Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

UConn is raising its tuition. Is anyone surprised? The surprise, if any, might be checked at the door after reading the latest edition of Ted Mann’s magnum opus covering the first year of Connecticut’s first Democratic governor in twenty years. Both Governor Dannel Malloy and the crowd of Malloyalists surrounding him are highly ambitious. They believe previous governors have been treading water. The state now has a progressive reformist at the helm who wants to “reinvent – his word – the state of Connecticut. As is the case with most modern progressives, education is a political palliative – good for what ails you; when you run out of options, boost education. Reformation, naturally, is costly, but politically popular. In the hands of Mr. Malloy and the Democratic legislature, any reform of education is likely to advance the interests of teachers at the expense of taxpayers. Jonathan Pelto, himself an ardent liberal, reminds us that Mr. Malloy pointedly did not extend his “Share...

THERE WILL BE NO POSTINGS TO THIS BLOG IN NOVEMBER Q: Whither the Connecticut Republican Party? A: It’s good question. I put up a blog recently that was a review of a Chris Shays interview with Dennis House on “Face the State.” Mr. House asked Mr. Shays whether he thought Connecticut had drifted so far to the left as to make it impossible for Republicans to win a seat in the U.S. Congress. Mr. Shays is running as a Republican for Senator Joe Lieberman’s seat. Mr. Shays said “Absolutely,” he thought the state had moved very far to the left. The blog produced a response from Jon Kantrowitz, a liberal commentator who is himself an articulate unabashed progressive. “By the way,” Mr. Kantrowitz wrote, “it's true - the state has gone too far to the left to elect a Republican - and thank goodness for that!” There are some few Republicans about who are not as thankful as Mr. Kantrowitz, though it is difficult to disagree with the major premise of his proposition -- namely that ...

The University of Connecticut Health Center (UCHC) has for many years been Connecticut’s problem prodigal child. The Democratic dominated General Assembly approved Governor Dannel Malloy’s then unbalanced budget the first week of May. And although it took two and a half months to finalize a budget that some still consider out of balance, the Malloy administration was never-the-less able to find nearly $1 billion to invest in a UCHC building program , not the first time the state has thrown money into the black hole in Farmington . This year’s tax and spending budget allowed the administration to reap an artificial surplus of about $1 billion. Call it a make work for unions slush fund or a political hedge fund, the extra billion may be used much in the way that Tammany Hall of blessed memory used “walking around money” to purchase affection and votes. Agents of the Malloy administration dickered for months with SEBAC, a coalition of unions authorized to negotiate contracts with the...

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 ...