Ken Dixon's Blog-O-Rama

Here’s a news release from Bill Seymour, the communications director at the state Department of Motor Vehicles, with some editing by the Blogster.

“Connecticut’s new two-hour training requirement for parents, the first in the nation when adopted in 2008, is successful in its aim to educate parents about safety risks and other issues associated with their teenager driving for the first time. A recent federally funded survey done for the DMV shows that 85 percebnt of the parents reported that the training gave them more information to use in their parenting responsibilities with a teen driver; 82 percent they would recommend these classes to parents of other teen drivers, and nearly half said that the session caused them to do something different to improve their own training of their teen drivers.

The survey also measured their knowledge and understanding of some critical issues with teen driving. While only about half knew that teen brain development issues could impair their driving, more than 65 percent were aware of the basic passenger restriction and curfew laws. This is the first such study done in the country on a required parent information session in the training process for teen drivers.
In the survey,  almost half the parents also said that because of the training, they were doing things with their young  drivers they would not have done otherwise, such as enforcing the laws, reminding young drivers about the laws and dedicating more quality time for instruction.  Almost all parents were satisfied that all relevant topics were covered during the course.

All new drivers in Connecticut are required to take an eight-hour safe driving practices course at a driving school. Parents are required to attend two of these hours with their young driver to learn about various safety matters. The Department of Motor Vehicles provides driving schools with a general list of topics that must be covered in the two-hour parent/teen session.”

 Remember back in 2005 when lawmakers nearly dislocated their arms patting themselves on the back for passing campaign-finance reforms? So what if the state Senate created huge obstacles for minor and third parties. Who cares if lobbyists and contractors were totally banned for contributing even nominal $100 amounts to statewide candidates like the rest of us. No wonder a US District judge declared the law unconstitutional last year. But maybe the biggest sin has been the steady erosion of the fund – unclaimed property in the state treasurer’s office -by Gov. Rell and Democratic lawmakers as they’ve worked away at the margins of the big budget deficit. There’s about $30 million left and $38 million has been confiscated in the budget crisis.

Anyway Connecticut Common Cause this morning is promoting the findings of a Zogby International poll they commissioned indicating that 79 percent of state residents support the Citizens’ Election Program. Fifty eight percent say the General Assembly should now amend the law so it can withstand further judicial scrutiny.

  “Nearly 8 in 10 respondents indicated their support for public financing of elections—this is a message that the Governor and legislators can’t ignore,” said Cheri Quickmire, executive director of Common Cause Connecticut, in a statement this morning. “Voters want elections to be about them and not big money donors. Our state leaders must act now to amend the Citizens’ Election program so it is available to candidates for the 2010 election cycle and beyond.”

“This poll sends a strong message to lawmakers in Hartford – stop cutting the funds to the Citizens’ Election Program!” said Karen Hobert Flynn, Vice President for State Operations of Common Cause. “This poll shows, without a doubt, that support for the popular program cuts across political affiliation, ideology, income level and age.

It was a dire enough sign of the state’s crumbling financial picture when House Majority Leader Denise Merrill, D-Mansfield announced she was bailing out on a second two-year term as caucus leader and formed an exploratory bid for secretary of the state. Now Rep. James Spallone, D-Essex, co-chairman of the Government Administration & Elections Committee, has also announced an exploratory committee for SOTS.

   “I decided to consider a run for secretary of the state early last year because I have the relevant knowledge and experience, as well as a proven record on expanding voter participation and reforming election law, to be an effective leader in that constitutional office,” Spallone said. Consumer Protection Commission Jerry Farrell has said he’s interested in the GOP nomination for the constitutional office, which pays about $110,000.

 So the Blogster asks this morning: Does Rep. Steve Fontana, D-Hamden, have the majority leader support sewn up? And why would he want to?

There are four little garbage cans set up in the Capitol’s east atrium and the muffled plunk of rain water can be heard this morning as the raging storm tests the aging specifications of the flat roof above the fifth floor. What makes this unusual is that for the past couple of years, big tarps have been set up like trapeze nets under the glass atriums and their fading mullions, to possibly catch fallen glass or leading. Yet, the water is finding a way down to the vicinity of the Nathan Hale statue. Why haven’t the the east and west atriums been fixed yet? They haven’t yet been included in the state budget.

Update at 11 a.m. There are now 10 plastic garbage cans, spread in a line on the south side of the east atrium, collecting the drips. Tour groups are dodging the cans as they come and go on their visits to the state hero.

Word came late this afternoon from federal Bureau of Prison regional offices in Philadelphia that Joe “I Will Be Fully Vindicated” Ganim “declines” a request for an interview in his new digs at the elegant, 1870-era Second Empire brick halfway house for 64 federal and state inmates on Hartford’s Asylum Hill. So gentle readers will be kept in the dark on how someone, after about 6 years in prison, got involved in a drug-rehabilitation program, which allowed him to take 500 hours of programming and become eligible for shaving two full years off his 9-year corruption sentence.

He may not be willing to persobnally finance his gubernatorial bid like Republican Tom Foley and Democrat Ned Lamont, both of whom live in that section of Westchester County called Greenwich, CT. But Lt. Gov. Mike Fedele will be actually in in charge of the state this week when his boss, Gov. M. Jodi Rell, heads to Philadelphia for a family visit.

How time flies. Joe “I Will Be Fully Vindicated” Ganim, the disgraced former Bridgeport mayor, is at the Watkinson House, a transitional facility, in Hartford today, for the last six months of his sentence on corruption that kept him in a minimum-security federal prison since 2003.

Al Lenge, executive director of the State Elections Enforcement Commission, opins on today’s US Supreme Court decision that allows corporate buck$ in Senate and presidential elections:

“This is a critical time for democracy.  This decision has the potential to flood the state electoral process with corporate money.  The only solution lies in strengthening the Citizens’ Election Program,” Lenge stated, referring to the state’s voluntary public campaign financing system which has been under fire recently. As the general public realizes the potentially disastrous consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision Connecticut will be heralded as a model of reform and our candidates will be placed in the spotlight for participating in a system that eliminates special interests as a funding source for campaigns.”