Governor Ned Lamont’s former Chief of Staff Jonathan Dach and former Chairman of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority Marissa Gillett worked together to try to insert language into a 2025 omnibus energy bill that could have gotten Gillett off the legal hook after Connecticut’s major energy companies filed a lawsuit alleging Gillett was violating state administrative statutes, according to emails obtained by Inside Investigator through a Freedom of Information request.
At the time, Eversource and Avangrid alleged Gillett was appointing herself presiding officer over all matters coming before PURA and issuing substantive motions on her own under the guise of the full authority in violation of state statute, leaving the utility companies with little recourse to challenge her decisions.
Gillett indicates in her May 21, 2025, email that an assistant attorney general inquired why SB 4 did not include language clarifying the PURA chairperson was the “head of the agency,” and asked the Legislative Commissioners Office to include language to that effect, cc’ing Jonathan Dach, her Chief of Staff Theresa Govert, and co-chairs of the Energy and Technology Committee Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, and Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport.
“In the interim though, the AAG inquired as to why the APO language in SB4 does not include language that we may have requested previously re: the PURA chair being the administrative head and department head in the new structure,” Gillett wrote in the May 21, 2025, email. “Specifically, in line 3669, it would be helpful to add in the following sentence: ‘The chairperson is the head of the authority, including for purposes of Chapter 54 of the general statutes.’”
According to Gillett in a follow-up email with Dach, the Uniform Administrative Procedures Act (UAPA) was “the primary concern,” and adding in the “head of agency” distinction would help clear up some “interpretation questions where the UAPA specifies an action can be taken by the ‘department head’ or ‘head of the agency.’”
Dach offered to discuss the matter and responded in an email that he saw no particular problem with the sentence she offered as head of the Authority for UAPA purposes, but did say he didn’t believe PURA should be added to the list of department heads: “That designation triggers significant other roles and responsibilities that don’t make sense for a multi-member adjudicatory body.”
Gillett was accused of violating the UAPA in designating herself presiding officer and issuing unilateral motion decisions, something eventually conceded by state officials following her resignation, resulting in a court decision that could have ramifications for years.
The language discussed between the two powerful Capitol insiders between May 21 and May 22 was then included in an amendment to SB 4 put forward by Sen. Needleman, who was copied on Gillett’s initial email.
Republican Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, labeled the line a “poison pill,” that would allow Gillett to continue acting as “presiding officer in every single case.” With only a couple days left in session, Republicans were able to kill that amendment, and a new, bipartisan amendment was reached that designated the chairperson as “the chief executive of the authority for administrative purposes.” Candelora said the final version mirrored what was already in regulation.
Lawmakers had already attempted to craft SB 4 in such a way as to thumb the legal scale in favor of the state, initially including draft language that plainly gave PURA’s chairman the authority to appoint herself presiding officer and issue motion decisions. Following a report by Inside Investigator, that language was stripped out.
Throughout 2025, nearly everyone involved with PURA and Gillett’s email was under scrutiny: aside of the lawsuits and appeals against PURA and Gillett specifically, Dach was under investigation at the time for his excessive personal use of a state vehicle, and Needleman and Steinberg were trying to avoid deposition in the PURA lawsuits over allegations they colluded with Gillett in writing an op-ed claiming the utility companies were essentially conspiring with credit rating agencies to undermine Gillett’s leadership after text messages obtained by the Hartford Courant showed Steinberg and Gillett discussing a “draft” shortly before the op-ed was published. The utility companies argued that if Gillett colluded with the two lawmakers, it would demonstrate anti-utility bias.
Both Needleman and Steinberg managed to dodge deposition and never revealed the “draft” in question. After giving the court the runaround, Gillett was forced to reveal that she had set her phone to auto-delete text messages, so her texts with the lawmakers, which should have been a matter of public record, were gone. Similarly, Gillett’s chief of staff, Theresa Govert, who was also included in the May 21, 2025, email, testified that she had memory loss from the month of December 2024, so she could not recall anything about the “draft” in question.
Gillett later resigned when it was revealed she allegedly lied during her reappointment hearing before the Executive and Legislative Review Committee regarding the existence of a document that was withheld by PURA General Counsel Scott Muska from a Freedom of Information request. Both the assistant attorney general and Muska were referred to the Statewide Grievance Committee by Superior Court Judge Matthew Budzik for their roles in withholding those documents and misleading the court.
The failed attempt to rewrite statute to thumb the scales on a lawsuit in the 2025 legislation was certainly not the first or last time for state lawmakers. In 2022, Republicans snuck a few lines into the state budget that rendered a potential distribution facility in Middlebury illegal in the middle of a lawsuit between town residents and the town’s zoning committee; during the 2026 legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill to effectively kill a lawsuit challenging Connecticut’s elimination of the religious exemption for school vaccination requirements.
Despite claims by some lawmakers and Gov. Lamont that Gillett was holding utility companies “accountable,” and working to lower Connecticut’s sky-high energy costs, electricity rates exploded during Gillett’s tenure, a combination of lawmakers adding more and more programs and costs covered under the public benefits portion of electric bills, and COVID-era policies extended far beyond pandemic that allowed public benefits charges to build up over years.
With the second-highest electricity rates in the country, Connecticut’s energy costs have become a political talking point for the upcoming 2026 elections.
Lamont recently held a press conference applauding PURA and a small electricity rate reduction tied to an annual adjustment of public benefits charge; ratepayers are essentially receiving a credit back for overpayment, but Eversource has said that potential large increases in costs tied to electric rates are on the horizon.
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Assistant Attorney General Seth Hollander is the other lawyer to face potential reprimand along with the PURA lawyer Scott Muska (hi Scott!).
“Despite claims by some lawmakers and Gov. Lamont that Gillett was holding utility companies “accountable,” and working to lower Connecticut’s sky-high energy costs, electricity rates exploded during Gillett’s tenure, a combination of lawmakers adding more and more programs and costs covered under the public benefits portion of electric bills, and COVID-era policies extended far beyond pandemic that allowed public benefits charges to build up over years.”
Note to AG Tong: above, those are the facts. The court ruled in favor of Eversource re: Gillett’s blatant malfeasance. And kicking can down the road is done often comes at a price. Also a member of your staff, Seth Hollander, is under a microscope for his role in all this….