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Posted inJustice, Politics

Senate rejects Murphy background-check provision and ‘terror gap’ bill

Updated at 9:28 p.m.
WASHINGTON — For the second time since the slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the U.S. Senate has rejected an effort to expand FBI background checks of gun purchasers. Lawmakers also killed an effort to bar those on the terrorist watch list from purchasing weapons, as well as two competing GOP proposals.

Posted inJustice, Politics

SEEC OKs record $325,000 settlement in Malloy campaign case

The Connecticut Democratic Party and the State Elections Enforcement Commission agreed Monday to settle a case that threatened to undermine campaign finance reforms inspired by the scandal that forced Gov. John G. Rowland from office in 2004. The party will pay a record $325,000 over 27 months to settle allegations of impropriety involving use of state contractor contributions in 2014 to support the re-election of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

Posted inJustice, Politics

Obama: ‘We will not give in to fear or turn against each other’

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy ordered flags lowered to half-staff Sunday as Connecticut joined President Obama and the nation in mourning the murders of 50 people in an Orlando, Fla., nightclub, an act of terror and the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Some Democrats quickly called for Congress to strengthen measures aimed at preventing gun violence.

Posted inJustice, Money, Politics

Malloy signs CT budget but trims town aid to offset prison costs

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy showed legislators Thursday there was a fiscal price to be paid for rejecting his anti-recidivism proposals. The governor signed the legislature’s $19.76 billion budget for 2016-17 into law, but only after using the rarely employed line-item veto to cancel more than $22 million earmarked for municipalities, health clinics and the Connecticut Humanities Council.

Posted inJustice

House Democrats say Malloy’s bail reform bill is dead for 2016

House Speaker J. Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden, declined Thursday to call Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s bail reform legislation for a vote, effectively killing of the measure for 2016. Sharkey told reporters after a House Democratic caucus that legislators support the governor’s goal of ensuring that no one is jailed only for an inability to afford bail, but they had too many questions about his approach.

Posted inJustice, Politics

Malloy bows to legislature, narrows ‘Second Chance’ to bail

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy publicly acknowledged Tuesday what has been increasingly clear: The only portion of his “Second Chance” criminal justice reforms with a chance of passage in special session this week is a provision eliminating bail for minor crimes. Legislators effectively set a deadline of Thursday for agreeing on the parameters of a bail measure.

Posted inJustice

High Court reaffirms the end of Connecticut’s death penalty

The state Supreme Court declined Thursday to reverse its 2015 decision eliminating the last vestige of capital punishment in Connecticut – the sentences facing 11 men on death row when the legislature repealed the death penalty for future crimes. The 5-2 ruling means an end to the death penalty, a punishment the General Assembly repealed for future crimes in 2012.