont administration in order of how likely they are to successfully navigate an appearance on the rowdy morning radio program Chaz & AJ in the Morning, you probably wouldn’t put the straight-laced Department of Consumer Protection commissioner Bryan Cafferelli near the top of your list. That is, until last week…

If you’re unfamiliar with Chaz & AJ, the duo host a popular morning show on 99.1 PLR with discussions ranging from the topical to the absurd. On any given weekday, the show might feature an interview with an academic specializing in sexual fetishes or a retrospective with Connecticut music legend Jimmy Koplik.

In southern Connecticut, Chaz & AJ are a local cultural mainstay. They’re unafraid and uncensored, with a populist sensibility that arguably captures the prevailing national mood better than any other Connecticut media franchise. For politicians brave enough to appear on the show, the questions from the Marconi Award-winning hosts are often more pointed and aggressive than those asked by members of the Capitol press corps. For a flavor, check out their recent interview with Ryan Fazio or their impromptu questioning of Gov. Lamont during the height of the highway toll debate. 

“If you’re going to make a case to the people,” Chaz told Lamont in 2020, “this is where you have to come – not shows where you’re gonna get a lot of friendlies.”

Last week, Commissioner Cafferelli found himself in the show’s populist crosshairs. The subject of Chaz’s ire? An unassuming press release outlining the state’s rules on gambling.

“The Department of Consumer Protection is reminding the public that it is illegal to offer sports wagers, including selling Super Bowl ‘Squares,’ without a license in Connecticut,” the press release’s first line read.

That first line was enough to elicit an impassioned rant from Chaz.

“This is what you’re going to come after us on?” Chaz asked. “Not the car theft, not the robbery, not the mugging people in parking lots, not the electricity companies shaking us upsi– this is where you draw the line?”

Of course, Chaz’s framing was a bit of a false equivalence to say the least. But the rant obviously struck a chord with many asking the same question: why? The next day, Cafferelli hopped on the phone to explain himself.

The commissioner opened with flattery.

“I grew up in Fairfield County,” Cafferelli said. “I’ve always wanted to be on your show.”

Long time, first time…

“I know it does sound like the ‘War on Fun,’” Cafferelli said before explaining that his friendly reminder was aimed at bars and venues – not at Joe Listener who might be in an office pool with his work buddies.

The interview that followed was a masterclass on how to take a negative story and reclaim the narrative.

“I have a much different impression of you today than I did 24 hours ago,” Chaz said. “I pictured you being this fun-killing nerd who shows up and parties and everyone is just like, ‘Who invited him?’”

Who would’ve thought? A fun DCP commissioner...