Loophole Would Give Ex-Senator $110,000 Annual Pension After 3 Years As Judge

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s final-year batch of 32 Superior Court judicial nominees has unleashed lots of discussion about the political connections of some, about whether taxpayers can afford to pay them — and about whether any new judges are even needed.

But one thing that’s been overlooked is a loophole that the state legislature left open in a 2014 reform law, which was supposed to prevent excessive pensions for judges appointed late in life who serve for only a few years.

That loophole permits lifetime judicial pensions of about $110,000 a year to ex-legislators and other lawyers with past state employment who get appointed as judges when they’re well into their 60s — which means they spend only a few years on the bench before reaching the mandatory judicial retirement age of 70.

And now the loophole is coming into play in the case of one of Malloy’s current nominees, former Democratic state Sen. Eric Coleman of Bloomfield, an attorney. He turns 67 on May 26, and so would serve as a judge only about three years before turning 70 in 2021 and becoming eligible for the pension jackpot.

Read more: http://www.courant.com/politics/government-watch/hc-pol-lender-state-judgeships-political-20180424-story.html