Political Capitol

A few minutes before 5 p.m. today Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s office announced she had pulled out her pen and vetoed several bills, prompting a fusillade of equally last minute e-mails from angry lawmakers, including her potential gubernatorial opponent, Democratic Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, and other special interests.

With state offices closed tomorrow for the Fourth of July holiday and again on Monday for a deficit-related paid furlough day, it was quite a way for Rell to end the week.

It’s kind of like tossing a couple of Roman candles or M-80s into the middle of the family picnic, hopping into your car and getting out of dodge, leaving everyone scrambling, spitting out their potato salad and wondering “what the #@*#%!?!?!?”

UPDATE: I asked Adam Liegeot, a spokesman for the Governor, whether she has set some sort of new “veto record” over the past few weeks.

Liegeot in an e-mail responded: “As of this date, the Governor has signed 187 bills and vetoed 14 bills of the 2009 legislative session. This is the most vetoes by a Governor since Gov. Weicker vetoed 13 bills in 1993.”

And I doubt Rell will stop at 14. Off the top of my head there are at least two high-profile health reform bills Democrats pushed through the General Assembly which have been criticized by the Governor’s budget staff as too expensive.

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced today that on July 18 the National Governors Association will honor former Republican state Senator-turned-Office of Policy and Management head Robert Genuario with one of eight distinguished service awards being handed out that day.

“Secretary Genuario is well-liked and well-respected by legislators on both sides of the aisle and he is doing a tremendous job in this vitally important position,” Rell said in a statement. “I believe his leadership and accomplishments will leave a legacy that will be unmatched.”

Genuario continues working to help craft a 2009-10/2010-11 budget agreement between Rell and the Democratic-majority General Assembly that addresses a deficit in the billions-of-dollars. Rell today, the start of the new 2009-10 fiscal year, vetoed the budget Democrats passed late last week in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

I asked Genuario if the travel ban Rell imposed several months ago to help cut costs would be lifted so he could accept his NGA award in person at the group’s annual meeting in Biloxi, Mississippi.

“The state wouldn’t be paying for my travel,” Genuario said. “Whether I go will be more dependant on the status of (budget talks) more than anything else.”

There was a rumor Genuario planned to take the early retirement package offered by Rell to try and trim personnel and expenses, but he did not.

During a visit yesterday to his hometown of Stamford, Democratic U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman said the federal stimulus package passed earlier this year to  jump start the nation’s economy was estimated to create or save 40,000 jobs in Connecticut alone.

Connecticut received about $3 billion from the stimulus, which, according to Matt Fritz, a staffer in the Governor’s office and essentially the state’s stimulus czar, was allocated to: Help maintain “core” state services; prevent cuts in education; pave roads and fix bridges; and move ahead with clean energy and clean water projects.

So how many jobs have been created/saved? 40,000? Less? More?

“I can’t tell you right now, today, how many,” Fritz said. “In a couple of weeks I might have a better sense.”

Fritz acknowledged the 40,000 estimate has been floating around and is based on numbers crunched by President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.

But Fritz said it is too early to tell in part because federal guidelines and other red tape are in some instances  delaying the start of stimulus projects and the signing of contracts.

“I keep telling people we’re on the cusp of seeing a lot of work underway,” Fritz said.

Fritz said the state is working on internal mechanisms for various agencies to track stimulus related jobs, from the number of people working on paving a road to positions created in the field of “green energy” to numbers of teachers or other educational professionals saved by the influx of federal cash.

Fritz said the Obama administration about one week ago issued new reporting guidelines to help gauge the stimulus results by Oct. 10, including the number of jobs created in each state.

Reporter Dan Balz had a story in the Washington Post today that began as follows:

“The celebrations in Iraq marking the pullback of U.S. combat forces from Baghdad and other cities stand in stark contrast to the reaction in the United States. Here the transfer of power has been met almost with public indifference, overshadowed by everything from Michael Jackson’s death to the fate of President Obama’s domestic agenda.”

Balz went on to report how Obama, an opponent of the Iraq invasion who pledged, if elected, to bring troops home, “marked the moment with brief remarks at the White House Tuesday afternoon, saying the Iraqi people were ‘rightly treating this day as a cause for celebration,’ while noting that Iraqi leaders have many political issues to resolve.”

I actually read that story AFTER I spent the morning following Democratic U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Stamford native, around his hometown. Lieberman’s been back in Connecticut making various stops over the past few days. Today he took a tour of a waterfront redevelopment project and was the keynote speaker at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

There was a time Lieberman, whose steadfast and often unpopular support for the Iraq invasion, could not go anywhere without facing questions about the topic or raising it himself. It cost him the 2006 Democratic primary, although he won the general election as a self-proclaimed “independent Democrat”.

But today of all days Lieberman talked about the economy. He talked about the federal stimulus package.

And when a member of the Chamber of Commerce decided to ask a question that shifted the focus of Lieberman’s speech to foreign affairs, it was about Iran.

On his way out of the lunch, I asked Lieberman about the developments in Iraq. He said it was “a thrilling day, the day I dreamed of” and credited Obama with not giving in to pressure for a more rapid drawdown.

And yet I couldn’t help thinking: “If you’re so thrilled, why’d I have to ask YOU to talk about it?”

Lieberman opposed a timetable in 2007 and in 2008, when he supported Obama’s opponent, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona. But when Obama in February actually announced his plan, timetable opponents were pleased and some supporters disheartened because it did not go as far as either side had expected.

So I don’t necessarily buy that today was truly the day Lieberman “dreamed of” but at the same time he probably figures it could be worse. And it allows him to continue to make the case, as he did today, that the drawdown is possible because of the 2007 troop surge in Iraq – an effort he and McCain, but not Obama, supported.

But more than anything else it appears Lieberman and Obama are being cautious and waiting to see how it goes in Iraq with fewer U.S. troops on the ground.

“There will be difficult days ahead,” Balz quoted Obama in the Washington Post article. “We know the violence in Iraq will continue … There is more work to be done, but we’ve made important progress.”

Or, as Lieberman put it to me today: “It’s not over.”