Ken Dixon's Blog-O-Rama

Tuesday May 19, 2009

You think there’s not enough micromanaging of your life in the great state of Connecticut?
Contemplate “An Act Concerning Beneficial Reuse, Recycling, Illegal Dumping and Municipal Demonstration projects,” which just passed the Energy & Technology Committee at about 10:45 a.m.
Property owners could be fined up to $199 for littering their own property.
Sen. Kevin Witkos, R-Canton, a committee member, said he was concerned how the bill has managed to get so far with so much support.
“There’s a provision that takes away property owners’ right to put things on their own property,” Witkos warned. He offered the hypothetical case of someone painting their own home and leaving an empty paint can up against the house, then getting fined $199.
“This bill makes it illegal to (1) dump items from one property onto another, including one’s own, to avoid disposal costs, and (2) litter (except for grass clippings or other lawn or garden waste) on one’s own property,” according to the bill analysis.
Rep. Vickie Nardello, D-Prospect, co-chairwoman of the committee, urged the committee pass the legislation, but seemed to agree that the purpose of the bill is going to have to become more focused if it’s to advance.
She started the meeting by referring to “illegal dumplings,” bringing the kind of comedy that this bill might need.
The bill seems bound to set off a multi-hour debate in the Senate and if it passes there, the House. The Blogster likes Nardello’s inadvertent image. Picture a ravioli filled with bad legislation: voila, an “illegal dumpling.”
On the plus side, it “(1) requires both residential and non-residential solid waste generators to separate recyclables from solid waste by placing them in separate collection bins and (2) bars anyone from combining previously separated recyclables with solid waste.”
This line of discussion prompted Rep. Larry Miller, R-Stratford, to say that’s it’s time the state got a little more interested in helping people dispose of hazardous waste, such as used motor oil and oil cans of paint.
“I’d also like to see something with more teeth against people who discard things late at night,” Miller said, recalling a recent incident in which parties unknown put barrels of spent oil on state property along Route 8. “If we don’t have places to take their stuff, they’re going to discard it,” Miller said. “I think we ought to be a little more concerned about these materials.”

Monday May 18, 2009

Merrick Alpert of Mystic, a Democratic fund-raiser who is a former campaign organizer for Bill Clinton and Al Gore and a former employee of Enron Energy Services, has announced his intention to take U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd to a primary for the Democratic nomination next year.
According to his bio, Alpert started a medical software company called E-Ceptionist in 1999 and sold it in 2005. In 2008, he rejoined a former business partner and became president of Latitude 18, a manufacturing research firm, from which he has taken a leave of absence to run against Dodd.
Nancy DiNardo of Trumbull, state Democratic chairwoman, aaid Monday that she supports Dodd. “He is our incumbent senator and as he travels aorund the state and reaches out to people, I think the residents of Connecticut will remember everything the senator has done for the state and country and will continue to work on their behalf,” she said.
Roger Pearson of Greenwich, has also announced an interest in running against Dodd.

Friday May 15, 2009

It’s about 3 p.m. and Gov. Jodi Rell just signed into law the bill that would allow towns and cities to delay local property revaluation until 2011.
The bill was approved Tuesday in the House, 125-18, after the Senate approved it last week.
ction.
The law allows communities to save between $20 and $60 per property this year, taking the chance that it won’t be as large a financial burden in 2011.

Friday May 15, 2009

It’s 11 a.m. At the tail end of the Government Administration & Elections Committee, Sen. Ed Meyer, D-Guilford, just noticed that there are only two more Fridays before the legislative deadline of June 3 and very little in the way of actual voter-reform measures have made any progress in the General Assembly.
The National Popular Vote bill passed the House this week, barely, after majority Democrats twisted some arms. That’s essentially dead, though, because even if the Senate takes it up, it’s bound for a veto by Gov. Jodi Rell.
Another bill that would tempt a Rell veto would take away the governor’s power to appoint successors to U.S. Senate vacancies. A bill that has a better chance would allow election-day voter registration.
Meyer called on committee members to push for the House and Senate to get to work.”There are voting rights and other significant matters under the jurisdiction of this committee that are sitting on the calendar and are not moving. I think we need to pay attention to that. We’re down to about two weeks in the session and alot of the interests of our constituents sit with those bills. So I’m urging attention to this issue by the members of the committee so that we don’t end the session without the passage, or at least the debate of some very significant legislation.”
Today’s mail brought File No. 963. So there are about that many bills out there and the House and Senate have jointly approved about 200. If they do 200 more in the next 19 days, minus Monday of Memorial Day, that means more than 500 will die on June 3.
With all those bills hanging fire and so many lawmakers interested in their little bits of legislation, it’s really too late for a budget to be settled by June 3. Rell seems to want the D’s to vote on their tax-hike budget so she can raise her statewide popularity by vetoing it and the D’s want the Republican governor to finally admit that revenue is going to have to be raised through sales or/and income taxes.
Hold off on those summer vacation plans.

Thursday May 14, 2009

Rep. Mike Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is trying to draw the line on House hypocrisy. Noting that legislative staff, in line with the pending SEBAC union concessions, will give back wages and benefits to do their part in addressing the state’s fiscal crisis, Lawlor is seeking support in pain sharing.
This afternoon he’s handing out unsigned letters to D’Ann Mazzocca, executive director of the Office of Legislative Management, which he hopes members of the House Republican and Democratic caucuses will sign. Even though it only amounts to a few hundred bucks per lawmaker, it’s the thought that counts, because Lawlor knows that staffers work as hard as lawmakers, or in many cases, even harder.
Majority leadership is lagging on the generally symbolic issue.
“Please accept this letter as my request that you review the concessions outlined in the SEBAC Agreement, and those that are applied to our own staff, and apply them to me as well,” Lawlor’s letter says. “To the greatest extent possible, my wages and benefits should include the same level of sacrifice as all state employees are being asked to make in this difficult budget environment.”
So far, only about 30 lawmakers, mostly senators, out of 151 in the House and 36 in the Senate, have offered to feel a piece of the budget pain, but House Democratic leadership is standing pat on keeping their salaries and goodies.
A handful of House members have agreed to take cuts including Minority Leader Larry Cafero, who’s taking five unpaid days, Rep. Themis Klarides, R-Derby, (five days), Rep. Bill Hamzy, R-Plymouth (5 percent of annual salary) and Rep. Tim Larson, D-East Hartford (10-percent of annual salary). .
So, how do you shame the shameless?

Thursday May 14, 2009

You can always count on a death-penalty debate to bring out the best in lawmakers. What’s bigger than questions of life and death?
So the 5-hour-plus conversation in the House yesterday was worth almost every minute. Rep. Larry Butler, D=Waterbury, joined Rep. David Labriola, R-Naugatuck and House mInority Leader Larry Cafero, R-Norwalk, as the most-eloquent opponents of the repeal, which passed 90-56.
Butler spoke of how his brother’s murder still affects him daily. Labriola introduced an amendment that would have “streamlined” the appeals process in Connecticut capital felony cases.
“The bottom line is, other states get it done,” Labriola said, believing that most state rsidents still back capital punishment. “They support the death penalty, they just don’t like the endless appeals.”.
Then there was Rep. Steve Mikutel, D-Griswold, a vehement supporter of the death penalty, who caused eyes to roll even among those opposed to the repeal. He recalled how eastern Connecticut was fearful to the point where parents wouldn’t let children leave the house, back when Michael Ross was still plying his serial-killed trade a quarter century ago.
“The fear is still there,” Mikutel said. “We need to take back the streets from these criminals.” That sounded a little hyperbolic.
Then he started talking about a woman who disappared after going out one evening. He speculated why she went to a nightspot, how she dressed that night and put on her makeup. “We all go out looking for love,” Mikutel said, sharing too much in a creepy way.
“I think the death penalty holds people accountable for their actions,” he continued.
What capped it for the Blogster, though, was when Mikutel compared the relative punishments of life in prison without the chance for release, to the death penalty.
“Maybe love and rape are the same thing because they both involve sexual intercourse,” Mikutel concluded. Huh?

Wednesday May 13, 2009

It’s noon.
First-term Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, D-New Haven, who’s already made some veteran lawmakers’ list of most-valuable freshman legislator, will bring out the death penalty-repeal bill this afternoon when the bill hits the House floor.
His arguments will have to overcome a bipartisan group of House members who just announced that they will submit an amendment to “streamline” the death-penalty process.
Rep. Steve Mikutel, D-Griswold, just announced in a news conference that the repeal bill is part of a systemic effort to actually assure, down the road, that capital felons won’t have to serve life in prison without the possibility of release.
Told about this charge, Rep. Mike Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, jiust reminded the Blogster that since 1993, lawmakers have moved toward tougher truth-in-sentencing rules, not more laxed regulations. He said that while violent offenders serve their entire sentences, except perhaps small discounts toward the end of decades behind bars, capital felons stay in prison, if they don’t end up on Death Row.
Lawlor’s idea for proper punishment if he is ever murdered: a continuous video loop in the cells of capital felons, featuring Lawlor himself pontificating on the death penalty on the floor of the House.

May 12, 2009

It’s 10:15 p.m. and the Blogster’s glad he stuck around for the greasy nub of the debate on the so-called National Popular Vote, which was set to fail 73-72, after a two-hour debate.
But before the vote was announced, a small group of Ds, led by House Majority Leader Denise Merrill, D-Mansfield, hectored Rep. Peter Tercyak, D-New Britain, deputy majority leader, into changing his vote from a no to yes. “There was still some discussion after the vote,” said Tercyak, whose late father Tony Tercyak, a Republican, used to regularly stick by his guns and side against his House caucus when he felt the need.
The Tercyak scion, his eye glasses cocked on his forehead, seemed sheepish when he suggested to the chamber that others should also have gotten the persuasive massage he endured.
After he switched, making it 73-72 in favor of the bill, which should die of neglect in the Senate, others higher on the House majority food chain also changed their votes: Deputy Speaker of the House Bob Godfrey, D-Danbury, deputy Speaker of the House Buddy Altobello, D-Meriden, then Deputy Majority Leader Peggy Sayers, D-Windsor Locks, the hometown of Ella T. Grasso, the nation’s first female governor, who never had any problems telling people where to go when they tried to tell her to do something she didn’t want to.
So what does this intraparty coercion say about democracy in the House?
House Minority Leader Larry Cafero, said he’s seen this kind of hold-the-vote-open shenanigans three or four times in 17 years.
“This bill is about respecting the vote of the majority,” said the incredulous minority leader. “The bill loses, but they hold the vote open until they can get people to change their vote. That’s a sorry story.”
It may be sorry, it may not be good government and it certainly taints a bill about majority rules, but it’s the divine right of General Assembly Democrats.
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