| Dannel P. Malloy | |
|---|---|
| 88th Governor of Connecticut | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office January 5, 2011 |
|
| Lieutenant | Nancy Wyman |
| Preceded by | Jodi Rell |
| 29th Mayor of Stamford | |
| In office December 1, 1995 – December 1, 2009 |
|
| Preceded by | Stanley Esposito |
| Succeeded by | Michael Pavia |
| Personal details | |
| Born | July 21, 1955 Stamford, Connecticut, United States |
| Political party | Democratic Party |
| Spouse(s) | Cathy Malloy |
| Alma mater | Boston College |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism[1] |
| Website | Gubernatorial website |
Dannel Patrick "Dan" Malloy (born July 21, 1955) is the 88th and current Governor of Connecticut. He was the Mayor of Stamford, Connecticut from December 1995 until December 2009. Malloy had been endorsed by the Connecticut Democratic Party on May 22, 2010 over 2006 Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont,[2] and won the Connecticut Democratic gubernatorial primary on August 10, 2010.[3]
Contents |
Dannel Patrick Malloy was born and raised in Stamford, Connecticut. Malloy is the seventh of seven sons and youngest of the eight children of William F. and Agnes Egan Malloy. As a child, Malloy suffered from learning disabilities and difficulties with motor coordination. He did not learn to tie his shoes until the fifth grade and was considered mentally retarded by his elementary school teachers. Malloy eventually was diagnosed with dyslexia and learned the skills necessary to succeed academically. He does not write or type, and rarely reads from notes in public, but developed an extraordinarily useful memory.[4] He graduated magna cum laude from Boston College, where he met his wife Cathy, and later earned his law degree from Boston College Law School.[5][6]
After passing the bar exam, Malloy served as an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn, New York from 1980 to 1984. During his tenure as a prosecutor, Malloy tried 23 felony cases, four of them homicides, and won 22 convictions. He was subsequently a partner in the Stamford law firm of Abate and Fox from 1984-95.
Malloy served on the Stamford Board of Finance from 1983 to 1994. In 1995, he ran successfully for Mayor of Stamford, upsetting Republican incumbent Stanley Esposito.[7]
Malloy has made crime reduction a priority during his administration; Stamford is currently ranked as the 9th safest city in the United States and 3rd safest in the Northeast region[8] and for the past six years has ranked in the top 11 safest cities with populations of 100,000 or more, according to the FBI.[9] Malloy wrote a blog known as "The Blog That Works" until mid-January 2010.
Budgeting and districting of the various fire departments throughout the city has been unstable since 2007, due to an extended legal conflict between the volunteer departments and the Malloy administration, which sought to consolidate the fire departments against the advice and wishes of the volunteer fire departments.[10]
In 2004, Malloy was the first candidate to announce his bid for the Democratic Party nomination for Governor of Connecticut. In a major upset in Malloy’s favor, he received the convention endorsement of the Democratic Party on May 20, 2006 by one vote. Malloy lost in the primary election, to New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. on August 8, 2006. Of more than 265,000 votes cast, only about 4,000 votes separated the two candidates.[11]
On February 3, 2009, Dan Malloy officially filed paperwork with Connecticut's State Elections Enforcement Commission to form a gubernatorial exploratory committee,[12] and subsequently announced that he did not intend to seek re-election as Mayor of Stamford.[13]
On March 9, 2010, Malloy filed the required paperwork to officially run for governor.[14]
Malloy received the Democratic Party's endorsement for Governor on May 22, 2010 in a 68-32 vote over 2006 Democratic senatorial candidate Ned Lamont.[15] Connecticut's Democratic Party rules allow any candidate who received more than 15% of the vote at its nominating convention to challenge the endorsed candidate for the nomination in a primary, and Lamont announced that he would challenge Malloy in the gubernatorial primary. The primary was held on August 10, 2010. Malloy won with 58% of the vote, according to AP-reported unofficial results.[16][17][18] According to preliminary numbers, he beat Lamont 101,354 to 73,875.[16][17]
As a Democratic candidate for Governor prior to the Democratic state convention and subsequent primary, Malloy chose Nancy Wyman to be his running mate. Wyman is the only woman elected State Comptroller since the office was created in 1786. Malloy's choice was confirmed by the Democratic nominating convention on May 22, and Wyman became the official 2010 Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor when she defeated primary opponent Mary Glassman on August 10. After the primaries, candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor run together as a team on a single ticket. Thus, Malloy and Wyman were both elected on November 2, 2010.
Malloy faced Republican Tom Foley, the former United States Ambassador to Ireland under President George W. Bush, in the race for governor. In the last Quinnipiac University poll released on the morning before Election Day, Malloy trailed Foley 48% to 45%.[19]
According to The New York Times on November 3, Malloy was officially elected governor; they later placed Foley in the lead with no declared winner.[20] The Associated Press had at one point also placed Foley ahead by 8,424 votes because they hadn't added the votes from New Haven or Bridgeport at that time.[21] In the days following the election, there was controversy over several polling locations in Bridgeport remaining open until 10 p.m. on Election Day due to ballot shortages.[21] Foley's team looked into the events that took place in Bridgeport and determined that there was no fraud involved.[22]
Malloy was sworn in as the 88th Governor of Connecticut on January 5, 2011, succeeding Republican Governor Jodi Rell.
The first task facing Malloy upon taking office was addressing a multi-billion-dollar deficit as a result of the prior state budget enacted by the Democratic super-majority-controlled legislature which Rell chose to accept without signing.[23] Malloy adopted what he called an agenda of "shared sacrifice" which was dependent on increases in various taxes, including the income tax, the gas tax, the sales tax, and the estate tax, as well as $1 billion each year in union concessions.[24] Malloy chose not to reduce aid to municipalities as part of his budget agenda,[25] although such aid was jeopardized if labor concessions were not reached.[26] Many of Malloy's proposed tax increases were unpopular[27] despite a statewide "listening tour" to promote the budget.[28]
Malloy supports progressive social measures, including protections for transgender identity. Malloy praised the Transgender Rights Bill HB 6599 [29] and promised he would sign it into law. The bill protects the rights of transgender residents, including the right to use public facilities of the gender a person identifies with.[30][31][32]
On September 21, 2011, Malloy issued Executive Orders 9 and 10, which would allow the Service Employees International Union to unionize day care workers subsidized through Care 4 Kids and personal care attendants under Medicaid waivers by redefining these employees as state employees for collective bargaining purposes.[33] The executive orders generated intense opposition from child care providers, personal care attendants, their employers with disabilities, the National Federation of Independent Business, and We the People of Connecticut, a constitutionalist organization.[34] Disability advocates objected to being excluded from the decision-making process, to union interference in the intimate relationship between employers and PCAs, and to the likely loss of PCA hours under a capped program; NFIB feared a "terrible precedent" in allowing other union organizing drives of small businesses by executive order through card check; and several Republican legislators viewed Malloy's actions as a violation of the state Constitution's separation of powers. Malloy responded that these workers, whom he described as being among the hardest working and lowest paid, deserved the opportunity to collectively bargain if they wished to do so.
Malloy is a frequent critic of Republican governors. On February 27, 2011 he said the Wisconsin legislation on collective bargaining proposed by Gov. Scott Walker was "un-American".[35] Earlier in the month he had criticized the budget-cutting agenda of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, claiming "hopefully I take a slightly more intellectual approach to this discussion than Governor Christie has demonstrated".[36] Malloy referred to himself as the "anti-Christie".[37]
In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, Malloy was asked on CNN about his take on Texas Congressman and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's opposition to FEMA. Paul has been a frequent critic of FEMA, calling it inefficient and asserting that FEMA only impedes and obstructs local efforts to deal with natural disasters.[38][39] In response, Malloy said, "I think he's an idiot."[40]
As part of his 2011 Thanksgiving proclamation, Malloy made the following comments regarding people with disabilities: “It is bad that some of our fellow residents are afflicted with handicaps that make their lives immeasurably difficult, and leave them hovering on the edges of our society. But it is good that we have service providers who work tirelessly and selflessly to care for and comfort them. To bring them hope where maybe they have only felt hopelessness."[41] Disability activists were outraged by the Governor's pitying attitude, and related these remarks to an earlier controversial executive order they strongly opposed which would unionize personal care assistants.[42]
He and his wife have been married since 1982. Cathy Malloy is the Executive Director of the Center for Sexual Assault Crisis Counseling and Education serving lower Fairfield County (Greenwich through Weston and Wilton). The couple has three sons: Ben, Dannel, and Sam.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Stanley Esposito |
Mayor of Stamford 1995–2009 |
Succeeded by Michael Pavia |
| Preceded by Jodi Rell |
Governor of Connecticut 2011–present |
Incumbent |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by John DeStefano |
Democratic nominee for Governor of Connecticut 2010 |
Most recent |
| United States order of precedence | ||
| Preceded by Joe Biden as Vice President |
Order of Precedence of the United States Within Connecticut |
Succeeded by Mayor of city in which event is held |
| Succeeded by Otherwise John Boehner as Speaker of the House of Representatives |
||
| Preceded by Nathan Deal as Governor of Georgia |
Order of Precedence of the United States Outside Connecticut |
Succeeded by Deval Patrick as Governor of Massachusetts |
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||