Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

On April 5 th , sixteen months after Connecticut’s predominantly Democratic General Assembly had passed into law the most restrictive gun legislation in the nation, opponents of the legislation rallied on the North side of the Capitol in Hartford. The event was well attended: Capitol police estimated the crowd at 3,000; those hosting the event, the Connecticut Citizens Defense League (CCDL), placed the figure at 5,000. None of those present at the rally had been called upon by the General Assembly to offer testimony on the final bill, which itself was billed as an adequate and necessary response to a mass slaying at the Newtown Sandy Hook Elementary School . The final bill was passed without a public hearing by a legislature operating in the absence of information contained in a much too delayed criminal investigation .

   One of the founders of the American Republic, James Madison, wrote in Federalist No. 57 that the U.S. Congress would not likely frame laws that would be injurious to the general public because the members of Congress also would be affected by the same laws. The Congress, he wrote, “can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society.” But the U.S. Congress, the Marie Antoinette of legislatures, has long since learned how to escape laws that members of Congress inflict upon others.

Having raised taxes during his first term by $1.5 billion , the largest tax increase in state history, Governor Dannel Malloy is now poised to sign a biennial budget the bottom line of which is either $36.6 billion or $44 billion, according to CTMirror . O ver two years,” CTMirror reports, “the new budget would spend $44 billion, based on the current method for reporting Medicaid spending,” a true figure of expenses now hidden behind an iron mask of gimmickry. Democrats in the General Assembly – Republicans by design were excluded in the construction of both Mr. Malloy’s budgets – this year engaged in the most costly gimmick in state history, moving upwards of $6 billion in Medicaid costs outside the state’s constitutional cap, a sleigh of hand that makes a fiction of both the cap and the constitutional voice of all the citizens in Connecticut, whatever their political affiliation.

In the Old West if a horse thief stole your mount, you either took matters into your own hands and shot him, or you petitioned the law and had him hanged, both swift and certain options. Connecticut’s 1 st District U.S. Representative John Larson did not have available to him either option when Governor Rick Perry of Texas sent out a tweet inviting Bristol gunmaker PTR Industries to remove to Texas: “Hey PTR … Texas is still wide open for business!! Come on down!” And so when the naked attempt to steal PTR, a maker of a long rifle banned by Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and the General Assembly, was brought to Mr. Larson’s attention, he did the best he could, offering a stinging rebuke in the Bristol Press : “a typical Rick Perry move, void of substance but high on politically charged verbiage.”

An editorial confession: I’ve been more or less begging Reid Holloway to write something for CTMajority for awhile, but not on my knees; these things are accomplished through subtleties. Mr. Holloway, always alarmingly astute, has written for this page before. Here, Mr. Holloway has a Damascus Road experience while reflecting on one of his favorite films and decides, peremptorily but justly, that Helen Keller IS America. Prepare yourself for an entertaining journey of the mind. Emblazoned on Robert Frost’s tombstone is the legend: “I had a lover's quarrel with the world.” So do we all. This is part of Reid’s lover’s quarrel. A stern word of warning: Those who are determined to denigrate the Tea Party movement should prayerfully pass by. Don Pesci By REID HOLLOWAY Sometimes when I turn in for the night, I’ll boot up the television to relax a bit before dozing off. Then, as happened one recent morning, it will still be on, as my large pet cat is pacing on my chest, app...

It is fascinating that the First Amendment is of enormous concern today as it was to our Founding Fathers. It was not originally in the Constitution, which nearly prevented the Constitution from being ratified. Madison opposed adding it to the Constitution but in the end had to give way. To secure ratification, he had to promise that once the Constitution was ratified, it would be added, and so it was. The Supreme Court on January 21 invalidated laws that made certain kinds of political speech by corporations a crime. Critics fear corporate corruption or a diminution of democracy or both. Thus: "What a terrible day for American democracy. . . . [A] deeply divided Supreme Court has essentially given corporations free rein to drown out the voices of the American people, rejecting the secret democratic principle of 'one person, one vote.'"—Senator Dodd "[W]e’re being told that an extremely vituperative expression of disdain for a candidate for president in Ame...

“What the three [Madison, Hamilton, Jay] did not know, could not know, was that the right to have the Constitution ratified would . . . rival any that would follow in the history of the country” -- Triumvirate, p. 38 The Articles of Confederation were a failure. They needed not to be improved but wholly rewritten. The Constitution was the best form of government ever offered to the world. But to get it ratified, nine of the 13 states were needed. Madison, Hamilton, and Jay started writing essays, all under the name of Publius, (with widespread support from the biased newspapers). How they got started, was not revealed in the mass of letters available to author Bruce Chadwick for his new book, “Triumverate” (Naperville, IL, Sourcebooks, 2009). Fears by Anti-Federalists and Federalists were intense. If the Constitution were not ratified, what would become of the states that voted against it? Anarchy? Like a ship without a rudder or pilot. The chief obstacle was the need for...