Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

On the Republican side, Tom Foley is refusing to debate other Republicans running for governor. Mr. Foley has a sizable edge over his Republican competitors in recent polls. On the Democratic side, Governor Dannel Malloy only recently announced he was running for re-election. Previous to his announcement, Mr. Malloy, like President Barack Obama a perpetual campaigner, had been using his bully pulpit to gain an advantage over his Republican opponents; among political cognoscenti, this is known as “running for re-election.” Campaign “white lies” have become much dirtier over the years -- c.f. Governor Lowell Weicker: Instituting an income tax would be like “pouring gas on a fire.” Asked why he should not give up the pretense and just announce he was running for re-election, Mr. Malloy showed his campaign hand. He said he wanted to give the Republicans sufficient time to beat up on each other. That is what a primary contest is: a friendly wrestling match among political compatr...

Plan A failed because neither the Malloy administration nor SEBAC negotiators were able to sell their product to the union rank and file. Lord knows they tried. But in the end, it was the health package that sunk the final vote. Almost half of the union rank and file voted against Plan A, considered by union negotiators, Malloy administration budget salesmen and a large chunk of Connecticut’s commentariat to be a plan irresistible to rational heads in much of the state. Moises Padilla, vice president of AFSCME Local 387 at the Cheshire correctional complex, thought early on that Plan A was doomed and made attempts to contact shakers and movers within the Malloy administration to warn them of the impending crack-up, but his calls were not returned by Roy Occhiogrosso, Mr. Malloy’s major-domo. Following the rank and file vote, which soundly rejected Plan A, union negotiators regrouped and decided the vote would not be formalized for thirty days, later pushing the thirty days out to...

Superior Court judge James Graham today dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Roger Sherman Liberty Center that challenged the state budget on Constitutional grounds. The state Constitution requires a balanced budget. The center argued since expenditures exceeded revenue outlays when the budget was adopted by the general assembly, Governor Malloy’s Plan A budget was not in balance and therefore unconstitutional. It was the kind of judicial decision that attempts to square a circle. Only in a court of law is such an exercise not doomed to fail. There is no one in the state of Connecticut who can with any degree of certitude assert that the state budget is in balance – no one. When Associate Attorney General Perry Zinn-Rowthorn insisted during oral argument that the budget was in balance at its passage, he was simply doing his job. The budget is not in balance now; it was not in balance when the liberty center brought a suit calling upon the court to declare that the budget was not in...