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Monday March 24, 2008

Today was the “JF” day for the powerful Judiciary Committee.
Their 5 p.m. deadline for action meant death by legislative neglect for a bunch of things, including the resolution that would have exonerated the dozen or so people who were executed for witchcraft in Connecticut in the 1600s.
Time management on the committee, a two-and-a-half-hour caucus, plus a little slowdown from pouty Republicans – still bitter over the trumping of their so-called three-strikes legislation last week – worked against the witches.
By the time the clock pushed to 5, there are about 31 bills left on the agenda and about 54 acted upon, according to Blog-o-rama’s little agenda/scorecard.
Among those that were approved was the legislation that would encourage bars and restaurants to offer Breathalyzer tests to tipsy patrons.
On every Judich JF day, I think about the late Chief State’s Attorney Jack Bailey, who always sat in Room 2-C of the Legislative Office Building and watched the annual death by neglect of An Act Concerning Investigatory Grand Juries. It died at 5 p.m., again, a couple hours ago.
Another bill would allow the Judicial Review Commission to offer judges ethics rulings before possibly embarrassing action on the part of the jurists.
Rep. Mike Lawlor, co-chairman of the committee, said after the meeting that the witches resolution had bipartisan support, but, like the Yankees, will have to wait until next year.

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Friday March 21

Today Blog-o-rama, alone in the Capitol with a few other ink-stained wretches and a pair of radio reporters, asks why is a Holy Day of Obligation in the Roman Catholic calendar, a full-blown day off for 52,000 state employees?
It’s the 21st century, so shouldn’t we have finally done something about that separation-of-church-and-state thing?
You’d think so, yet the only state employee earning his paycheck today is the omnipresent Attorney General Dick Blumenthal, who, because he’s Jewish, is not too likely to show up at 3 p.m. Mass to observe the cruxifixion of Jesus. Blumenthal, in a near-empty state office building, took a shot at JuicyCampus.com. (See Saturday’s Connecticut Post)
So who of the 52,000 aforementioned state employees may miss the first half of the UConn men’s NCAA game this afternoon because they’ll be at that 3 p.m. Mass?
The Connecticut Catholic Conference claims 1.3 million Catholics in the state’s 3.5-million general population. Let err on the high side and say that’s a third of the state population. So the state is observing a massive work-stoppage holiday for less than 17,300 state employees?
The rest, presumably, are spreading their highly paid incomes around in the consumer sector today. So maybe it’s not a bad thing. Afterall, the last paid state holiday was wayyyyyyy back on February 18, President’s Day.
Why, state employees actually worked for a whole month without a paid holiday.
They must be exhausted.

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Thursday March 20, 2008

Spring has sprung and with it, the Auditors of Public Accounts have released the latest scathing indictment of what was so lovingly called UConn 2000 by the cadre of legislative leaders in 1995 who gave the state land-grant university carte blanche in its billion-dollar development project.
Among the tasty nuggets in today’s brief but explosive assessment is the reiteration of claims that UConn subverted state bidding requirements and even undertook building projects – including a $5-million warehouse – that weren’t included in the enabling legislation.
“The lack of bidding and public opening of bids on certain construction projects are violations of General Statutes,” the audit offers, suggesting that the attorney general be consulted about its violations of state law.
. “The University should publically advertise to solict competition for projects that have not previously been publicly advertised and for which less than three bids have been received,” is another interesting assessment.
The report essentially gangs up on UConn. It’s like putting your Husky sweatshirt on AFTER the men’s team gets eliminated in the NCAAs. That should happen any day now.

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March 19, 2008

Smothered in today’s Judiciary Committee debate on so-called three strikes legislation, was Rep. Mike Lawlor’s brief declaration that the former football legend did indeed commit that grisly 1994 stabbing murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
Lawlor was using the 1995 innocent verdict as proof that occasionally, for better or worse, juries get it wrong.
“It’s just my opinion, but O.J. Simpson, he was guilty,” Lawlor told the committee minutes before it rejected a Republican bill on so-called three-strikes legislation.
“He got off. That happens once in a while.”

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Tuesday March 18, 2008

Yesterday the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would create hefty fines for people who don’t clean the tops of their vehicles after snow storms. In fact, a tractor-trailer with two inches of snow up top could be whacked for more than $4,000.
As cheery as that sounds, it’s uncertain that the bill would ultimately win approval in the House and Senate. Instead, what’s more likely to happen is that it gets distilled into a fine blend of law, with a lower fine, like a cross between a rhino and a hippo. There are at least three variations on the theme still alive in the legislative pipeline
But that’s the way it is during the genetic-engineering process called the Connecticut General Assembly.
House Minority Leader Larry Cafero, R-Norwalk, said in an interview this morning that he sees a $150 maximum fine about right. He hopes the ultimate law, if approved and signed into law, gives police to ability to stop and fine vehicles on the spot.
He thinks that’s better than Gov. Jodi Rell’s proposal to fine vehicles only in cases where the flying ice and snow chunks collide with a following vehicle.
Cafero’s also optimistic that after years of submitting the proposal, this could be the year he succeeds.
“The governor’s support always helps,” Cafero said, adding that more and more lawmakers have had highway encounters with flying icebergs.
“I noticed the change in attitude this year,” Cafero concluded.

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Friday March 14,2008
So Greg Costa, the New York-based lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, comes to the Capitol Press Room Friday morning to tell us about a Monday news conference with state gun makers, including Colt, Remington, Marlin, Mossberg and Sturm, Ruger.
Under the umbrella of something called the National Shooting Sports Foundation, they will criticized a bill that would require guns made after 2009 to put ID stamps on bullets.
Costa, you probably don’t remember, was a protagonist in a huge knock-down, drag-out, in-your-face tete-a-tete last year with House Minority Leader Larry Cafero, R-Norwalk, prior to a vote requiring gun owners to report stolen weapons.
Cafero was trying to get a deal with majority Democrats and Costa, according to witnesses, interfered.
The result was that as pro-gun as much of the GOP House caucus is, Costa is persona non grata with Cafero and his peeps.
Indeed, Rep. Len Greene, R-Beacon Falls and Rep. John Piscopo, R-Thomaston, who initially booked the room for Costa and the gun and ammo makers’ news conference, backed out.
The manufacturers then begged Speaker of the House Jim Amann to secure the room for the Monday dog-and-pony… I mean, live-fire event.
Larry Perosino, spokesman for Amann, D-Milford, said Friday that the speaker was merely being polite to the group, who, after a news conference in the room, will submit testimony to the Judiciary Committee saying it’s too expensive to require them to micro laser-engrave a gun’s make, model and serial number on the firing pin of weapons made in the future.
“As a courtesy to the organization, Speaker Amann reserved a room so they could have their press conference, but this does not necessarily mean he’s opposed to the pending legislation,” Perosino said.
There’s a general perception that four House Republicans lost their seats in the 2006 elections because they voted against a similar gun control bill in 2005 and their Democratic challengers made the most of it.
Greene called back later in the day to say that initially, he and Piscopo did not realize Costa was part of the group. “We asked the NSSF to, okay, let Greg be there, but we didn’t want him to speak,” Greene said. When the group insisted Costa would talk to reporters during the news conference, Green and Piscopo terminated their sponsorship of the room, but not their support for the arms makers.
“I don’t believe in the legislation,” Greene said. “Think about fingerprinting a cartridge. I could go to a shooting range, pick up bullets and then go to a crime scene and scatter them around.” He said that most guns used in crimes are illegal.
“This is just another stab at law-abiding people,” Greene said. “I’m kind of hoping the press conference goes well.”Greene said he doesn’t buy the premise of the four lost House GOP seats back in 2006, including the one held by Jack Stone in Fairfield.“I don’t think that was the case at all,” he said. “We saw a huge wave a year and a half ago, where if you were a Republican you didn’t win. Congressman Rob Simmons saved the sub base and ended up losing re-election.”
Rep. Mike Lawlor, D-East Haven, a gun-control proponent who is chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee, said the bill would create an additional cost of “a few dollars” per gun manufactured after January 1, 2010.
“After a while, most guns would be like that,” Lawlor said, adding that police officers asked the General Assembly for the new law. “It makes perfect sense to me and how it adversely affects anyone, I can’t say,” Lawlor said. “The NRA is against everything. In Connecticut, level-headed people are not going to understand why someone would vote against this. I think it will pass, even among legislators from rural districts with a lot of gun owners.” _________________________________________________________________

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Wednesday March 12, 2008

Apparently Blog-o-rama can’t take a couple days off to measure the snow in northern Vermont without a political meltdown that affects Connecticut.
The revelations that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer spent tens of thousands of dollars on high-priced hookers is properly prurient. The first thing you wonder is where can an HONEST politician find that kind of cash. Then you wonder what’s worse, having extra-marital relations with a prostitute, or a civilian?
The former is contributing to a criminal enterprise, which isn’t cool in the eyes of the federal Justice Department. The latter violates the tattered remnants of America’s marriage vows.
For a political observer, Spitzer and Connecticut Attorney General Dick Blumenthal have a lot of similarities. They’re both Ivy Leaguers, wealthy, had hard-hitting reputations fighting for their state consumers. Spitzer even took the plunge that Blumenthal avoided during the Rowland/Rell years. He ran for governor and won..
I just got off the phone with Blumenthal and asked about the 1999 court case he won against Spitzer’s office over the so-called commuter tax. Back then, commuters had to pay an income tax for going into New York City each day. There was an New York Assembly election that year. A Westchester County lawmaker had the tax repealed for his constituents. Blumenthal sued over equal-protection provisions.
“There was a good-natured contentiousness about it,” Blumenthal recalled of the border warl with Spitzer. “His position was ‘you’re going to lose’ and our position was maybe, but how could we lose if it’s so discriminatory and unconstitutional?. Their attitude was you’re on our turf, you’re in our courts. It was an attitute…. I hestitate to say a New York attitude.”
Blumenthal brought the case in the lower New York state court – called the Supreme Court – while Spitzer sent his solicitor general to argue on that rainy morning.
“By and large we were on the same side in cases,” Blumenthal said of Spitzer’s career, recalling many claims against brokers and insurance companies that were forced to return billions of dollars.
“I don’t think we ever had dinner,” he said. “We weren’t social friends. We spoke a lot, mostly by phone. We participated in a couple of press conferences. He’s a runner. I’m a runner. We did talk politics. My last converstaion was about Broadwater (the proposed liquified natural gas platform in Long Island Sound) obviously urging him to reject it.This man is exceedingly smart and very insightful, penetrating and tough.”
Well, maybe not THAT smart.

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Friday March 8, 2008

It’s sort of unfair to make fun of lawmakers when they tackle tough, complicated issues. But they can mess up simple things, so they’re always fair game.
Today’s example was in the Environment Committee, where they debated “An Act Banning Children’s Products Containing Lead, Phthalates or Bisphenol-A.”
Aside from Rep. Diana Urban, D-Stonington, being able to pronounce all those materials correctly without looking at a sheet of paper, the debate wasn’t one of the committee’s finer moments. Fortunately, there are different forms of this bill that will be hashed out by legislative leaders next week.
So all the committee really had to do was vote it into the waste stream we call the legislative process.
As usual, Rep. Terry Backer, D-Stratford, was cutting through the haze of chemical compounds. “I’ve read it a couple of times and after eight sessions here, I’m not sure what any bill says,” Backer quipped. “What does this bill say? Can anybody tell me?”
Urban tried to explain it.
“That still doesn’t get me to where I think we should be,” Backer replied, adding that it’s typical for lawmakers to vote stuff along without details.
Rep. Craig Miner, R-Lichtfield, criticized the bill for allowing the General Assembly to supercede the authority of the state Department of Public Health.
“If we ban it, people are going to have to go back to building wooden toys, as well intentioned as it may be,” Miner said.. .
Sen. Ed Meyer, D-Guilford, co-chairman of the committee, said this is a rare case where the bill needed to be approved without lawmakers having digested the voluminous scientific background.
“The problem is, this bill is so broad, that it’s going forward without people reading the underlying studies,” he said.