Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Courts have often recognized that the first amendment rights of students in public schools are "are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings" -- Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser . Indeed, first amendment rights are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in a home environment; just try calling your Mom a “douchbag” and applying to a court afterwards on the grounds that your Mom, in punishing you, had violated your first amendment rights. One of the reasons schools may on occasion and with good reason abridge the first amendment rights of children is because, in the absence of parents, school official act in locus parenti , on behalf of parents. The locus is important in deciding just how far a school may go in trimming constitutional rights. The authority of a school to abridge a fundamental right in law is related to the place at which the offense occurs, because the authority of school administrators lapses when their ch...

In cities like Hartford, the hood has replaced fatherhood and some people, notably state Sen. Gary LeBeau of East Hartford and Chris Powell, the Managing Editor of the Journal Inquirer, have taken notice that the lack of fathers in families is the primary cause of urban pathologies. In an eye-opening column, Swiftian in spirit, “ A city boy's chances may be better in prison ,” Mr. Powell quotes former New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan on the subject of disordered fatherless cultures: “"From the wild Irish slums of the 19th-century Eastern seaboard to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: A community that allows a large number of men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future -- that community asks for and gets chaos. Crime, violence, unrest, disorder -- most particularly the furious, unres...

In a letter addressed to legislative leaders, Gov. Jodi Rell, finding herself in a non-combative, compromising mood, asked that a bipartisan committee of 12 lawmakers be convened to reach consensus on campaign finance reform. The question arises: What is the likelihood that such a committee will report out a plan that will both satisfy all the parties concerned and reform a process that has led to the imprisonment of a couple of mayors and a governor? There are two kinds of campaign reform. There is a reform that will change the nature of campaigns, now weighted heavily in favor of incumbents; and there is a reform that will leave the disposition of power and forces much as it was when former Governor Rowland – and who knows how many other high government officials – fended off all serious political challenges while collecting favors from people his office was in a position to benefit. The true test of successful campaign reform should be reflected in the turnover of incumbents. Any ca...