Legislative hearings will be held to probe conditions and practices at the state’s jails for juvenile offenders after reports that they placed youths “at risk of physical and emotional harm.”
Brendan Sharkey
Posted inCT Viewpoints
CT special session should strengthen,
CT special session should strengthen,
not weaken, progressive budget
General Electric and other major corporations have demanded these changes while threatening to leave our state. But the General Assembly shouldn’t do GE’s bidding. They should build on this year’s progress instead. To help everyone, including GE (despite what they say), the General Assembly should continue with property tax reform.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Of politics, doing the right thing, and Connecticut jellyfish
This week’s debate over Gov. Dannel Malloy’s plan to reform an outdated drug law with clear racial implications shines a spotlight on discouraging dysfunction within the Connecticut General Assembly. What is surprising, and a bit embarrassing, is the ease with which our legislators apparently can be intimidated from doing the right thing — and their willingness to admit it.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy outlines transit goals, puts off cost for another day
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy opened his second term Wednesday with a warning of a sclerotic Connecticut whose economy and quality of life are threatened by crumbling and clogged highways and inadequate and underfunded mass transit. The solution will be expensive, but how expensive was a topic for another day.
Posted inEvents
Video: Workplace Retirement: Mirror/AARP Google Hangout
Along with sponsor AARP, The Connecticut Mirror will host its third Google Hangout on Thursday morning with Comptroller Kevin P. Lembo to discuss workplace retirement and savings options. Joining host and Mirror Budget Reporter Keith Phaneuf will be Lembo and AARP National Senior Legislative Representative Sarah Mysiewicz Gill from Washington D.C. Topics covered will include private workplace retirement options available to employees, payroll deduction savings plan and unfunded liabilities.
Posted inPolitics
CT voters to decide whether to scrap 19th Century voting restrictions
It began as an effort to allow Civil War soldiers who were far from home to cast ballots in state and local elections, but that provision in Connecticut’s constitution has also kept voters from enjoying the rights shared by voters in 34 other states to cast an early ballot. Connecticut voters will now decide whether to allow the state legislature to amend the state’s restrictions on absentee or early voting.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Keno’s repeal is no longer a sure bet in Connecticut
Keno, the unwanted child of Connecticut politics, vilified by gambling opponents and publicly defended by no major political figure, improbably remains alive as the General Assembly begins the last two weeks of the 2014 session.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Op-ed: Connecticut’s taxing dilemma
When a state relies excessively on local property taxes to fund governmental services, as does Connecticut, it’s reasonable to begin working to fix what House Speaker Brendan Sharkey has termed a “broken” tax system.
Posted inPolitics
General Assembly staff exempt from disclosure rules
It was an obvious question after George Gallo abruptly resigned last week as the House Republicans’ chief of staff amid FBI inquiries into his political consulting business: Was he the only legislative aide in Hartford with a side business involving politics?
Posted inMoney, Politics
CT legislative leaders want to repeal Keno
The majority leaders of the Connecticut General Assembly Wednesday said they support repealing Keno, a bingo-style gambling game that lawmakers approved last year when facing a deficit to generate new revenue.
Posted inMoney, Politics
CT Democrats vow to grow more jobs in 2014
With Connecticut’s unemployment rate continuing to lag the nation’s, majority Democrats tried to assure voters Tuesday that job development is their top priority. Leaders from the House and Senate unveiled a jobs and business agenda that includes additional financing for job subsidies, new school-to-job programs, expansion of state ports and business opportunities near college campuses and new protections for businesses facing baseless patent lawsuits.