Political Capitol

During yesterday’s budget debate in the Senate, at least one Republican in making the case against the Democratic majority’s tax increases, argued even Democratic President Barack Obama has been reluctant to raise taxes on the rich during the recession.

But just a few minutes ago Rep. Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, while criticizing the same budget proposal and tax increases in the House of Representatives, said the package threatens to “Obama-nize” Connecticut.

C’mon guys. Let’s have a little consistency in your arguments.

Sen. Andrew Roraback, R-Goshen, had one of the better lines during today’s budget debate in the state Senate.

Roraback was criticizing a Democratic proposal to levy a 30 percent surcharge on the so-called “death tax” – the tax Connecticut imposes on estates of those who die worth over $2 million.

Republicans generally don’t like the estate tax, particularly those who represent wealthy constituents in lower Fairfield County, and the surcharge just adds salt to the wound.

Democrats argued the surcharge would sunset in 2012 (a claim that, for anyone who follows state government, is a real eye-roller because it is rare for taxes to be rescinded once on the books).

But taking the majority party at its word, Roraback noted the absurdity of limiting the surcharge to a specific number of years.

“If you can hang in until Jan. 1, 2012, your family will be that much better,” he said.

Derek Slap, a spokesman for Senate Democrats, said this afternoon that chamber of the legislature will convene tomorrow at 11 a.m. to vote on the Democratic majority’s budget proposal.

I understand the two-year package still includes income tax hikes on households earning over $500,000 but there is talk the amount of the increases may be lowered.

The current maximum income tax rate is 5 percent. Democrats had proposed imposing a series of increases ending at a new, 7.9 percent maximum, but they may no longer be aiming that high.

The big question is how many of the 36-person Senate’s 24 Democrats will vote for the budget and accompanying tax increases? Some, including Sens. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk and Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, balked at the initial income tax hike because it started with households earning $250,000 – what they continue to argue is “middle class” in expensive Fairfield County.

Duff today told me he still plans to vote “no” despite alterations to the income tax proposal. He said he would explain further tomorrow during the actual debate.

McDonald said he needs to see additional details of the budget.

I suspect he and Stamford Democrats in the House of Representatives, which convenes Friday to vote on the budget, might be won over by fine print in the budget proposal which gives Stamford an additional $853,538 in education grants over the next two fiscal years despite the fact all other municipalities are flat-funded.

Sen. Toni Harp, D-New Haven, a chairman of the legislature’s appropriations committee, said a few years ago Stamford did not receive as much money as the 14 other so-called priority school districts.

Priority school districts are defined as having the greatest academic needs and include the state’s largest cities, including Hartford, New Haven, Waterbury, Bridgeport, Norwalk, Danbury and New London.

“They (Stamford) were the only ones who didn’t get the full increment,” Harp said. “So they have been really angry about that (and) they’ve been complaining about this for a couple of years. They argued they may in fact be a wealthy community but if you look at their school system it looks a lot like others that did get the increment and they felt they were penalized unfairly.”

So, Harp said, Democratic leaders decided to try and do right by Stamford and throw a little extra education cash their way.

Could this have anything to do with the delegation’s stated concern about voting for a Democratic budget that includes income tax increases?

McDonald declined to comment.

“Are we trying to buy a vote? … Absolutely not,” Harp said. “They made a compelling case.”

Perhaps, but it’s sure going to make it that much harder for Stamford lawmakers to oppose the budget.

Former Sen. William Nickerson, R-Greenwich, who did not seek re-election last November, emerged from retirement today to become embroiled in the ongoing debate at the capitol over what the Senate should do about two Democratic members guilty of election-law violations.

In 2007 Nickerson served on a bi-partisan committee appointed by the Senate to consider punishing former state Sen. Louis DeLuca, R-Woodbury, for asking a member of the mob to rough up his son-in-law and for failing to report a bribe offered him during an undercover F.B.I. investigation.

DeLuca resigned from the Senate before the panel took final action.

Today Nickerson and the two other Republicans involved in the DeLuca review – Sen. Andrew Roraback, R-Goshen and Sen. Tony Guglielmo, R-Stafford Springs – in a letter urged the Democratic majority to likewise investigate Sens. Thomas Gaffey, D-Meriden, and Joseph Crisco, D-Woodbridge.

The two were found guilty by the state Elections Enforcement Commission of misusing political action committee funds and forging names on campaign-finance applications.

Gaffey and Crisco were fined and the SEEC last week closed their investigations. Republicans have been unsuccessfully urging Democrats to consider additional penalties within the Senate.

In the letter, Nickerson, Roraback and Guglielmo wrote: “A legislator faces few circumstances more difficult than passing judgment on the conduct of a fellow legislator, particularly when that legislator is a member of their own political caucus. All of us, as members of the 2007 Senate Bipartisan Committee of Review charged with making appropriate recommendations with respect to former state Senator Louis DeLuca, know this first hand. We … put the institution before political considerations and personal sentiments, and acted in a fair, open and bipartisan way in order to protect the integrity of the Senate. Together, we must meet this challenge and responsibility once again. The misconduct admitted to by state Senators Tom Gaffey and Joe Crisco rises to a level where silence on the part of the Senate erodes public trust and the integrity of the institution and all of its members.”

Since the Democrats have not established a permanent legislative ethics committee to address such issues, Nickerson, Roraback and Guglielmo suggested the Senate revive the DeLuca model to review the conduct of Senator Gaffey and Senator Crisco and recommend appropriate action.

I spoke briefly with Nickerson this evening and he acknowledged a retired Senator’s lending his signature to a letter from active colleagues is unique.

“Everything about it is unique,” Nickerson said, from the DeLuca case and the Senate’s handling of it to the actions of Gaffey and Crisco. He could not recall any lawmakers being found guilty of similar election law violations during his 22 years in the General Assembly.

I asked Nickerson if he hoped his involvement might convince some Democrats to take the letter seriously and not simply dismiss it as partisan politics. Yes, Nickerson is a loyal Republican, but he does not have to get involved in this situation and he was generally well-respected by both sides of the aisle, which is why he was chosen to sit on the DeLuca committee in the first place in 2007.

He said that would be “fine” but added “I don’t flatter myself to think my signature changes the world.”

Nickerson said he is disappointed in Senate Democrats for not pursuing the Gaffey/Crisco issue.

“There’s no justification for it,” he said.

Although acknowledging unlike DeLuca neither is so far guilty of a crime, Nickerson said there is evidence of “significant malfeasance” on the part of the two Democratic Senators. He said by choosing to ignore the issue Senate Democrats undermine the public trust.

There has been talk that the General Assembly will  convene on Thursday so the Democratic-majority can run a budget, even if it’s a plan Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell will veto.

But Sen. Eileen Daily, D-Westbrook and Rep. Cameron Staples, D-New Haven aren’t quite sure. And they should know since, as the co-chairs of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, they play a major role in the ongoing negotiations over the budget’s tax package.

“If I were a betting woman, I’d bet on Friday,” Daily said this afternoon.

Staples, in a separate interview, said “we’re working on it. I’ll know better by tomorrow.”

“There’s a desire not to run up against the deadline of the fiscal year (next Wednesday, July 1 is the beginning of the 2009/2010 fiscal year),” Staples said. “I think the end of this week is still a possibility. But so is the beginning of next week.”

During a break in today’s legislative session I followed Sen. Eileen Daily, D-Westbrook, a chairman of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee outside of the capitol. She wanted a cigarette and I wanted the latest details on the Democrats’ tax proposals.

Most of our conversation focused on income taxes, but I also asked Daily if leadership is contemplating sales tax hikes.

A bit earlier Sen. President Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, had told reporters lawmakers were once again considering upping the cigarette tax, this time by either 50-cents or 75-cents. I figured Daily might at least confirm that and also suggest some other possibilities.

Daily initially said no sales tax increases were planned and I pointed to the smoldering item in her hand.

“Oh, yeah,” Daily said.

And that, in a nutshell, seems to sum up lawmakers’ views of taxing cigarettes. It comes so naturally that it’s an afterthought in a conversation about raising taxes.

During an interview with reporters earlier today, state Senate President Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, was asked for details about the income tax increases his party is pursuing in the legislature as part of its two-year budget package.

Earlier in the spring Democratic leaders proposed a spending plan that included income tax hikes on households earning $250,000 – something that did not go over well with some of the rank-and-file who represent wealthier districts in Fairfield County and elsewhere.

“We’re looking at something closer to the ‘millionaires’ tax’,” Williams said, meaning a starting household income closer to $1 million.

Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, one of the Democrats who opposed the earlier income tax plan, in a separate interview said there have been discussions about moving the income threshold to at least $500,000.

“There’s no tax increase that’s going to be easier for me to vote for but at  least that’s movement in the right direction,” Slossberg said.

Sen. Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, wanted additional details but said “I don’t see our caucus being willing to talk about tax increases until we’re convinced we’ve made every savings cut and efficiency possible.”

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has argued Connecticut has an opportunity by keeping taxes down to attract residents and businesses from neighboring states. Sen. Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven recently told The Advocate he agrees, but there is still room for lawmakers to hike Connecticut’s income tax on higher earners and keep it below that of surrounding states.

McKinney disagreed.

“Staying ‘slightly below’ is not enough incentive” for residents and businesses to leave New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts for Connecticut, he said, adding state legislators should also be wary of wealthy taxpayers fleeing to warmer climes for less taxes and a lower cost of living.

Around a dozen students from J.M. Wright Technical School and their parents are at the capitol today to protest Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s proposed closure of the vocational school while legislators are in Hartford for a special session.

One of the better signs reads “Even the Governor Needs A Plumber.”

In fact there is a potential plumber among the group – 14-year-old Zack Lamotta, who decided to attend Wright Tech to follow in the footsteps of his plumber uncle. If the school remains open Lamotta will be a sophomore in the fall.

Lamotta, who otherwise would be attending Stamford High School, said he likes Wright Tech’s smaller size.

“Instead of just sitting down in a class room you learn a trade,” Lamotta said.