Frankenstein bill: It’s alive!!!

 

clarkHARTFORD – To most people, a vehicle is something that you use to weave in and out of traffic at high speed without signaling. But in the Capitol, a vehicle is a bill’s title that can be stripped of its language, so it can be…repurposed. The Blogster has another name for it, too.

A classic example occurred Wednesday in the Environment Committee, on its deadline day. Sen. Clark Chapin, R-New Milford, ranking member, (left) called one of the bills possibly the most-egregious case of appropriating a title for a special interest he’s seen in eight terms in the General Assembly.

The name of the bill in question is HB 6732, “An Act Concerning the Appeal of Restraint and Disposal Orders Issued by Animal Control Officers.” The now quaint yet thoroughly outdated summary: “To provide for the appeal of quarantine, disposal or restraint orders concerning certain dogs, cats or other animals to the Superior Court rather than to the Commissioner of Agriculture.”

“This is probably the biggest misleading title I have read,” Chapin said. In fact, the bill’s body was scrapped and replaced with a revived state subsidy for the Urban Oaks Organic Farm in New Britain. The dole dates back to the 2009 budget, Chapin said. At the time, then-Rep. John Geragosian, a New Britain Democrat, was the House co-chair of the Appropriations Committee. Geragosian is now one of the Auditors of Public Accounts.

Chapin said he’s not against organic farms, but the special favor at the expense of taxpayers, under a bill’s title that is bogus, taints the legislation and the process.

The original subsidy was two years at $50,000 a year. This year’s version, LCO-5834, budgets $25,000. It was approved in a relatively narrow, generally party-line 17-12 vote, by the Democratic majority.

The Blogster believes this type of legislative re-animation and special service should be called a Frankenstein bill, (Getty Images) since it has one head and a body that was surgically applied to it. Anyway, it now heads to the Finance Committee, where cooler heads may euthanize it.frankenstein