In an interview with National Review Online, Fergus Cullen, executive director of the Yankee Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Hartford, Conn., says accusations by state-employee unions that the institute has violated state law in opposing a deal between Gov. Dannel Malloy (D.) and the unions are false.
Last Friday, Daniel Livingston, chief negotiator for the State Employees’ Bargaining Agent Coalition, sent state attorney general George Jepsen a letter in which he accused the institute of “obtaining access to the state email system by falsely claiming to be state employees and using assumed names, and utilizing that system and public resources in order to disseminate information which the Yankee Institute knew to be materially false and was intended to mislead public employees.”
Cullen admits to being perplexed by the move. “They haven’t provided any evidence,” he says. “Somebody is out there emailing stuff around with links to our research and some of [investigative reporter] Zach [Janowski]’s articles but that doesn’t mean those are originating from us. I hear people have even been known to email stuff from National Review.”
For the attorney general’s part, Anthony Krize, spokesman for Jepsen’s office, says they received the SEBAC letter only this morning: “We’re still in the process of reviewing the allegations and we don’t have any additional comment so far.”
“I really do think that their attack is a sign we’ve been effective,” Cullen argues. “We’ve got CT Sunlight, where we publish the salaries and pensions of every state employee. We’ve been updating that on a regular basis. Last week, we put out a poll measuring public support of unions, and 74 percent said all they thought unions care about is protecting their jobs. Earlier this year, we ran ads supporting concessions for public workers. We’ve been a steady and effective opponent to the job security, generous pay, and generous health and retirement benefits that government workers enjoy.”