Against the backdrop of the brutal Cheshire home invasion case, the legislature’s Judiciary Committee Tuesday approved a bill that would abolish the death penalty–but only for future crimes. Opponents argued that the prospective nature of the bill–it would eliminate the death penalty only for murders committed after it takes effect–is a tacit acknowledgment that some […]

Policymakers working to reshape the way long-term care is delivered in the state have long criticized what they call an institutional bias: Anyone who qualifies can get Medicaid coverage to live in a nursing home, but getting Medicaid to pay for home care is complicated. To qualify, someone must fit into one of several specific […]

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will face his 17th and last town-hall meeting on the budget tonight in Middletown, listening to compliments and complaints. But paying attention to signs waved at him? Not so much. As union members were starting to suspect, it turns out that signs–especially the elaborate messages spelled out by audience members holding […]

WASHINGTON–Rep. John Larson has revved up his alliance with oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens and House Republicans in a push to make natural gas a more dominate fuel–replacing traditional gasoline–in America’s transportation sector. This week, Larson will join Pickens–an Oklahoma native who made his fortune in the oil and gas industry–to promote legislation that would […]

A $1 billion list of cuts in municipal aid circulated today by the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is not the governor’s contingency plan if his concession talks with state employees fail to yield $1 billion in labor savings, according to his senior adviser, Roy Occhiogrosso. Occhiogrosso released the list to illustrate what the […]

Lisa Wilson-Foley of Simsbury, a businesswoman who ran for lieutenant governor last year, today joined the crowded Republican field for Congress in the 5th District. “What do you do when the government has pushed you to a point where you simply say, ‘I’ve had enough?’ My answer is this – you fight. You fight to […]

The qualifications required to serve as state attorney general drew much attention during Susan Bysiewicz’s star-crossed bid for the office last year, but just one person testified Tueday about a proposal to relax the standard. And it wasn’t Bysiewicz, who saw the Connecticut Supreme Court rule her ineligible to become attorney general just days before […]

The federal health care reform law includes a $100 million program to reward Medicaid recipients for making healthy choices–but experts aren’t sure the incentives will work, Aimee Miles reports in Kaiser Health News. The program is intended to reduce Medicaid costs by rewarding patients for such things as quitting smoking, losing weight or keeping their […]

State legislators are drafting a bill to preserve millions of dollars in a fund that uses electric bill surcharges to subsidize energy-saving projects and create jobs. The fund, known as the Energy Efficiency Fund, was slated to lose 35 percent of its total every year for eight years–$28.7 million per year–starting in July to pay […]

As the legislature’s Judiciary Committee prepares to approve a bill repealing capital punishment in Connecticut, a bipartisan group of conservatives is readying a counter-measure aimed at curbing death-row appeals. The conservatives announced Monday at a press conference attended by law enforcement officers and relatives of homicide victims that their effort to speed up executions will […]

Throughout the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, Dannel P. Malloy repeatedly charged that his Republican opponent, Tom Foley, would slash aid to towns and shred the social safety net to balance the state’s budget. Unless state unions agree to massive savings in labor costs soon, Malloy may have little choice but to follow the course he decried. […]

A year-and-half after the president of Southern Connecticut State University was informed that she would be losing her job, officials of the system have decided to back off filling the chancellor’s position that may soon be eliminated and finally launch a search for the next SCSU president. That delay means the top position at the […]

It’s not a surprise. She already formed a candidate committee to begin raising money, but former state Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Cheshire, declared her candidacy for Congress today in the 5th District, becoming the first declared Democrat. “I have decided to officially jump into the race,” Esty said by email. “It’s important that Connecticut’s 5th Congressional […]