"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" – Lord Acton
The word “emergency” is wrapped in laugh quotes in the
Hartford Courant story “Senate clashes, passes ‘emergency’ bill. Both major
political parties, we now know, have discovered the political usefulness of
politically created “emergencies” during and after the COVID pandemic.
The Hartford Courant top of the fold story -- “Connecticut Senate clashes over emergency
session over warehouse workers, nonprofits, taxes, bottle returns” --
is deliciously sardonic. We are told, “In an all-day marathon, the [Democrat
dominated] Senate also voted 26-10 on mostly party lines for an omnibus,
121-page bill on a series of issues that were unrelated to each other.
Ordinarily an “omnibus” emergency certification bill would
be regarded as an oxymoron because emergency certification, which usually
bypasses legislative oversight and public commentary, commonly targets one
rather than multiple items.
The omnibus bill represents the dominant Connecticut Democrat
Party’s second bite of the apple on measures that earlier failed to pass in the
state legislature, and it avoids affirmation by a recorded vote in the General
Assembly. The chief problem with all emergency legislation is that it treats
the separation of powers doctrine as if it were an easily dismissed
inconvenience, rather than a guarantor of constitutional liberty. We are
willing to tolerate a temporary suspension of constitutional process in cases
of true, verified emergencies, when the emergency is singular – but an omnibus
emergency certification ought to be regarded by all members of the General
Assembly, Republican and Democrat, as a profanation of constitutional
governance.
“Republicans,” the Courant tells us, “said that Democrats
who control both chambers of the legislature were abusing their powers to rush
through bills that would normally not be debated until the end of the
legislative session. Democrats countered that the issues included some priority
measures that had been derailed last year when Republicans staged filibusters
as time ran out at the end of the session – thus killing the legislation.”
Senate Republican leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield put
the matter in sharp focus when he said, “Today is a sad day in the legislature.
None of these issues … has anything to do with an emergency … They [Democrat
legislators] are usurping the entire legislative process… I don’t believe this
is an emergency. I think it comes down to what the definition of an emergency
truly is. We should take that seriously … Just because you have the majority,
and a large majority, doesn’t mean that people should be taken out of the
process … Regardless of who is in power, we should have more respect for the
institution.”
Far left progressive Connecticut Senate President Pro
Tempore Martin Looney disagreed
on cue. “We will not apologize,” he said, “for passing legislation that has had
a public hearing and has the support of a majority of the General Assembly.”
Looney in the past has often presented himself as a guardian angel of democrat
protocol, here rudely abandoned. In the future, why not dredge up other
questionable bills that had not passed rigorous democratic protocol, cobble
them together under a fake legislative “emergency” bill and pass the bill
because Democrats in the General Assembly and Connecticut’s administrative
state have more than sufficient members to do so?
What is the point in having absolute power if you are not
prepared to abuse it?
One measure in the Democrat’s ominous emergency measure bill
may prove slightly embarrassing. The reform legislation affecting deposits on
returned bottles or cans, according to the Courant, “says a person must show identification [emphasis mine]
if they redeem 1,000 bottles or cans, rather than the current limit of 2,500
containers.” The present law, it appears, is being abused by those living
outside the state. “The fines for violating the law will jump to a maximum of
$750 for a first offense, up from the current $100 and up to $2,000 or more for
a third offense, up from the current maximum of $500. Those who violate the
bottle bill three times can be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor.” Many
Connecticut Democrat politicians are prepared to vote against a federal measure
that would require an ID to be presented by those who vote in elections so as
to insure, for instance, that a Guatemala citizen inhabiting
Looney’s district should not vote for him.
When Harding “sought a point of order to say that the
[omnibus] bill did not constitute an emergency… Lt.
Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, who presides over the Senate, said that the tenets of the
rules and the statutes had been met. As a result, the debate continued” and the
omnibus bill proceeded on its merry way, according to the Courant, one among
many of Connecticut’s fearless media outposts that prides itself as a defender
of our constitutional order.
Since Connecticut’s emergency powers allows a chief
executive or a highly partisan Democrat legislative majority to approve an
oxymoronic “omnibus emergency
measure,” shouldn’t an aroused media insist that the anti-democratic so called
“emergency measures” of both be tailored legislatively to conform to
constitutional determinants?
Perhaps Looney, Bysiewicz, state Senators Dick Blumenthal
and Chris Murphy should be asked the question the next time they begin
hypocritically to fulminate, correctly in some instances, against President
Donald Trump’s possible abuse of his emergency powers. Trump, by the way, has
yet to execute an omnibus emergency
power measure.
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