Opinion: Legislature Disregards Logic

While the state grappled with a multibillion dollar budget crisis, some state legislators, including Sen. Beth Bye of West Harford, Reps. Holder-Winfield of New Haven and Geoff Luxenberg of Manchester worked on a bill to extend the current protections for housing, workplace, and other facets of life to people who are confused on whether they are male or female. Perhaps, well meaning, but legislators are not considering the confusion this legislation will cause to the public.

Trans-gendered people suffer from Sexual Identity Disorder, a problem recognized by

Tuesday’s Special Elections Could Impact Governor Malloy’s Tax Hike Proposal

Special Elections will be held in the shaded areas. State House races are in yellow, Senate in green

Shortly after taking office, Gov. Malloy needed additional staff to run his administration. Being the first elected Democrat to the office in 20 years, he looked to those with experience within his own party. This prompted a tidal wave of resignations of 8 of the most prominent legislators from the state house and senate. A 9th legislator – Sen. Tom Gaffey of Meriden – resigned for unrelated reasons stemming from larceny charges where he double billed the state for expenses for himself and his girlfriend.

Special elections will be held this Tuesday to ensure that the 18 towns affected have proper representation. The legislature has been in session for just over a month, although no meaningful legislation has been voted upon except in committees which are currently reviewing bill proposals. Once the new legislators are elected though, they will hit the ground running to analyze Gov. Malloy’s budget proposal. How many seats Republicans pick up could have an impact to whether Malloy gets what he wants, or an alternative plan is approved.

General Assembly To Hold Veto Override Session

Governor Rell vetoed a total of 19 bills this legislative session, and the Legislature will meet Monday, July 20th to see if they can override eight of these, according to sources at the Capitol.

Amongst these bills include some high profile proposals to repeal the Death Penalty , require the posting of nutritional information at restaurants, and killing the Chestnut Hill energy project in downtown Waterbury. It also includes the proposed Democratic budget which passed the House 91-48 and the Senate 25-11.

It is unclear which bills will be up for debate on Monday for attempted veto overrides, but in order to do so the Constitution requres that 2/3 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate vote in favor of a measure to succeed. That would require 101 votes in the House and 24 in the Senate. If every Democrat votes in favor of the measures, they could easily pass the measures in question, but keeping such a consensus has been difficult, particularly on fiscal matters and the abolition of the death penalty. If one Senator breaks ranks and all Republicans hold opposition, then the measures die. In the House, the Democrats number 114 and there are 37 Republicans.

The Death Penalty bill is unlikely to come up because it received fewer than 100 passing votes, and it only passed 19-17 in the Senate. The proposal blocking the Chestnut Hill project and an ash plant in the town of Franklin is also unlikely to come up because Chestnut Hill already announced they will voluntarily withdraw their proposal to build a food disposal and energy plant in Waterbury’s Brooklyn section near Rt. 8.

Bills likely to come up include the Sustinet health care bill which was vetoed partly because its cost is enormous. Gov. Rell also said that this state effort was redundant of the national health care debate. The House of Representatives in Washington DC plans to begin debate on a national healthcare bill this week.

Negotiations to solve the State’s budget deficit are ongoing and it is still unclear when a vote will come up for that, but one can presume it won’t be Monday.

Wolcott’s Representative is John “Corky” Mazurek. Sam Caligiuri represents Wolcott in the Senate.