Jonathan Dach, a member of Gov. Ned Lamont’s inner circle since his first day in office and his chief of staff for the past 18 months, is departing the administration and will be succeeded by Matthew C. Brokman.
Brokman joined the administration in January 2023 as a senior adviser charged with overseeing legislative, policy, and external affairs. He was a top House Democratic staffer for six years before joining the administration.
The governor is scheduled to discuss the change at a press conference Tuesday morning.
The transition echoes Lamont’s previous moves when two other chiefs departed, promoting senior aides who enjoyed his confidence: Paul Mounds succeeding Ryan Drajewicz, then Dach taking over from Mounds.
Lamont, 70, a Democrat narrowly elected in 2018 and comfortably reelected in 2022, is 18 months into his second four-year term. He has left open the possibility of seeking a third term in 2026.
The change is timed to the legislative and fiscal calendar: The session ended in May and a special session was concluded last week; planning now begins for the policy and budget priorities set in the session that opens in January.
Dach is moving to New York, but is expected to continue working on policy projects for Lamont. Brokman will take over today as chief of staff, the governor’s staff said.
Brokman was the chief of staff to Joe Aresimowicz, who was House speaker from January 2017 to 2021, spanning the last two years of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration and the first two of Lamont’s.
That put him in the midst of an extraordinary budget negotiations: The 2017 bipartisan deal that led to the adoption of a volatility cap that requires surplus funds generated by certain revenues to be held in reserve or used to pay down debt.
When Aresimowicz left office, Brokman became chief of staff to House Majority Leader Jason Rojas.
Brokman came to Connecticut in 2009 as a staffer working for AFSCME, the largest trade union of public employees in the U.S. He was assigned to building support in the state for a public option in health care, a move aimed partly at pressuring Sen. Joe Lieberman to back President Barack Obama on health care.
Sal Luciano, then the leader of AFSCME Council 4, convinced him to take a position with the council, which led to his eventual hiring by Aresimowicz.
Brokman, 38, is married to Lindsay Farrell, a senior political strategist for the Working Families Party.
Dach played a policy role in Lamont’s 2018 campaign and helped coordinate the transition. He is a native of Washington, D.C. with a Connecticut connection as a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.
During the Obama administration, Dach was a policy advisor to the ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues at the U.S. Department of State.