On August 2nd, the Stamford Democratic City Committee received the final decision from the Connecticut State Democratic Party on the complaint filed by Gina Calabrese, Anabel Figueroa, Virgil De La Cruz, Terry Adams, Jeff Stella, Kindrea Walston, Denis Patterson, and Bonnie Kim Campbell regarding the conflict of interest rule change that was passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 36-3 with one abstention at the June 26th DCC meeting.
The panel of three Democratic State Central Committee members unanimously dismissed the complaint. You can read the final decision here.
The practice of DCC members self-endorsing for elected office, particularly for Board of Representatives seats (also known as “double dipping”) has been an issue that the DCC has been trying to address for years. It has taken three cycles of DCC primary races (2020, 2022, 2024) to reach the point where such a rule prohibiting self-endorsement could pass over the required two-thirds vote threshold.
The voters in the 2024 DCC primary election spoke loud and clear that they wanted the practice of self-endorsement to end, and this newly elected DCC was able to deliver and finally address this issue.