Political Capitol

Over the weekend the Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Church launched a public relations blitz urging residents to oppose a bill codifying the state Supreme Court’s decision last year legalizing same sex marriage.

The legislation seems likely to come up today for a vote in the Senate.

“It’s not definite but we are certainly planning for that to happen,” said Anne Stanback, head of the pro-gay-marriage Love Makes a Family.

Critics of the bill essentially want to give anyone who has a problem with two men or two women getting hitched – say the caterer or the photographer or a justice of the peace – the right to be a conscientious objector and refuse to provide the service.

Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said he has a problem with that. Looney said it would make it too easy for anyone who does not like homosexuals to use religion as an excuse to discriminate.

“”We have to be careful we don’t carve out an exception so large it undermines the bill itself,” Looney said. “There’s a danger if you provide the kind of exception that anyone could use regardless of whether it’s based on religion or not.”

But the Diocese of Bridgeport is touting a letter to Looney from four law professors which argues Vermont lawmakers did carve out an exemption in that state’s recent gay marriage law for religious organizations, which would at least shield the Knights of Columbus from having to agree to host same sex weddings in their halls.

You may have heard there’s this ongoing debate at the capitol over the size of the budget deficit for the next two years.

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell on Feb. 4 unveiled a “no tax increase” budget that assumed a $6 billion deficit in 2009-10 and 2010-11.

The Democrats decided they trusted the non-partisan Office of Fiscal Analysis’ projection of an $8.7 billion deficit more than the $6 billion calculated by Rell’s budget staff. The majority party subsequently a few weeks ago proposed its own two-year budget that included tax hikes.

The Republican minority last week put a third option on the table – a “no tax increase” spending plan that assumes an $8.1 billion deficit (which was kind of odd because GOP members for the past few months have been giving budget presentations to their constituents back home using the $8.7 billion figure…)

Rell has so far adjusted her calculation twice. In late March she announced she had upped the figure from $6 billion to $7.39 billion. Then yesterday she acknowledged it was closer to $7.95 billion.

The folks in her budget office are professionals who sometimes get irritated with the claim that OFA is the NON-PARTISAN office of number crunchers, so I’m not going to dare suggest that they are working hard to make sure they DON’T calculate a deficit of $8 billion or more to help the boss save face.

But it’s funny how even her own party is saying the deficit has reached at least $8 billion and Rell’s office is still – just barely – projecting under that.

Seriously.

The legislature’s Democratic-majority after some delays finally got around to releasing the list of funds they say are just sitting around in state accounts, gathering dust, waiting for lawmakers to spend them on cutting the state deficit.

The Democrats originally promised to come up with $220 million in savings and said they instead found over $245 million.

The sources are varied. There’s $5,972 that apparently the Board of Education and Services for the Blind has unspent in an account to provide “special projects” for blind kids “such as camps.”

There’s also: $534,811 in an account to trap and neuter feral cats to control the animal population; $300,000 intended to make restitution to consumers for “damages caused by licensed health clubs”; and $492,943 to help treat compulsive gamblers.

And that’s just scratching the surface. It’s interesting reading and in some cases raises more “what the heck is THIS” questions than answers.

“Finding these cuts is precisely what Connecticut families and businesses expect government to do in this financial crisis,” said Senate President Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn and House Speaker Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, in a joint statement.

But it’s not as easy as identifying the cuts. Many require the General Assembly to authorize changes in existing state statutes to allow the funds to be spent to stem the tide of red ink.

“We look forward to working with Republican leadership on the recommendations so the savings can be achieved as soon as possible,” Williams and Donovan said.

Christopher Cooper, a spokesman for Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, dismissed the Dems’ announcement, arguing the majority party is counting tens-of-millions of dollars for environmental clean-ups and job creation.

“There is no ‘there’ there,” Cooper said.

All I know is if the Dems do get their way with this money, then you can probably rip those tags off of your mattress with little fear of reprisal. That’s right. The majority party wants to take $286,017 from an account within the Department of Consumer Protection established to “enhance bedding/furniture law enforcement.”

Supporters of Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy often take issue with The Advocate’s coverage of his son’s troubles.

But this weekend The Hartford Courant – arguably the paper of record for the state – turned a spotlight on the issue.

House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk and freshman Rep. Terrie Wood, R-Darien, will be at Roton Middle School in Norwalk next Tuesday to tout the benefits of the “no new taxes” budget proposal the GOP offered last week.

The hearing is scheduled to run from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m.

Folks are up at the capitol today rallying in support of legislation sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven to lessen the penalties for individuals caught with small amounts of marijuana.

One person at the rally had a pretty creative sign – “Yes We Can-Nabis!”

When the Senate eventually debates the bill, I would pay good money to see Looney wrap up whatever speech he delivers on the topic with that slogan.

A few weeks ago Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele was testifying before a legislative committee on the administration’s proposal to merge the state’s technical high schools and community colleges into a “middle college” system.

The idea was one of several agency/department consolidations or cuts Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell put forth in her proposed two year budget back in February.

The exchange with Fedele, as I recall, went something like this, with plenty of paraphrasing on my part:

Legislator: “This isn’t a bad idea, but we’re not quite sure about the details. There doesn’t seem to be an actual plan available from you guys for how this might work or any research on how other states have done it or whether it has been successful elsewhere.”

Fedele: “I know some people worry about a lack of ‘meat on the bone’. But I see opportunity for all of us to get together and figure out how to make this middle college concept fly.”

With the state facing a potential $9 billion budget deficit, it makes sense Rell and members of both parties in the General Assembly are talking about consolidating or eliminating agencies and restructuring government.

But how much thought/analysis should go into these ideas before they are touted to the general public as the solution to pulling the state out of the red and holding down taxes?

The legislature’s Republican minority earlier today proposed an alternative budget that consolidates 23 state agencies into six, including merging the Department of Motor Vehicles with the Department of Transportation.

Much later in the day I asked House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk how much effort his caucus put into actually evaluating and studying those ideas.

“Did we consider the functions of each department? Did we consider the synergy of each department? The physical space of each department? The answer is ‘yes’,” Cafero said. “Did we hire consultants to do an exhaustive study? The answer’s ‘no’.”

But Cafero said his and the Senate Republicans’ staff worked hard developing the proposals.

And he noted his party is being cautious by including the consolidations in the second year of the two-year budget – that is, fiscal year 2010-11. He said it would be “physically impossible” and “unrealistic” to expect such wholesale changes to happen by this July, when the 2009-10 fiscal year begins.

“It gives us time to investigate further these consolidations to make them more efficient, make them realistic,” Cafero said.

On the other hand you have the legislature’s Democratic majority. Before even making any real stab at sweeping government reform in their budget, the Democrats want a special, bi-partisan subcommittee to spend the next few weeks evaluating how to best consolidate state agencies.

The group even has plans to travel the state and get input from taxpayers.

Many Democrats during hearings on Rell’s budget proposals criticized them for not being well-thought-out. This committee is the direct response to that, taking a methodical “let’s reform government but not be too hasty about it” approach.

There are risks to implementing ideas without fully analyzing their pros/cons. Off the top of my head, merging the DMV with the DOT might save the state money in staff and administrative expenses. But is it going to triple the time customers have to wait in line for a license renewal or mean they have to wait even longer to talk to a live person at the DMV? And haven’t lawmakers from both parties been complaining for years about how ineffective the DOT has been at managing projects and taxpayer dollars? Rell herself said the agency was broken. Is making it the DOTMV going to fix it?

But there are also plenty of risks to the “slow and steady, overthink everything” approach. Namely, accomplishing nothing. Setting up a committee is all well and good. But anyone familiar with the capitol and the General Assembly will tell you the shelves and file cabinets are filled with exhaustive studies that never amounted to any real change.

So what’s the best way of restructuring state government?

You tell me.

I’m anxious to see if, when the dust settles, any of these attempts actually amount to something when Rell, the Democrats and Republicans reach a budget deal and head home.

You’d think with a nearly $9 billion budget deficit at stake, they’d have to.

Former Speaker of the House James Amann, D-Milford, is the only Democrat so far to officially announce he is seeking the party’s nomination for Governor in 2010.

Let’s hope, for the sake of having a competitive Democrat primary that gives voters real choices, that his campaign brings more professionalism to the table in the coming months than was showed this week.

First there was some question about whether or not Amann got his most recent campaign finance report in on time to the Elections Enforcement Commission. The Commission only received it Thursday, three days past the Monday deadline. But a spokesman said it was post-marked Monday so it’s okay.

Then Amann’s treasurer, Vito Castignoli, hand-wrote the report (which has quite a bit of zeros in it, by the way. Vito might as well have taken the opportunity to make them into little sad faces…)

The other top names exploring a run – Democrats Susan Bysiewicz, the Secretary of the State, Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy and incumbant Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell – all turned over nicely typed forms or filed electronically.

Norwalk’s Scott Merrell, an independent who has declared his candidacy for Governor, also filed a hand written finance report filled with even more zeros than Amann’s. Of course, this is the same Scott Merrell who lost his house earlier this year because he refused to pay Norwalk property taxes. Not exactly the kind of company Amann wants to keep.

It makes you wonder if Amann’s running for Governor or High School Class President.

But there’s still a lot of months ahead for him to recover. C’mon Jim. Step it up.