Ken Dixon's Blog-O-Rama

Tuesday March 31, 2009

It’s about 3:30 and the Judiciary Committee just approved a bill that would make it a traffic violation to “block the box” in marked intersections in cities over 50,000 circulation. It next goes to the Senate.
Rep. Mike Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the committee, offered an amendment that would be an unfunded mandate, requiring cities to mark the interscetions with spots to show where motorists have to reach to avoid blocking an intersection.
Lawlor, possibly anticipating the committee’s upcoming debate on decriminalizing small amount of marijuana, set up a hashish reference.
“Can you put hash marks in the bill?” Lawlor asked, innocently. “That’s in another bill,” a committee member replied, referring to the pot bill on the agenda. “It’s coming up later,” Lawlor said, picking up on the joke.

Tuesday March 31, 2009

Lost in the multi-hour debate yesterday on codifying the state Supreme Court’s October decision ordering the institution of gay marriage, was a bill overwhelmingly approved by the Judiciary Committee that would reciprocate criminal sanctions on operating a boat while intoxicated, with a defendant’s vehicular driver’s license.
It next heads to the House of Representatives.
The bill’s impetus were the recent fatal boating collisions on the Connecticut River. If approved and signed into law by the governor, it would trigger a mechanism in the DMV if a skipper with a safe-boating certificate is suspended for boating while intoxicated.
“This should be a deterrent because the ability to drive is important,” Rep. James Spallone, D-Essex, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said during the brief debate.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Sen. Sam Caligiuri, R-Waterbury, can’t afford to let former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons get too far ahead in his race to unseat entrenched U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd. So the second-term senator will announce his candidacy for Dodd’s job tomorrow morning.
He’ll be making it official at 10:30 a.m. in his home.
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Friday March 27, 2009

Rob Simmons, the Stonington Republican and former three-term Second District congressman who has the inside track on the 2010 GOP nomination to go after U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, said today that he was aware of the incumbent’s weaknesses even before the recent Quinnipiac University Poll found Dodd’s dancing on thin ice.
Simmons, who called his 2006 loss to Joe Courtney “painful,” and the 83-vote margin was “tough,” said Republicans in Washington tipped him off to Dodd’s deteriorating popularity.
Simmons, on CPTV’s “On The Record,” airing tonight at 8:30, Sunday at 10 a.m. and Monday at 11:30 p.m., said that the national Republican Senate campaign gave him a look at an early poll
. The show’s host, Steve Kotchko, asked Simmons to comment on the Q Poll that showed Dodd’s approval in the weak 40-percent realm.
“I was stunned, but not specifically by that poll,” Simmons said.”We discovered the numbers were exactly the same” as the internal GOP poll.
Also appearing on “On The Record” this week is Susan Haigh of the Associated Press, and the Blogster.

Thursday March 26, 2009

Maybe UConn hoop icon Jim “Not One Dime”Calhoun was crying for help when he exploded a few weeks back at a reporter who questioned his big-bucks salary at a time of statewide fiscal crisis.
For a guy who works the referees along the sideline for any little break in the rules, Calhoun should have known that his school-issued cellphone was open for inspection under state Freedom of Information Act rules, which Yahoo! Sports found yesterday was used to call a former prospect 16 times in apparent violation of NCAA rules.
He could have easily put Nate Miles on his personal “friends and family” plan, far from the scruntiy of pesky reporters who, unlike most of the scribes who report on UConn basketball, don’t believe Calhoun walks on water.

March 24, 2009

The Appropriations Committee’s dog apparently ate their homework, because at 5:20 p.m. they have announced they’re not going to be able to meet tomorrow’s deadline in finding $220 million in savings from state accounts.
The co-chairs of the committee, Sen. Toni Harp, D-New Haven, and Rep. John Geragosian, D-New Britain, complained in a letter to Democratic leaders that while Republican Gov. Jodi Rell named two “point people” to assist them, the help was virtually non-existent.They asked for an extension until April 6. Why not? It’s not as if the multi-billion-dollar budget crisis is going to be solved by the legislative deadline, June 3.

Monday March 23, 2009

The tidal wave of red ink is still heading toward the General Assembly, which still has little urgency in cutting spending in the budget that runs through June 30.
But the Government Administration & Elections Committee this morning is holding a public hearing on, among other things, a bill that would make the “ballroom polka” the “official” state polka.
It’s now noon. The GAE Committee has been going since 9:45. Most of the testimony was by state employees in favor of a bill that would allow more tele-commuting for state employees. Maybe, the Blogster hopes, no one will testify on the polka bill.

Thursday March 19, 2009

Back from a few days assessing mountain slush piles and threadcounts on living room rugs in northern Vermont, the Blogster returned to the Capitol this morning to see that the Catholic backlash against Sen. Andrew McDonald and Rep. Mike Lawlor, co-chairmen of the Judiciary Committee, has not ceased.
The GOP lawmakers on the committee spent nearly two hours trashing them on the bill that would have changed the way Catholic parish boards are run.
Rep. Themis Klarides, R-Derby, usually an island of calm, was nearly beside herself and she lost track of her cliche while chastising McDonald and Lawlor. .
Klarides: “The famous saying is you never discuss…what is it?…sex and politics at a dinner party. Why? Because…religion. I forgot about it….sorry. I do all three just in case, just to be careful. But seriously, the reason why people say that, is because those are highly controversial things. I think the first thing you can assume if there’s something that has to do with religion, it’s going to be controversial…”