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Thursday April 30, 2009

It’s 3 p.m. and UConn’s perfect 39-0 women’s hoop team is being honored in the House of Representatives. The annual Husky day, where lawmakers pay homage to football and basketball players, far overshadows any actual business going on in the House.
Indeed, this may be as close to greatness of any kind that the chamber may see in this grim, ugly financial climate that lawmakers are essentially pretending doesn’t exist.
House Speaker Chris Donovan just reminded people that the UConn women have been inspiring kids throughout the state who might not otherwise stay in school.
Coach Geno Auriemma’s 100-percent graduation rate, unlike Jim “Not One Dime Back” Calhoun’s dismal 33 percent, is the unspoken subtext. Calhoun is not in the building as the Senate honors the men’s team.
Auriemma just hinted that he might be interested in serving in the House in a couple of years, but he was probably joking. He oozed some sarcasm: “It’s a great time for the state of Connecticut,” he said. “The economy is great.” Then he offered a lesson: “You can’t pick the times. Sometimes the times pick you.”
He said the student/athletes worked over four years to finally win another national title.
The House wasn’t jammed, like in 2004, when both the women and men basketballers won NCAA titles, but the tribute was warm.
The Blogster’s reminded of something Auriemma said during a Husky Day a few years back when they didn’t win anything and the House was no where near full. “Yeah,” he said, that sarcastic smiling pasted on his mug. “Yeah, you’ll love us when we lose too. Right.”

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Wednesday April 29, 2009

Gov. Jodi Rell is apparently pacing around her Capitol office like a caged tiger, only slightly bemused by today’s calendar-cleaning activity in the House and Senate.The Senate just passed a bill, which next goes to the House, that would require paintball facilities to provide instruction for kids under 18 and force minors to wear eye protection.
Just after the vote, she called the Blogster. “I’m just so frustrated,” she said. “I mean, PAINTBALL?” The Blogster had to note that if the vision of one kid is saved, the bill would have served it’s purpose… blah blah blah.
The governor alluded to the huge budget deficit that awaits lawmakers when they want to actually get down to the business of the session, which ends June 3.
“What bugs me is this ‘business as usual’ attitude,” Rell said. “They don’t have any sense of urgency.”
Obviously, she doesn’t have October 16th in the budget pool.
Derek Slap, spokesman for Senate Democrats, responds at 5:45 p.m.:
“It is beyond ironic that the governor says the legislature hasn’t done anything when she has ignored the budget deficit since feb. In the midst of the largest fiscal crisis in state history she has failed to provide a balanced budget. We suggest instead of sharpening her attacks she should sharpen her pencil and submit a real budget.”

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Tuesday April 28, 2009

Nine girls from Brien McMahon High School in Norwalk were on the Capitol grounds at 6:30 this morning setting up what has become an annual demonstration against child abuse. They scattered more than 1,500 donated stuffed animals around the Capitol’s south lawn, to commemorate the 1,531 children who were abused last year in Fairfield County alone.
In all, 8,544 kids were abused last year in the state, which breaks down to one every 61 minutes.
Sarah Pasqualini, a junior and Stefania Difortunato, a senior bound for the UConn Waterbuy campus in the fall, said the teddy bears, Beanie Babies and other stuffed animals were collected over a period of months by the schools chapter of the Center for Youth Leadership, in preparation for National Child Prevention Month.
Last year the group used tied-down brown paper lunchbags to mark the abused kids, but a high wind that day tore away hundreds of bags, sending them cartwheeling along Capitol Avenue.
After this year’s event, the toys will be donated the children’s hospitals, family shelters and even the Norwalk Police Department, which will use them to help settle down kids involved in abuse cases.

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Monday April 27, 2009

The NCAA champions UConn Huskies visited President Obama today. You know them from their 100-percent graduation rate and lack of names on police blotters around Storrs, compared to some of the dubious activities of their male counterparts, who graduate at about 33 percent, according to a recent Boston Globe article.
Anyway, here’s the pool report from the White House that was just sent to the Blogster.

Below is the pool report regarding the champion UConn women’s basketball team’s visit to the White House Monday afternoon.

No actual news, but POTUS shot hoops and the pool had a Bo sighting

The president met with members of the UConn women’s basketball team in front of the South Portico this afternoon. He congratulated them all on their NCAA championship and recognized individual members for athletic achievement, scholarship and community service.

“Young women today look at themselves differently,” the president said, partly because they see women playing sports on television. This is particularly true of tall girls, like his daughters, he said, adding, “As a father, I want to thank all of you.”

The women gave Obama a signed basketball and a team jersey with the numeral 1 on the back, prompting him to say, “Number One — that’s what I’m talking about. I will wear it when I’m playing.”

After shaking hands with the team’s parents and members of Congress who showed up, the president walked the team over to his basketball court and shot hoops. The pool was held back from the stroll down the drive and around the corner, and couldn’t see the court. Poolers could hear periodic cheering coming from the other side of the bushes.

(While the pool waited for the players to return, a guy in a blue collared shirt walked out with Bo on a leash, paused briefly in view of the cameras and then turned and walked the dog back in.)

After about ten minutes the president walked back up along the west wing by himself with his jacket off and sleeves cuffed, and the Huskies came back up the walk.

Asked who won, point guard and two-time All American Renee Montgomery replied, “He did! The president can shoot!” The pool did not ascertain further information about what, if any game, they played.

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Monday April 27, 2009

The Appropriations Committee this afternoon voted along party lines to change the way U.S. senators are chosen if one resigns, dies or otherwise is unable to complete their term. Currently and since 1947, the governor would appoint a successor. Under this year’s bill, which moves to the Senate, a special election would be held to let voters choose.
Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, said that if the vacancy occurred within 150 days of a statewide election, the special election would be held two years later. So a vacancy could linger for up to two years and 150 days or so.
“The truth of the matter is we do have elections for Senate vacancies,” said Sen. Dan Debicella, R-Shelton, ranking member of the committee. Rep. Arthur O’Neill, R-Southbury said that the special-election primaries would compound Election Day costs.
“This is just not the year to do this kind of legislation,” O’Neill said. “It seems to me a bad idea and especially a bad idea this year.”

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Monday, April 27, 2009

It’s hard to believe that it has been more than a year and a half since Rep. Richard O. Belden, a Republican from Shelton who was the longest-serving House member in state history, died suddenly while doing yard work at home.
To honor his memory, House Minority Leader Larry Cafero last week announced that a plaque commemorating Belden is hanging in the House caucus room, which is now called the “Belden Room.”
Cafero made his statement on the House floor after Bertha Belden, his widow was honored in Gov. Jodi Rell’s Capitol office and Southbury artist David Merrill presented her with an acrylic painting of the farmer’s market that Belden helped pioneer in downtown Shelton. At the back of the realistic painting (OK, the guy who sells clams isn’t there among the food tents), sitting on a park bench near the Housatonic river, Merrill painted Dick and Bert.
The painting was commissioned by the Working Lands Alliance to acknowledge Belden’s service.
Dick Belden was one of my closest friends in the legislature and in many ways, my mentor,” Rell said. “He worked tirelessly – and with honor and integrity – for the people of our state and I am so pleased to present this painting to Mrs. Belden.”

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Friday April 24, 2009

Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy, the Democratic gubernatorial explorer, recorded “On The Record” this morning at CPTV studios in Hartford. Malloy told host Steve Kotchko that he favors a progressive tax, which is code for taxing the rich at a higher rate than the rest of us.
He took a shot at Gov. Jodi Rell’s February budget, which contained no new taxes or cuts in municipal aid, but was about $2 billion in the red.
“If you ignore billions of dollars in deficits, anyone can balance the budget,” Malloy said.
The show will air tonight at 8:30, 10 a.m. Sunday and 11 p.m. on Tuesday. It’s also available right now on CPTV’s Web site. And hey, if you’re a state employee and it’s 3:40 on Friday – so you’re not working anyway – why not spend the rest of your workshift watching Malloy, followed at the end by Susan Haigh of the Associated Press and the Blogster speak with Kotchko about the gay-marriage legislation that Rell signed into law Thursday?
The Blogster wanted to ask why committed same-sex couple shouldn’t have a chance for the same kind of unhappiness that many heterosexual couples experience, but we ran out of time.

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Thursday April 23, 2009

Anyone with a certain amount of time in the Capitol halls, say maybe 10 years, knows that state Rep. Buddy Altobello, D-Meriden, is the last of the lawmakers who, in their youth, attended Woodstock in August of 1969.
It’s with this knowledge that the Blogster wondered why Altobello, who was deputy speaker last night during some of the debate on same-sex marriage, was in such a hurry to force Rep. Jack Thompson, D-Manchester ,to finish his remarks. It was only about 10:30, which is early for the House. The bill was only pushing three hours of debate and Rep. Bruce Morris, D-Norwalk, had already taken most of the oxygen from the room.
Thompson, in his 12th term, is the social conscience of the chamber. He noted that all the energy and deliberation and hours spent fighting over civil marriage and the private lives of state residents, could have been better spent tackling poverty and the 600,000 state residents without health insurance.
“We should really be talking about those things,” Thompson said. “We are the third richest state within the richest nation and we have pockets of poverty that aren’t being addressed. Perhaps it’s a greater moral issue than what we’re doing tonight.”
Altobello, who left Morris alone during his speeches, gaveled several times while Thompson was speaking in attempt to speed him up and keep him on point. So, the Blogster asks: was Altobello in a hurry to get back to the garden? (to take a line from Joni Mitchell’s tune about the music and arts fair).
Or maybe he wanted to get to the XL Center a few days early for the arrival of the Grateful Dead. See you there, Buddy. Maybe they’ll do Dark Star!