House Democrats last night took care of their union friends by watering down an ethics bill that would revoke pensions from lawbreaking state officials. The amended bill would limit the amount a court could revoke for state employees covered under union contract.

For the better part of this Legislative session, State Rep. Chris Caruso, D-Bridgeport, has been scolding the Legislature over the lack of pension revocation of all state officials. He has said to reporters that anyone who gets a state pension should have it taken away if they betray the public trust.  He even agreed that the state worker who was convicted of child molestation in his role as a probation supervisor should be treated with the same punishment as former Gov. John Rowland.

But Caruso had a change of heart Tuesday, saying collective bargaining issues require changing the law, even though numerous other states with similar laws do not distinguish between elected and appointed officials, or between management and protected classes of state employees.

According to the Hartford Courant - the amended bill “says a judge could extract from an employee’s pension any fines, restitution costs and the $25,000-or-more annual cost of his incarceration after conviction of a corruption charge.”

House Republican Leader Larry Cafero, R-Norwalk, said the fix was in:

“There’s hundreds of bills on the calendar — what do you think the odds are this’ll become law?” he said in debate. “Now when that happens, when we adjourn on May 7, are we going to show ’shock and outrage?’ … And you know what the excuse is gonna be? [That] ‘we had to change the bill to make it less, less harsh on public employees, and that’s why we don’t have an ethics bill.’ I don’t want to go back home and say that. I don’t think you want to go back home and say that.”

Cafero believes Governor Rell will veto the bill if it ever gets to her desk.