Ken Dixon's Blog-O-Rama

U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, called Doodles here to honor a nickname coined years ago in the Capitol Press Room, is still in big trouble. The Quinnipiac University Poll released this morning indicates that his job approval is a dismal 42-percent and Rob Simmons, the former Second District congressman has a 48-39 percent edge among 1,499 registered Connecticut voters polled betweem July 16 and 20.

 It’s still hard to imagine that Dodd could lose in Blue State Connecticut, but he’s gained only 3 points since the May 27 poll, just outside the 2.5-percent margin of error. 

“Sen. Dodd continuers to be in trouble,” Q Poll Director Doug Schwartz just told reporters outside the press room. “Only 35 percent of voters say he is honest and trustworthy, but there are signs of hope for Sen. Dodd. His approval rating is up 4 points from out last poll and he’s up 9 points from our poll in April. But no progress on the honesty-and-trustworthy front. No progress in his match up against Rob Simmons. Where we see the progress on job approval, it’s coming mainly from Democrats. In previous surveys he’s been in the 50s in terms of his job approval among Democrats. Now he’s back above 70 percent. Where he continues to struggle is independents, where he gets a negative job-approval rating. Independents are going to be a lot harder to turn around than his own partisans, but that’s really where he has to make progress.”

HB 6649, the omnibus transportation legislation  including exciting items such as naming bridges and overpasses, was among the bills overridden by majority Democrats yesterday. The veto was a gift to Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch, who’s involved in a drama with the City Council over the fate of the city’s Port Authority, which has become less relevant after the departure of the banana boats. The bill would have protected the port authority from termination.

 Here are some excerpts from the Senate debate. That fact that Finch wanted the veto seemed lost among some Democratic lawmakers who voiced criticism again Gov. Jodi Rell.

Sen. Don DeFronzo, D-New Britain, co-chairman of the Transportation Committee: Mr. President, the governor’s veto of this bill is very disappointing to us, in that the governor and the commissioner of Transportation at no time during the long legislative process indicated that any provision of this bill was so contentious as to warrant a gubernatorial veto…

Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield: … I take Sen. DeFronzo at his word that this was a bipartisan product in that no one from the administration came forward to object to any provision. What happened was, a former colleague of ours and now the mayor of Bridgeport requested that the governor veto this bill because of a controversy regarding a port authority in the city of Bridgeport. And the governor agreed and if you read the governor’s veto message, she talks about the ability to let the city do away with the port authority and that the original provision in this bill should not have been left to stand. After this bill originally passed the City Council in Bridgeport said we’re going to do away with the port authority before this bill can take into effect. And then the mayor and the City Council tried to work out their differences and they’re still trying to work out those differences. And even as we sit here today we’re told that there will still be attempt after this bill is overridden to work with the city of Bridgeport and their delegation to get this worked out and we should do that. But to hear representations made today and to read what I’ve read from some of my colleagues in the paper that how dare the governor veto this bill when she was asked to veto it by the mayor of the largest city of the state, a former Democratic state senator and to hear the comments that are made, are a little ridiculous. A little ridiculous. I think the people of the city of Bridgeport and the mayor should thank the governor for listening. How many times have we heard our big cities come up and say you don’t listen to us in Hartford?….What’s at stake here? A couple of names. A couple of signs. We’re naming some roads and bridges. We love to do that. It’s all good. But the governor’s veto was right on to help the people of the city of Bridgeport. ….

DeFronzo, then rose to address McKiiney’s criticism, noting that the Transportation commissioner was in the Senate the night the bill was approved.

Then Lt. Gov. Mike Fedele, presiding over the session banged the gavel: I would ask the chamber to be very careful with names and titles and directions toward individuals. I understand there’s some dialogue here but we also have the decorum and rules of the Senate.

DeFronzo: My point is that this issue was fully vetted through the legislative process. The DOT had complete knowledge of it…Presumably the governor’s staff was aware of it….

Sen. Ed Gomes, D-Bridgeport: Some of the things I have just heard spoken here, I think they need a clarification of….The whole delegation of the city of Bridgeport stands in favor of the override of this veto, for the simple reason that we feel that the transportartion bill is more important than the city of Bridgeport alone. Anything that they have done down in the city of Bridgeport they have got into under their own duress and that’s how it should be settled…

McKinney: If the delegation of the city of Bridgeport thinks this is good for the city that’s great. I have no quarrel with that…The timing is my issue… It was in Sen. Defronzo’s e-mail, which he copied us all on, to Nancy Hadley, the former economic development director in Bridgeport, pointed this very fact out that the city of Bridgeport and the administration was aware of this language…It was after the bill passed that the City Council took action and it is at that point that the mayor of the city said wait, stop, pull back the language so I can work this out with the city council….I have no quarrel if people want to override. I have no quarrel with the good senators from Bridgeport doing what’s best for their city, I just have a quarrel with representations that were made and I think the record should be clear that it was after the bill passed there was an objection raised by the mayor to the governor. The governor, correctly or incorrectly trying to help him out and the city out, did what she did.”

After the successful override late Monday afternoon , the Blogster called Finch for a reaction and instead got a statement from Tyrone McClain, the mayor’s director of legislative affairs:“We are working hand in hand with our Bridgeport legislative delegation and legislative leadership to address our concerns with this legislation through the upcoming special legislative session. We are confident that this issue will be resolved in the best interest of the City of Bridgeport.”

Back from a sleep-deprived week camping in a tent along the banks of the Catskill Creek, the Blogster was just slapped in the face by the reality of the legislative veto session. Majority Dems are going to try to scrape up enough numbers in the depths of the summer to override bills that drew little attention when they were first passed. Who can remember the heavy policy-wonk arguments that resulted in initial passage of An Act Clarifying Postclaims Underwriting? The Blogster admits he never knew it was passed until Gov. Jodi Rell vetoed it.

And the majority doesn’t seem to have the stomach, or at least the two-thirds needed to override (101 votes in the 151-member House; 24 in the 36-member Senate) to repeal of the death penalty.

Anyway, this is shaping up to be a protracted two-day veto-override exercise, at a cost of about $11,000 a day, for a state that’s nearly a month into a new fiscal year without a budget. House Minority Leader Larry Cafero, R-Norwalk, just asked House Majority Leader Denise Merrill, D-Mansfield, how it’s going to be paid. “Legislative Management usually has money,” she said. “We do not expect the veto session to go more than a day or two.” The state constitution allows three days for a veto session, by the way.

The House session kicked off at 10:20 and after several joint resolutions setting up rules and payments of expenses, the House recessed at 10:38 to caucus whatever might be up their sleeves. It’s now 11 and there are rumblings in the Senate of an imminent gathering.

The governor may have another veto or two up her sleeve as we inch toward Friday night’s deadline to act on pending legislation. How is she faring? Rell is currently positioned at 18 vetoes this year, 8 more than John “Why Should I Resign If I’ve Done Nothing Wrong” Rowland’s personal high of 10 vetoes signed during the 2003 session.

Strolling down memory lane, Rell vetoed 6 in 2008, but the Democratic majority overrode two; 6 vetoes in 2007, with one override; 4 in 2006; 9 in 2005; and one in 2004, after taking office July 1 following Rowland’s resignation to spend more time with his family before going to prison for 10 months after his surprise felony plea in December. 

So how does Rell stack up with the other gubernatorial heavies? Jennifer Bernier, assistant librarian in the Legislative Library, just told the Blogster that going back to 1939, Gov. Thomas J. Meskill, the New Britain Republican, who served from 1971 until 1975, set the record with 173 vetoes in 1971. And that was well before steroids!

Other modern day governors and their records include Lowell Weicker, who vetoed 16 bills one year; and Ella T. Grasso, the nation’s first woman governor who vetoed 21 bills one year and 19 another, Bernier said.

It’s 3:30 and Gov. Rell just announced she has vetoed the two major healthcare bills that were hanging fire in her office. As of today, Rell has signed 196 bills and vetoed 18 this year, a personal high since taking over from the crooked John Rowland on July 1, 2004. There are still several bills lingering on her desk.

Wanda D’Agostino of East Hartford finished her rehabilitation of the nearly year-old juvenile red-tail hawk, which had been grounded a couple weeks ago because it hadn’t learned to catch food for itself. Yesterday afternoon, after giving it worming medication and having it checked out again by a veterinarian in Bolton, she brought the bird back to the Capitol grounds and let it go. The hawk was last seeen Tuesday afternoon in one of the oak trees on the Elm Street side of the Capitol with two adults that were feeding it, in a happy reunion.

“She flies very well,” said the licensed wildlife rehabiltator, who during the couple weeks determined that the bird is likely a female. It was sitting in the Capitol lawn, lethargic, for two days last month and the Capitol Police called D’Agostino, who scooped up the bird and took it home. She said there’s currently another young red-tail in her back yard, from this year’s nesting season that was getting fed dead squirrels by school kids in East Hartford. She plans to release it in the woods near a friend’s place in the northeastern part of the state.

Gov. Jodi Rell this afternoon announced she has vetoed a bill that the Blogster thought reeked of special-interest shenanigans. It would have let the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), which runs the eight-town Hartford area water and sewage system, to use so-called profits to contribute to the new Connecticut Science Center. In her veto statement, Rell said the proposal could cost ratepayers up to $2 million.

 It’s a classic ‘rat,’ a term of art for a bill that had been cared for, fed and groomed by special interests, with the help of majority Democrats.

            “Ratepayer funds are not intended for charitable donations, even for such commendable purposes as sponsoring museum exhibits,” Rell said. “Allowing MDC to increase its charges to ratepayers simply so it can make such contributions not only sets bad precedent, but creates a slippery slope which may lead to ratepayers bearing the cost of millions of dollars of charitable contributions.Customers of the MDC have not authorized these contributions nor would they be able to oppose them. They would have no choice but to pay the higher rates in order to receive water and sewer service. Given the state of the global economy and the toll it is taking in Connecticut, this is not the time to place additional financial burdens on the residents of MDC’s member towns.”

 The chairman of the MDC is none other than Bill DiBella, the Democatic former state Senate minority and majority leader. So in less than a week, Rell has squashed pet bills of Senate Pro Tempore Don Williams (the nutrition bill) and DiBella. Can the anticipated veto of the two healthcare bills so dear to Speaker of the House Chris Donovan be far behind? The deadline for Rell’s action on those is tomorrow.

The Blogster is saddened today by the sudden death Sunday of John Orman, 60, long-time Fairfield University professor and go-to guy for political analysis. I don’t know when I first spoke with him, but it has to go back nearly 20 years. He always provided an interesting perspective on state and local politics. In the last few years I spoke with John less, because of his involvement in first contemplating a run against U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman in 2006, then his hilarious takeover of the “Connecticut for Lieberman Party,” which was set up strictly for his independent run for re-election after the stunning loss in the 2006 primary to Nedster Lamont. The few times I sat in on his classes and interacted with his students were the most fun I’ve had in a campus setting since fleeing my own Midwestern university, like a bank robber, with my skin-of-the-teeth sheepskin.