Connecticut
Post posts about what is happening in the State of Connecticut.
Connecticut Political Datebook – May 28, 2009
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 13:47As the Connecticut General Assembly enters the last few days of its regular session, there are a lot of important issues being addressed.
At 3 PM in Room 1C of the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, there will be a news conference of people urging Gov. Rell to sign the repeal of the Death Penalty in Connecticut. I hope to make it up to Hartford in time for this. Then, from 4 until 6 PM, the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education will hold a workshop on organizing school’s curriculum committees. The workshop is fully subscribed so I won’t be able to attend, but I am hoping to get more information about the workshop to share.
In the evening, there will be a symposium on student speech. It will feature Mary Beth Tinker who was sent home back in 1965 for wearing a black arm band to school. Her case went on to the Supreme Court and Tinker v. Des Moines ends up being a key case for all student free speech cases. Patrice McCarthy of CABE will present their view of this from a school policy perspective. I will be interested in seeing how this relates to the workshop on curriculum. In my mind, part of any curriculum should be teaching critical thinking and effective writing, which may include criticism of the school or the government.
It is also of interest to see how this relates to the Doninger v. Niehoff case. On the larger picture Judge Sotomayor, who has been nominated for the Supreme Court ruled against Doninger in the Second Circuit. Will this become part of the discussion?
Meanwhile, there is plenty of positioning going on. Kim is busy trying to make sure that Election Day Registration passes the Senate, and is trying to head off possible amendments to defund the Citizen Elections Program. In terms of Public Access, HB 6604 is on the Go List to be debated in the House. Rep. Williams of Woodbury and Watertown has introduced a few amendments designed to kill public access television in Connecticut. LCO 8428 would prohibit nonprofit PEGs from taking in-kind donations and business sponsorships. LCO8430 would require a full audit of nonprofit PEGS even though such audits can be expensive for smaller PEGs and are not always justifiable. Most significantly, Rep. Williams has introduced LCO8473 which would make PEG fees optional for subscribers, most likely effectively killing public access television in Connecticut. I do not know what it would do to CT-N, but I hope to watch more of the hearings on CT-N.
Both sides are gearing up for a battle about paid sick days. Jon Green has sent out an email urging people to come to the capitol to support paid sick days. Rep. Klarides sent out a bizarre email claiming it hurts businesses to require them to make sure their employees are healthy. She started off the email complaining that the House has debated the death penalty and healthcare, as well as frog dissection, paint ball safety and water lettuce. She fails to mention that it is Republican Peevishness that has really slowed down progress on many bills. She also manages to work in some very twisted logic about dolphins getting citizenship in San Francisco, but I, and she, seem to be digressing.
Other bills getting attention include SB 1014 which would require that the state education department open its stores of data to nonprofits and universities to analyze. As a data junkie, I’m glad to see this pass. ConnCan is also tracking SB 939 which would make it easier to get better teachers in Connecticut.
There are plenty of other bills including one to protect horse trails near where I like to go Horse Campign. There is plenty more coming and I’ll add it when I get back from travels.
Randy Steidl and Jodi Rell
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 07:54Five years ago today, Randy Steidl walked out of the Danville Correction Center in Illinois after having spent over seventeen years in prison after having been wrongfully convicted in the 1986 murder of Dyke and Karen Rhoads.
It was a gruesome murder, two people brutally stabbed and the house set on fire in a peaceful community where these sort of outrages are unexpected. Mr. Steidl, together with Herb Whitlock where convicted of the murders on questionable testimony.
As I read about the case, I cannot help but consider the parallels and differences between this case and the Cheshire Home Invasion.
Both cases are likely to be on the minds of many this afternoon as Mr. Steidl, together with Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions, join representatives of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Trial Lawyers for a news conference at 3 PM in Room 1C of the Legislative Office Building in Hartford to call on Governor Rell to sign Raised Bill 6578 which would abolish the death penalty in Connecticut.
(Cross posted at MyLeftNutMeg.)
Enough about the Death Penalty
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 05/26/2009 - 11:06At one of the Memorial Day picnics I went to this weekend, a friend told me that Gov. Rell asked the Senate to suspend the normal rules and send the death penalty bill to her desk so she could veto it right away. I understand the feeling, many of us probably would have had much more pleasant Memorial Day Weekends, if we didn’t have to spend time thinking about those who have died and about if others should be killed. After all, Memorial Day is supposed to be a fun filled weekend kicking off the beginning of summer and not a time for thinking about difficult issues, right?
Instead, I went from one picnic to the next where a common topic was the death penalty. Perhaps it is the circles I move in, but no one at any of the picnic I attended supports the death penalty. I brought up some of the concerns that I had heard during the Senate debate about the death penalty, and the arguments that had been presented in favor of the death penalty were not considered persuasive. The closest that anyone came to supporting the arguments were to refer to former Gov. Cuomo of New York who was reputed to have said something to the effect that if a loved one of his was brutally murdered, he might also be inclined to sin, to do the wrong thing, and seek vengeance.
I spoke with a trial attorney at one party who talked about the two death penalty cases currently being considered in Connecticut. It seems as if everyone is well acquainted with the Cheshire home invasion case. It plays well to all of our fears. Dr. Petit and his family lived in a safe neighborhood where things like this aren’t supposed to happen.
Dr. Petit in his impassioned arguments for the death penalty referred those who commit heinous murder as animals. It is much easier to seek the death of a mere animal than a fellow human being that has transgressed what Dr. Petit calls the most sacrosanct law. If I, or the former Gov. Cuomo were in such a situation as Dr. Petit, we might write something similar.
Yet let’s look, for a moment at the other death penalty case currently being considered in Connecticut. On the morning of Sept. 7, 2006, Richard Roszkowski murdered 39-year-old Holly Flannery, 38-year-old Thomas Gaudet and 9-year-old Kylie Flannery. According to testimony, Mr. Roszkowski believed that he had cancer. He told a friend that “he wasn’t going out that way, but was going to shoot everyone he had grudges against and have the cops shoot him dead.” Ms. Flannery his first target. The night before the murders Mr. Roszkowski did “a lot” of cocaine and heroin.
Our culture is full of songs about murders of passion, and as I write this, a recording of one of many lover’s murder ballads comes on the radio. It seems as if we are more tolerant of murder when it takes place somewhere else, when it is tied up in poverty, drugs, and passion.
But what about Kylie Flannery, the fourth grader from Thomas Hooker School who saw her mother murdered, who tried to flee, was shot in the leg, and then later as she lay on the ground, shot in the head? Surely this will stir the emotions and convince a jury to give the death penalty.
According to the Connecticut Post, Public Defender Joseph Bruckmann announced that he planned “to present two mental health experts, one of them a nationally known opponent of the death penalty”. Senior Assistant State’s Attorney C. Robert Satti Jr. asked for the penalty portion of the trial to be postponed so that he would have “more time to confer with experts of his own so that he will be able to cross-examine the defense witnesses”. Perhaps, Richard Roszkowski will become the next Michael Ross, seeking his own death as an escape from death row.
I’ve spent this morning reading about the murder, the trial and those who mourn the death of Kylie Flannery. Friends are encouraging me to go to the trial and blog about it. The trial is currently schedule to start on Monday when I’ll be in Washington.
I don’t really want to go listen to the testimony. It seems like it would be too painful. No, it would be much easier to simply let the trial go on with minimal press coverage, just like it would have been easier if Gov. Rell had gotten a chance to veto the Death Penalty Bill on Friday and spared all of us, the introspection that these topics bring up. It would have been much easier if we could simply have gone and enjoyed watching the latest Terminator movie.
But sometimes, we are called to take the difficult course. Sometimes we have to think about grief, anger, vengeance and what we aspire to be as human beings. Sometimes we must admit that we too are sinners and are drawn at times to take vengeance into our own hands.
No, I did not escape struggling with my own conscience about the death penalty. With the upcoming trials, I may not be able to. I pray that Gov. Rell does not find an easy escape from her own conscience either.
Another Powerline Fire
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 05/24/2009 - 19:51
Back in January during an ice storm, a branch came down on the power lines near our house and we had a Powerline fire. We ended up being without power for about eight hours and had some concerns about the responsiveness of the emergency services here in Woodbridge.
This afternoon, we had more heavy storms. In this case, there were tornado warnings that never amounted to much other than some heavy rain. After the rain died down, I did my regular Sunday evening Internet Radio Show with my daughter. Towards the end of the show, I heard a loud explosion and saw a bright flash outside my office window. It was very similar to the explosion I heard back in January, but we did not lose power.
So, after the show ended, I walked down the driveway and onto the service road to check out the power line poles. Sure enough, the second pole in on the service road had a small little fire on top of the pole. Given how small the fire was and how wet everything around was, I expected that the fire would go out fairly quickly, but I felt it was better to be safe than sorry, so I ran back up to the house and called 911.
Perhaps they remembered the event of January as well as I did, so they asked for extensive details and were at the house very quickly. Yet even by then, the fire had in fact gone out. A police officer and a couple firemen looked at the pole and determined all was okay. The officer told me he would call United Illuminating to report the problem.
The service road is heavily wooded and often overlooked. It was good that the police and firemen looked checked out the service road and that they will follow up with UI. It seems as if the power lines are not properly maintained around here and these problems are likely to recur. At least it is good to know that the local police and fire departments are better aware of the problem and its location now.
The Party of No has become the Party of Peevishness
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 05/23/2009 - 10:31The question of when and if the government should engage in state sponsored killing is one of the great issues that has been debated throughout the ages. So, I was looking forward to a thoughtful and well-reasoned debate on the issue when the Connecticut State Senate took up a bill to repeal the death penalty in Connecticut.
One of the first senators to speak was Senator John Kissel, a Republican from Enfield. He rambled on and on making numerous inane and incoherent arguments against repealing the death penalty. He described five criteria that must be considered before the death penalty can be imposed. It cannot be imposed on children under eighteen, or the mentally incompetent. Based on his inability to put together a rational argument, some suggested that perhaps his willingness to allow the death penalty to continue in Connecticut is that his own lack of mental competence would excuse him should he ever be convicted of a capital offense.
Later, Sen. Toni Boucher, a Republican from Wilton took to the floor. She asked Sen. Andrew McDonald, co-chair of the Judiciary Committee numerous details about the current laws concerning the death penalty in Connecticut were. People online wondered why she had not done her homework and was asking so many rudimentary questions. The comments became more pointed when she asked Sen. McDonald to recite the five criteria that must be considered before the death penalty can be imposed.
Since Sen. Kissel had just testified what they were, it seemed clear that Sen. Boucher was not paying any attention, although many online quipped about how that was somewhat excusable given Sen. Kissel’s long winded incoherence.
As the debate proceeded I spoke from time to time with my wife who was over at the House listening to a long, protracted, and apparently even more inane debate about fishing licenses. It seemed as if the Republicans had abandoned all capability of rational thought.
It wasn’t until the next day that I found a more reasonable explanation. The Party of No has become the Party of Peevishness.
Ken Dixon of the Connecticut Post wrote an article, House Republicans stall to make a point. It seems as if the point is that no one takes the thirty-seven Republicans in the House seriously. If the Republicans look at their own strategy, they can see why fewer and fewer people take them seriously.
Over on MyLeftNutmeg, ctblogger goes into details about the Temper tantrum "GOP style": The Senator McKinney edition. It becomes clear that Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams understands how to deal with peevish children. He let the stalling tactics of the Republicans continue for eleven hours, and when they were willing to play nicely, he let them have some of the toys that had started their tantrum.
Gov. Rell is not doing much better herself. Her statement that she would veto the repeal of the death penalty bill was nothing except an admission that she is unwilling to listen to the concerns of her constituents, and people that have called her office have been told essentially that.
The Republican Party does not have to be the Party of Peevishness. It has the opportunity to bring meaningful debate to our state and our country. It is unfortunate that they are not choosing this option and are instead choosing to become more and more irrelevant. It is time for members of the Republican Party to stand up and seek some real leadership in their party.
In March, I chaperoned my daughter’s class up to the capitol. Rep. Themis Klarides, the Republican Representative from our district did a very good job of talking with the children about how bills become law. She didn’t mention the obstructionism that peevish leadership can sometimes wreck upon the process. However, since she did such a good job with the children from our district, it would seem that she might be able to do a good job with the children in the leadership of her party.
It is sad that the Republicans wasted an opportunity for intelligent discourse on the important issues of the day. Hopefully, they will snap out of it before they become even more irrelevant.
