Sense on ‘Plate Gate’: Get back to work

Maybe you have been hearing about “Plate Gate.” Plate Gate is the name given to an alleged scandal in Hartford that is really not a scandal at all. It is just a case of pettiness getting out of hand. That happens a lot in families, in workplaces and in politics.

Plate Gate is the story of former Gov. Jodi Rell and her top aide, Lisa Moody, spending their last days in office procuring about 30 low-digit license plates for themselves, their families and their friends. There are fewer than 1,000 of these plates in all. (Rell took plate No. 14, Moody got No. 83.)

Some people think these plates are a big deal; real cool. Having one shows you have “clout.” If a lobbyist has one, for example, it is good for business.

We know Rell and Moody did this because our new governor, Dannel Malloy, has a top aide, Roy Occhiogrosso, who divulged the names and numbers of the recipients to Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie.

The plates mostly didn’t go to lobbyists or influence peddlers. This was a political friends and family plan.

Who cares?

Good question.

Almost everyone who works in or around the Legislative Office Building, that’s who.

Indeed, lots of people are angry or otherwise exercised about the whole thing: Republicans are mad that their ex-leaders were humiliated. Democrats are worried that they have gotten sidetracked by their own side. And the governor made a passing remark last week that some took umbrage with, though it’s hard to think why, because it is the right point. He said, in effect, “This is what they were thinking about?”

Dude!

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The other wrinkle is that divulging such information is illegal.

It shouldn’t be.

And Occhiogrosso didn’t know it was.

But this is the sort of state secret that is supposed to remain classified in state government.

Why?

If someone gets a favor from the governor, that should not be protected information. (Addresses and Social Security numbers, obviously, should be.) The idea that someone’s privacy is violated, or that he is endangered, by the revelation that he got a special license plate — a plate intended to draw attention to himself — is ridiculous.

In any event, Occhiogrosso has apologized.

The state GOP chairman is calling for blood.

And the only person who was really doing what he was supposed to be doing here was Rennie.

Divulging who gets what and from whom should not be illegal, not in this country, not in this state, even if that something is something pretty dumb — like “prestigious” license plates.

An even better reform than making such information public knowledge as a matter of law and policy?

Abolish the plates. End of story.

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For much bigger spoils were spent by Rell than license plates. Many of her political people were tucked nicely away into state jobs before Rell left office, to protect their pensions. It’s all about the pensions, folks. It’s always all about the pensions.

But a jobs program for political hacks is legal, as legal as special plates for special people. It’s an accepted function of state government.

It’s also a lot bigger scandal than the plates.

Previous governors did the same, of course — finding judgeships and sinecures for cronies. But it costs the taxpayers many thousands of dollars more than low-digit license plates.

And much worse than Rell’s preoccupation in her final days of office was her dereliction of duty for the last two years she was in office. She was barely there.

The true scandal is never what’s illegal, and seldom what is in the newspapers, but what is legal and hidden.

Malloy implied the nail on the head. Rell and Moody should have been thinking about the state and its deficit, not what pathetic little party favors they could stuff in their pockets on their way out the door.

But the new governor and his aides should be similarly high-minded and focused. They too have bigger fish to fry. The good of the state is more important than embarrassing Rell.

Occhiogrosso should apologize again (for distracting people at the Capitol; releasing to the public information they had a right to anyway; and engaging in political trickery that backfired and would not have helped his boss even if it hadn’t). Then we can all move on.

Let’s stop acting like juveniles and get back to work.

Meanwhile, abolish the VIP plates.

Keith C. Burris is editorial page editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.