WASHINGTON-Many of Connecticut’s Republican congressional candidates will have relatively thin pocketbooks heading into the Aug. 10 primary, according to the latest campaign finance reports. And even as Democrats nationally are wringing their hands over a toxic election climate and struggling to keep up with their GOP counterparts, Connecticut’s Democratic incumbents don’t seem to be feeling […]

WASHINGTON-Republican Linda McMahon put another $7.5 million of her personal fortune into her U.S. Senate campaign over the last three months, helping to ensure the Connecticut contest will be among the most expensive in the nation. McMahon’s loans to her campaign in the 2nd quarter of this year brings her total investment in the race […]

WASHINGTON-Two of Connecticut’s corporate giants-Pratt & Whitney and General Electric Co.-have long been at loggerheads over a multi-million dollar spending item in the federal budget: $485 million to fund an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Pratt makes the JSF’s lead engine, while GE and Rolls Royce are jointly developing an alternative. For […]

WASHINGTON–Congress faces a pile-up of contentious issues as lawmakers return from a week-long 4th of July recess today. And Connecticut lawmakers are set to play leading roles in high-stakes votes over everything from Wall Street reform and climate change to emergency health care funding for states and assistance to the unemployed. The state’s delegation also […]

WASHINGTON — Congress has created a conundrum for Connecticut educators. Should they lobby for money to minimize teacher layoffs if it means diminishing another badly needed education program? For now, public officials and school advocates are refusing to choose, instead urging Congress to preserve both priorities, even as they acknowledge that is a tough sell. […]

Rosita Velez seems like just the sort of person federal lawmakers had in mind when they included a provision in the sweeping health reform law creating new high-risk insurance pools for people who are uninsured and have serious health problems. Velez has not seen a doctor since losing her health benefits after being laid off […]

In a late night House vote, Connecticut Democrats supported an unsuccessful effort to put new demands on the Obama Administration as it executes its Afghanistan war strategy. The House passed an approximately $80 billion war and domestic spending bill without those strings attached, but the final tally on several anti-war amendments demonstrated the increasing unease […]

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., has expressed serious concern about Connecticut’s decision to delay a decision on implementing a new high risk insurance pool for people with serious health problems. In a sharply worded letter to Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Dodd asked a series of questions about her decision to defer signing a contract with the […]

In a last-minute turnabout, Gov. M. Jodi Rell is considering jettisoning Connecticut’s plan to set up its own new health insurance program for people with serious health problems and instead letting the federal government run the program. On the day the program was supposed to begin taking applications, Rell instead told top state officials to […]

WASHINGTON–A spending stalemate in Congress could create a multi-million dollar budget gap in Connecticut. And it could have a devastating impact on state residents, who have already started to feel the toll of the financial tussle in Washington. At issue are several spending bills now stalled in Congress, including emergency Medicaid funds to preserve that […]

WASHINGTON–The federal government announced Wednesday that Connecticut and more than two dozen other states will get millions of dollars over the next three years to create a new health insurance program for people who have been shut out of the insurance market because of serious health problems. But Connecticut isn’t ready to start accepting applications […]

WASHINGTON–Connecticut lawmakers say that Gen. David Petraeus, tapped by President Barack Obama last week to be the new Afghanistan war commander, is the best possible choice to execute the Administration’s strategy in the nine-year-old war. But whether that strategy is a good one, they are not so sure. Petraeus was on Capitol Hill Tuesday for […]

WASHINGTON–Just about a year ago, Sen. Christopher Dodd was at a political and personal nadir. His poll numbers had tanked, the Senate ethics committee was examining allegations that he’d gotten a special mortgage deal, and two of the people he was closest to, his sister Martha and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., were dying of cancer. […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Jim Himes is not at the center of the delicate negotiations over a sweeping financial reform bill. But the 4th District Democrat is getting heat over the measure nonetheless, from consumer advocates in Washington and Connecticut who say that Himes and other centrist Democrats are pushing from the sidelines to weaken […]