The Connecticut House voted at sunrise Sunday to adopt a $37.6 billion, two-year budget that preserves municipal aid and meets a rising demand for social services, while relying on one-time revenues and the exemption of an unprecedented $6 billion from the spending cap. The Democrat-controlled House began debate minutes after midnight and passed the budget 95-48 […]
House adopts $37.6 billion budget for next biennium — or is it $44 billion?
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
Pols react as a grass-roots movement comes of age to force GMO labeling
With a deal that revives a bill requiring the labeling of genetically engineered foods, Connecticut’s legislative leaders Saturday acknowledged a movement that has muscled its way from the scientific fringe to political mainstream. Senate and House leaders announced a bipartisan compromise that is expected to make Connecticut the first state to require labeling of foods […]
Posted inNews
Let us answer your Obamacare questions
Our health care reporter Arielle Levin Becker will entertain your questions about how Obamacare will affect you and your family. You may email them to her at alevinbecker@ctmirror.org.
Posted inNews
House tightens disclosure, loosens spending rules for campaigns
The Connecticut House voted 71-59 early Saturday to revise sweeping campaign finance reforms adopted in 2005 after scandal toppled a governor, with Democrats and Republicans arguing whether the changes represented progress or backsliding. The legislation is a double-barreled reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United ruling that permits unlimited independent expenditures: It requires greater […]
Posted inNews
House drops energy auction from budget
The Connecticut General Assembly staggered into the final weekend of the 2013 session Saturday, trying to close an elusive budget deal among majority Democrats, who forced the Malloy administration to give up on a plan to raise $80 million through an energy auction. Sources in the House and Senate Democratic caucuses said the tentative budget […]
Posted inMoney, Politics
Group of city legislators to throw support behind expanding gambling
It is widely accepted that the casinos that will soon begin popping up in Massachusetts will cause a major cut in revenue the state receives from its casinos — and now a group of legislators from Bridgeport, New Haven and Windsor Locks are planning to announce Monday they support expanding gambling in their municipalities.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Will energy efficiency investment fall victim to Canadian hydropower?
Energy policymaking in Connecticut has lately been consumed by the struggle over large-scale hydropower, and that is unfortunate, because the energy policy we actually need in Connecticut has little to do with remote Canadian dams and a lot to do with a low-cost, consumer-friendly energy resource much closer to home – energy efficiency.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
Will energy efficiency investment fall victim to Canadian hydropower?
Energy policymaking in Connecticut has lately been consumed by the struggle over large-scale hydropower, and that is unfortunate, because the energy policy we actually need in Connecticut has little to do with remote Canadian dams and a lot to do with a low-cost, consumer-friendly energy resource much closer to home – energy efficiency.
Posted inNews
Legislators push transparency at state Education Department
To craft and implement controversial education reforms, the state Education Department has routinely turned to an organization not bound by public disclosure or competitive bidding requirements to do its work — an approach state legislators are poised to change. “There were some very alarming issues,” said Sen. Andrea Stillman, the co-chairman of the Education Committee. […]
Posted inNews
Mexicans: State’s fastest-growing Latino group
This story is posted on the website of Mirror partner CtLatinoNews.com Jesse Suarez was 16 years old when when he left Mexico to work in California’s vegetable fields. Soon after moving to the United States, he was approached by a man from Argentina who offered him a job in Connecticut. Little did he know that the […]
Posted inNews
Blame game begins in Metro-North crash
Washington –- The National Transportation Safety Board is months away from a final determination on what caused the Metro-North crash earlier this month that injured dozens of commuters, some of them severely. The NTSB is focusing on a section of the track at the derailment site that had been held together by joint bars — […]
Posted inNews
The semantics of Malloy’s no-tax pledge
When Gov. Dannel P. Malloy obtained $1.5 billion in tax hikes two years ago, his administration insisted it was unfair to include $350 million in new hospital taxes in that total. The state was reimbursing hospitals for every dollar they paid out. As long as that happened, the argument went, it was a tax in […]
Posted inNews
Newtown families to legislators: Stop release of crime-scene photos
The families of those massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School are calling on legislators to amend state law so that photos and audio of the 9-1-1 phone calls from the December incident are not released to the public. “They are offensive and an invasion of my son’s right to dignity,” said Dean Pinto, whose 6-year-old […]
Posted inNews
Responding to Newtown, House passes children’s mental health bill
The House on Friday unanimously passed a proposal aimed at better coordinating mental health services for young people, a measure described as a response to the massacre at Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School. Supporters of the bill, which previously passed the Senate unanimously and now heads to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s desk, said it complements […]
Posted inHealth
Aetna files rate proposals for Obamacare exchange plans
There’s a national debate going on about just how costly health insurance will be once federal health reform rolls out next year. And this week, Connecticut got another clue.