The future of Connecticut’s environment is in jeopardy. For years, Connecticut residents breathed easy knowing our state was leading the way toward a greener, more climate-resilient world. Carbon dioxide emissions were dropping across the state year after year, and Gov. Dannel Malloy had committed to continuing this trend through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Unfortunately, all the progress we made over the last decade has been compromised.
Legislature fiddles while Connecticut’s carbon dioxide levels rise
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 inPolitics
For first time, legislators override a Malloy veto
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy suffered his first veto overrides Monday, marking a turning point in the Democratic governor’s six-year partnership with the General Assembly’s Democratic majority. In an election-year distancing from a governor whose approval rating recently sank to 24 percent, the General Assembly overrode the vetoes of three bills and sustained five others.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Outgoing CT budget deficit swells, hints at more red ink to come
Eroding state income tax receipts identified Monday by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration not only widened the deficit in the outgoing fiscal year, but threatened to punch a hole in the new state budget 12 days before it begins.
Posted inJustice, Money
Towns want AG’s opinion on responsibility for unclaimed corpses
Connecticut’s cities and towns are seeking an opinion from Attorney General George Jepsen on whether communities now must take responsibility for disposition of unclaimed human remains.
Posted inJustice, Politics
U.S. Supreme Court declines to consider Sandy Hook gun ban
The U.S. Supreme Court declined without comment Monday to consider a challenge by Connecticut gun owners to gun controls the state passed in response to the shooting deaths of 26 children and staff at Sandy Hook elementary school by a gunman armed with an AR-15, 30-round magazines and high-powered ammo.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Malloy’s changes weaken new Connecticut retirement program
For private employees who don’t have workplace plans, Connecticut will now have a state-sponsored plan to save for retirement. Unfortunately, what could have been a useful program was severely weakened with changes required by Gov. Dannel Malloy in the face of fierce financial services industry lobbying. This is what happened:
Posted inMoney
CT faces legal roadblock to easing rising teacher pension costs
While state government continues to explore spreading its pension debt among future generations, Connecticut apparently won’t have that option when it comes to benefits owed its public school teachers.
Posted inJustice, Money
State troopers will guard courthouses in 4 cities starting Monday
After hiring state police Friday to temporarily enhance security outside of a Superior Court in Bridgeport, the Judicial Branch will assign troopers to guard courthouses in four cities starting Monday, a branch spokeswoman said.
Posted inJustice, Politics
Appeal denied, Rowland faces his second trip to prison
A federal appeals court Friday upheld Gov. John G. Rowland’s conviction and 30-month prison sentence for his role in a scheme to solicit two congressional campaigns in 2010 and 2012 to secretly pay him as a political consultant in violation of U.S. campaign finance laws.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Georgie Porgie and the Connecticut budget cuts
My son is a disabled person. He can’t speak. His name is George. He has things “done for him” – things most people do for themselves like putting toothpaste on a brush, pushing an arm through a winter jacket, getting the water temperature just right for a shower. He lives in a Connecticut-operated, Connecticut-staffed group home called, Brook Street Group Home in Hamden. He lives with his housemates, Anthony, Arthur, Charles and Paula. The workers know them well. They care for them and about them.
Posted inPolitics
Investigator says Malloy settlement keeps voters in the dark
Near the end of his FBI career, Charles Urso helped send Republican Gov. John G. Rowland to prison in 2005. He said Thursday his second career as an elections cop ended in frustration — getting stonewalled trying to find out if Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy violated campaign finance reforms inspired by the Rowland scandal.
Posted inPolitics
With talkathon, Murphy gambled – and won
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy gambled that he was up to the physical and intellectual rigors of an open-ended filibuster aimed at pressuring Senate GOP leaders to hold votes on gun safety issues – and he won. But there was always a risk of failure.
Posted inEducation
Barnes: Obstacles abound to closing state’s juvenile jail by 2018
Citing a minefield of obstacles to closing the state’s controversial jail for juvenile offenders, the governor’s budget and policy director said Thursday that previously announced plans to close the Connecticut Juvenile Training School by July 2018 may have to be pushed back significantly.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Malloy campaign law settlement was a mockery and a sham
The recently settled case between the State Elections Enforcement Commission, the Democratic State Central Committee and the Dan Malloy for Governor campaign needs further disclosure. The DSCC and Malloy campaign made a sham of the Citizen’s Election Program . The settlement was made without allowing the SEEC the ability to conduct a reasonable investigation.