Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Democrats in Connecticut are more efficient than Republicans in utilizing human resources. During the last non-presidential election, national Republicans on the right appeared to have caught up with the left. It was owing in large part to the most animated wing of the Republican Party – patriot tea party people, but libertarians and conservatives as well -– that Republicans were able to bring into the U.S. Congress and state houses across the nation a rich harvest. In Connecticut, the harvest was meager -- and bitter. Republicans sent two new senators and 15 House members to the General Assembly, but they lost the governorship by the thinnest of margins, in part because of a stubborn resistance among status quo Republicans to the party’s most active element. Perhaps members of the town committees and the Republican Party Central Committee thought they could harness the storm they saw brewing elsewhere in the nation without also making room in the breast of the party for the lightn...

What do you get when you cross an attorney general with a U.S. Senator? Answer: Dick Blumenthal. People may not appreciate the joke until they’ve read Sen. Dick Blumenthal’s prescription for lower energy prices. Appearing on Face the Nation ” with Bob Schieffer, Mr. Blumenthal, who as attorney general of Connecticut for 20 years was very quick to pull the litigation trigger on companies large and small, called for “an investigation… involving subpoenas and compulsory process” to hold to the fire the feet of those who “may be driving prices up.” A grand jury should be assembled, Mr. Blumenthal said, to “uncover the potential wrongdoing… The Justice Department should take the lead, seize this moment, and send a message — a very strong deterrent message — that this country will not tolerate the kind of illegal speculation and trading and hedge fund activity that may be driving prices up.” The usual Blumenthal press release, when he was attorney general in Connecticut, was full o...

Energy, as we all know, is the stuff that makes thing go: light bulbs, even the squiggly, earth friendly, energy saving kind that, some say, may cause cancer; cars and buses, preferred by “smart growth” utopianists who drive their non-motorized, non-gas guzzling bikes to work; and computerized presses that produce newspapers of a kind for which Senator John Fonfara of the 1st District and Vickie Nardello of the 89th Assembly District write op-ed pieces . Mr. Fonfara and Ms. Nardello are co-chairs of the General Assembly’s Energy and Technology Committee, and together they are promoting a bill that at least one non-utopian academic, Richard D. Pomp, the Alva P. Loiselle Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut Law School, considers highly mischievous. Political watchers may have noticed that there are every so often within the Democratic Party sudden flare ups, quickly suppressed, of economic good sense. Mr. Fonfara and Ms. Nardello have escaped this human frailty. The two...

Jury trials are scripted narrations carefully edited by all the parties involved – judge, defense council and prosecutor – not always to the benefit of the party accused. Priscilla Dickman, accused of four counts of forgery by the state attorney general’s office, was found guilty on March 24 on all counts and faces in mid-May a possible sentence of eight years in prison. The trial turned on disparities in medical forms – documents #8, #9 and #10 – that found their way into the personnel file of Ms. Dickman, for 27 years a senior microbiologist at the University of Connecticut Health Center (UCHC), the prosecution contending that Ms. Dickman had altered the forms to secure a benefit. Ms. Dickman was convicted of second degree forgery for having tampered with the documents and, upon sentencing, may receive 2 years on each of the four counts for a total of 8 years. In criminal trials, the prosecution is charged with presenting to the jury evidence sufficiently compelling to justify ...

You part the darkness, You bring me light. You fill my soul with sweet delight. The blood You shed is mine tonight. Tomorrow You will rise and conquer death. Its sting will be no more, For You have opened wide the door For all to enter by your grace That we may see our Father’s face.

The 2nd District, the largest geographic district in Connecticut, tens to float between Democrats and Republicans. Daria Novak, a personable, energetic Republican, ran for the seat on the Republican ticket once before. She received the Republican endorsement but was challenged in a primary, and former newscaster Janet Peckenpaugh was selected to face current U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney. Ms. Peckenpaugh lost to Mr. Courtney in a year in which Republicans elsewhere in the country did remarkably well. Ms. Novak is back for a second go round. Having served during the Reagan administration in the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC and overseas, Ms. Novak is not unfamiliar with foreign policy. She speaks fluent Chinese and has a comprehensive understanding of domestic policy and economics. Ms. Novak received an MA in Political Science from the University of Southern California and is a graduate of the U.S. Foreign Service Institute and Georgetown University’s Institute of Comparative ...

Moments after Governor Dannel Malloy and majority Democrats in the General Assembly had more or less signed off on the governor’s tax plan, a half-budget that includes doubtful savings from state unions, minority Republicans asserted that the so called budget could not be passed in its present form by the legislature because the state constitution requires a balanced budget. The Democrat’s tax plan might be in balance if the $2 billion the governor hopes to recover from state unions were assured. But negotiations between the governor’s office and Connecticut’s fourth branch of government -- Larry Dorman, the chief spokesman for SEBAC, the union coalition in negotiations with the governor -- have not been concluded, and no one in the Democratic dominated legislature may know at the point at which they will be asked to vote on the Democratic tax plan whether the anticipated savings have been secured. Statements made by Mr. Dorman and Mr. Malloy suggest that a quick resolution is ...

The banner headline in the Hartford Courant read “ Budget: It’s A Deal .” And an accompanying photo showed Governor Dannel Malloy pressing the flesh of various Democrats whose votes were crucial in passing the Democratic Tax Plan. President of the Senate Don Williams was mildly applauding, an enigmatic Mount Rushmore smile playing upon his face. Sen. Edith Prague, the most obliging senator state union leaders ever bought, was half out of the picture, also applauding. Mr. Malloy was pitched forward, grasping the hand of Rep. Susan Johnson, eager to launch Connecticut forward on a path of prosperity, gratefully accepting plaudits from Democrats in the legislature who had helped him set in budget stone their preferred Tax Plan. Significantly, the second half of Mr. Malloy’s budget, a Savings Plan that includes the “shared sacrifice” Mr. Malloy has demanded from state workers, is still in process of being negotiated. The cost savings part of Mr. Malloy’s budget has, so far, been writte...

“Exit pursued by bear” – Shakespeare’s stage direction in a play In search of lower business costs, Hamilton Sunstrand in Windsor Locks has announced that it will lay off more than 20 percent of its union workforce. The company, a part of United Technologies, plans to move jobs to Poland, not a state contiguous to Connecticut, and other former Soviet block countries where salaries are lower, regulations less punishing and unions but a blip on the horizon. According to a report in the Hartford Courant, “Hamilton President Alain M. Bellemare has told investors at previous earnings announcements that ‘we are laser-focused on executing our cost-reduction strategy’ by doing manufacturing and engineering in developing and former Soviet bloc countries.” Coincidentally, Republicans yesterday presented their no-new-tax budget , which was immediately denounced by Malloy spokesperson Roy Occhiogrosso as a threat to Connecticut’s all embracing safety net. The Republicans plan calls f...

“Some people wonder all their lives if they’ve made a difference. The Marines don’t have that problem’ – Ronald Reagan If there is anybody in the state of Connecticut who does not know that current Senator Richard Blumenthal has a Vietnam problem, his or her voting rights should be taken away for chronic inattention. During Mr. Blumenthal’s senatorial race against various Republicans, among them former U.S. Rep Rob Simmons and former CEO of World Wide Wrestling Linda McMahon, it was revealed that Mr. Blumenthal had told some stretchers about his service in the U.S. Marines. Mr. Blumenthal, then hanging on to his attorney general position as if he were a drowning man grasping for a straw and assiduously avoiding media exposure, said several times that he had served in Vietnam when in fact he remained stateside during the war. And any lipstick put on that pig during his campaign did not help to restore the honor marines so value . Mr. Blumenthal was one of two U.S. congressmen fe...

By Scott Portman The month of April has brought forth plenty of discussion over federal and state budgets .  As President Obama handed down a resolution just last week, some aspects will likely continue to spark controversy. One aspect of the resolution, the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, will likely see more discussion from GOP representatives and big business owners in the near future. The GOP has been on the tail of the EPA throughout the early part of 2011, pushing forth a budget proposal that explored a 30 percent cut to the agency. When the resolution that came through last week from President Obama was finalized, only a 16 percent cut to the EPA’s budget was called for; just over half of what republican reps wanted. Expect further push back from the GOP. Apart from budgetary issues, Republicans have set out to reduce the scope of the Clean Air Act, put an end to the cap and trade tax, and soften greenhouse gas emission regulations from the EPA. The Energy ...

After Tom Foley lost the gubernatorial race to then former Mayor of Stamford Dan Malloy, he did not slink away into that good night in which many losing politicians find their ultimate repose. Mr. Foley, a former ambassador and business owner, started a research organization that develops public policy proposals, and a recent op-ed piece Mr. Foley wrote for a Hartford paper represents part of the fruit of his post campaign labors. Mr. Foley’s column vigorously attacks “current services budgets” as a means used by shiftily, non-transparent politicians to foolall of the people some of the time, in Abraham Lincoln’s piercing phrase. The method of reckoning getting and spending in Connecticut’s current services budget is little more than a partially successful sleight of hand used by professional politicians to “pitch their causes and confuse their constituents to suit their purposes,” according to Mr. Foley. Governor Malloy’s current services budget first implausibly assumes that...

Is an economic analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that does not include a job study a complete economic analysis? That is the question put by U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner to EPA Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus. Now, the answer to this question is a simple “No,” followed by “Duh?” The impact of a regulation on the job markert is possibly THE MOST IMPORTANT datum in any economic analysis. Just ask any Republican or Democrat in Congress. Even Mr. Stanislaus’ CEO, President Barack Obama, thinks jobs are important in economic calculations. But watch Mr. Stanislaus wriggle as he is questioned with some persistance by Mr. Gardner, who would be quite willing to take “no” for an answer. Why should any congressman need to exert this much energy to extract a simple “yes” or “no” from an EPA bureaucrat? Because sometimes the truth is a rotten tooth that must be pulled, and persistence, God willing, occasionally wins out. The lesson embedded in this embarrassing ...

At about the same time that Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo had declared his state “functionally bankrupt" and warned public-employee unions not to expect any pay hikes over the next three years, Governor Dannel Malloy showed up in New York at the annual gathering of the Regional Plan Association -- a research and planning advocacy group focused on New Jersey, New York and Connecticut – to lament the want of investment in infrastructure. Mr. Malloy, whose approach to state deficits is the obverse of Mr. Cuomo’s, chastised "governor after governor, legislature after legislature," for their short-sided indifference to infrastructure needs and confessed he was “more than happy, even as I decry what's happening in our nation, to put in my bid to get any dollars Florida or New Jersey or any other state wants to send back to Washington." On the same day Mr. Malloy was dilating on “Malloy’s Way” in New York, some 750 concerned citizens in Connecticut were gather...

Chris Keating of the Hartford Courant reports today that Governor Dannel Malloy is about to cave in to union demands after his 17 town tour, which recently concluded in Middletown: “Malloy is expected to drop his plans for eliminating the maximum $500 property tax credit that chiefly benefits middle-class homeowners, Capitol sources said. Instead, the level probably will be lowered to $300. “To help pay for it, Malloy would propose changing the income levels at which tax hikes take effect for the highest earners. Higher tax rates would kick in at lower income levels for those wealthiest residents.” Two groups, the “left leaning Voice For Children” and state unions have for years been pressuring the Democratic dominated legislature to raise marginal tax rates on the wealthy. Union leader Leo Canty, the Danton of the union movement in Connecticut, has put the “rich” on notice: “Tax them, and they will not leave. There is no data that says they will leave.'' Really? So ma...

Governor Dannel Malloy’s strong suit in budget negotiations with unions is that his proposed budget limits the pain for unionized workers in Connecticut only to state employees. In a hitch, he might easily choose to broaden the shared sacrifice to cover municipal union workers as well. Under a contingency plan prepared by the governor’s office, municipalities would lose one-third of their state aid should the legislature unwisely resist Mr. Malloy’s proposed budget. Having already socked taxpayers for $1.5 billion, the governor is asking $2 billion in spending cuts only from state union workers. Given the economic condition of the Connecticut – ambulatory, according to The Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants -- the state’s long term debt can only grow larger over the years. Very little in Mr. Malloy’s plan patches the hole in the boat caused by excessive spending, which can be ameliorated only by permanent long term cuts. The governor has to wring $2 billion or mor...

The report card the state has received from The Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants is alarming. Connecticut ranks 50th in personal debt, 48th in debt measured a share of personal income, 49th in pension funding, and 49th in the amount of working capital it has in hand. Marcia Marien, president of the Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants , put it this way when she was invited to give a presentation at the state Capitol: “We’re not going broke. We’re broke right now.” Over the last five years, state revenues have increased 5 percent, while state spending has increased 28 percent. And although stimulus funds provided by the federal government have helped some states to get by, federal funds – tax money withdrawn from the private marketplace and distributed to states and favored industries in the form of grants or credits – are not likely to continue because, according to Ms. Marien, “The federal government doesn’t have the resources, either.” If the fe...

When the convention that gave birth to the U.S. Constitution had finished its work, the great charter of liberties was left on a table so that the founders of the Republic might, if they wished, sign their names to it. Ben Franklin had earlier warned his band of revolutionary brothers that if they did not hang together they would of a certainty “hang separately.” And he was not playing with metaphors. Had the agents of King George captured George Washington or any of those who had signed the Declaration of Independence, the father of our country most certainly would have been hanged, even as Nathan Hale, Connecticut’s Hero and one of Mr. Washington’s spies in New York, was hanged without benefit of trial. Mr. Hale, a school teacher, repented that he had but one life to give for his country. John Hancock’s large and audacious signature, a defy that resounds through the years like a great shout of joy, leaps out of the Declaration of Independence five years before Lord Cornwallis sur...