After 15 minutes, the House Democrats adjourned, failing to adopt a budget reduction plan, hear or debate the Republican alternatives or even give a hint that they truly get the state of Connecticut’s economy.

House Republicans, led by Larry Cafero, R-Norwalk and Senate Republicans, led by John McKinney, R-Fairfield, had their caucus members ready to go but the Democrats were having no part of it.

In the House, State Rep. John C. Geragosian, D-New Britain, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said the Democrats wanted to digest the proposal, even though it had been in public view for several weeks.  In the Senate, there was much of the same sentiment, but with more intrigue as a rump group of Democratic Senators were ready to scrap the Citizen’s Election Fund; the program that could provide up to $60 million next year in taxpayer financed funds for candidates.

Senate Democrats have also been divided over the long-term leadership status of President Pro Tem Donald  E. Williams, Jr., D-Brooklyn, who has been under fire behind-the-scenes on several fronts.

A group of dissatisfied Democrats in the upper chamber have been quietly hinting they would support some of the Republican proposals to cut spending and seek more concessions from the public sector unions.

But the scuttling of the CEP was the big story in the Senate as State Sen. Edith G. Prague, D-Norwich, had been publicly calling for its termination. Prague, the darling of the left and the public sector unions, has argued, precious state money should go toward education and health care rather than political purposes.

Rank and file Democrats made themselves scarce after both houses adjourned while Cafero brought the entire Republican caucus to stand in the hallway of the ornate House chamber.

“This has been like “Groundhog Day” for the last two years,” said Deputy Republican Leader Bill Hamzy, R-Bristol. “It’s the same thing over and over again, not taking action when it’s needed.”

With the holiday fast approaching, it is unclear whether the Democrats will come back before the end of the year even though the interest on the state debt keeps adding up and the deficit continues to grow.

While the Democratic-Super Majority in the House and Senate conduct hearings on the impact of their Great Recession on children and families, the working families of our state who are hanging on by a thread demand action.

How can anyone take House Speaker Chris Donovan, D-Meriden and Senate President Don Williams, D-Brooklyn, seriously until they commit to getting down to business on December 15^th at the State Capitol? Sources say Donovan doesn’t want to hold anything more than a “technical session” which means there will be no action on the Gov. Rell deficit reduction plan.

What will be the effect of this dereliction of duty by the Democrats?

It will damage the credit worthiness of the state. Both Fitch and Moody’s rating agencies have degraded Connecticut’s bonding rate to a Triple A negative, making it the fourth worst bond rating among all 50 states. That means in a few months, if nothing is done about cutting the budget, Connecticut could have its bond rated downgraded. That would have a calamitous effect on the state’s ability to borrow short and long term money.

Not cutting the budget will also put Connecticut in a possible cash crunch. Since taxable receipts are down, way down, from estimates, it is conceivable that the state could run out of cash to meet daily operating expenses.  That would leave Connecticut with dwindling financial options including emergency cuts, payment vouchers or more expensive interest.

GOP House Leader Larry Cafero and Senate Leader John McKinney have offered other initiatives to cut spending, trying to cut the short and long term expenses of state government. Gov. Rell’s proposals are across the board and address the immediate problems. The Rell cuts also include $87 million in reductions to cities and towns.

Yet, the Democrats offer nothing but vague mumblings about the seriousness of the budget figures. Why are they frozen with inaction? What are they hiding from?

Being in the Majority has its privileges and its responsibilities. It seems the Democrats simply want to enjoy their titles, offices, staff and other perks, including paid for mail where they boast of all the good things they have done for the taxpayers.

It is time for the Democrats to wake up and act like adults. Let’s get to the task at hand before Connecticut goes broke.

Call Speaker Donovan and Senate President Williams and tell them it’s time to start FIXING the budget.

Donovan: 860-240-8500

Williams: 860-240-8600

 As Cafero spoke about a Republican plan that would not increase taxes and reform several programs, Hennessey and Lambert were lost in nine of hearts on ten of spades.  When asked about this and whether he planned any disciplinary action against his rank-and-file card sharks, House Speaker Chris Donovan, D-Meriden, shrugged and said the whole matter “was funny.”

 So funny that the AP wire photo has gone national – made the Drudge Report and got Cafero on “Good Morning America.”

 Rep. Lambert, who prides herself on being serious, was caught being a slacker like the rest of her House caucus. We thought this little video tribute summed it up nicely.

 Enjoy.

House and Senate Democrats along with Attorney General Dick Blumenthal announced they will hold a good old fashioned Stalin show trial Thursday when the Banks Committee holds hearings on how AIG personnel got their bonuses. After 20 minutes of pandering to a mob-scene of a press conference at the Legislative Office Building, Banks Committee chairmen State Rep. Ryan Barry, D-Manchester, and State Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, conceded that their subpoenas were not being answered by a dozen AIG executives who live in Connecticut. Both pledged a secure environment for participating in the public.

But the Connecticut media wasn’t buying it. After they spoke, Senate Republican leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, turned the entire conference inside-out by saying the public hearing would be nothing more than a public show trial and that those testifying would be in danger once they left the LOB confines.

McKinney artfully suggested the committee call U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd to the stand. He is a Connecticut resident and has some insights into the AIG deal.

At that point, Blumenthal looked stricken and Barry was forced to come back to the microphones and assure that all would be safe. But that didn’t stop Blumenthal from posting the names of the AIG bonus babies from having their names posted on the AG’s website. Blumer should pray no one gets hurt out there because of his blood lust for publicity. Connecticut residents should be very concerned that an elected leader and the state’s lawyer has decided he will be judge and executioner for people that did nothing more than sign a contract and take a check.

House Republicans want to change the state wage laws that AIG cited as the reason they honored the bonus arrangements. Democrats are more concerned with getting on CNN Thursday to show their “outrage.”

Chairman Chris Healy is raising serious concerns today about the role Deputy Speaker James O’Rourke played in the death of Carol Sinisgalli, who froze to death just hours after climbing out of the Democrat’s car.  He is pressing for answers to questions that O’Rourke has been avoiding since the tragic night of January 21. 

The whole episode has been very sad since the beginning.  Bitter cold Arctic air had settled over southern New England, dipping temperatures into the single digits.  Ms. Sinisgalli was inside O’Leary’s Digger McGuff’s Tavern in Cromwell, apparently getting into an altercation with a man in a wheelchair, fleeing the bar without her coat, purse, or shoes, and hopping in the back of State Rep. O’Rourke’s car as he was leaving the bar.

The pair ended up at Dividend Road in Rocky Hill where Sinisgalli got out of the car – more than a half mile from her home - and wandered into the night.  She was found the next afternoon, barefoot, coat-less, and dead.

Since that time, Rep. O’Rourke has kept among the lowest profile in Connecticut politics.  He has avoided all questions about the Sinisgalli Affair, leaving it to his lawyer to assure the public that “This isn’t Connecticut’s Chappaquiddick, I’ll tell you that”.

As a matter of fact, one of the more public things that O’Rourke has done in recent weeks will occur tomorrow, when he will sponsor a Legislative Pre-Parade Party at the State Capitol – kicking off the weekend festivities.  O’Leary’s Digger McGuff’s Tavern will be hopping, no doubt.

Healy called on Rep. O’Rourke to come clean on the issue or step down.

“You can’t say you’re being a good Samaritan and drop people off in the middle of the night,” Healy said Thursday. “You can’t claim you were assaulted [when] you didn’t tell anybody.”

Commentator Dean Pagani weighed in on Healy’s comments on his blog Media Attache.

GOP Chairman Chris Healy is treading on very sensitive ground here, yet he is raising legitimate questions in light of the circumstances and the fact that O’Rourke has said very little publicly about the case.

Beyond today’s headline, this tells us something about how far Healy is willing to go in pursuit of wayward Democrats. If he is willing to raise this issue with O’Rourke, how far is he willing to go in pursuit of Chris Dodd?

Indeed.

House and Senate Democratic legislators are in full retreat Tuesday in the wake of the outcry over the Judiciary Committee’s attack on both the U.S. Constitution and the Roman Catholic Church.

RB 1098, which directly alters the control of local Catholic parishes, has been roundly panned from one corner of Connecticut to the other – from Catholics, other religious groups and Constitutional experts – including, God Help Us – Attorney General Dick Blumenthal.

Republicans appeared shoulder to shoulder at a press conference today to denounce the proposal and to offer a free hearing room for those eager to testify – after Judiciary Chairmen State Rep. Mike Lawlor, D-East Haven and State Sen. Andrew McDondald, D-Stamford, pulled the bill. Few can remember when a committee bill had been withdrawn for public comments 24 hours before a hearing.

Lawlor and McDonald issued a statement saying the bill would be pulled until Blumenthal gives it the once over. But Blumenthal already telegraphed his thoughts to The Day, saying it probably wasn’t Constitutional.

Hundreds of residents, many of whom took a day off from work, were planning to crash the Legislative Office Building Wednesday. Both House Republican Leader Larry Cafero, R-Norwalk and Senate Republican Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, will be on hand to hear from the public. Cafero denounced the abrupt cancellation.

“What are we supposed to say, the game is called because of rain?” asked Cafero at packed press conference.”It’s not raining. Let’s play ball.”

Yes, let’s play ball Mike Lawlor, who is already trying to posture the issue as a thorough review of all laws and statutes that make reference to the church or religious institutions. The plan, as Sen. McKinney sees it, is for the slate to be wiped clean of all corporate governance affecting churches. It is then, McKinney argues, that Lawlor can offer laws that create the same lay-structure the bill calls for.

Either way, Mike Lawlor and Andrew McDonald have put every Democrat on the griddle. Many rank-and-file Democrats were avoiding reporters while issuing statements saying they would never support such legislation.

Another back story emerged as well – that the bill was drafted under false pretenses. Bills are drafted as concepts, which are approved almost pro forma, by the Judiciary Committee. The ‘concept” description for RB 1098 was “An Act Concerning Corporate Forms.” It morphed into an all out assault on religious freedom.

Wednesday, many Democrats may wish to be in-country on “district business.”

Amid her continued efforts to whip the Legislative Democrats into shape, Governor Jodi Rell is using such innovative tools as Twitter to help push her agenda at the State Capitol.  You can sign up to follow the Governor on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/GovernorRell. 

The Governor is quietly in the midst of a very successful 2009 to this point.  Despite the troubled economy and the Obama Administration’s efforts to make it worse while driving the nation down the road to fiscal ruin, Governor Rell has given the Democrats in Hartford fits.

They figured that since the Governor would be stuck holding the bag on the lousy economic news, it would allow one of their own to slip through the cracks and into the Governor’s office in 2010.  But Gof. Rell has been proactive in warning about the sliding economy – despite the derision of her Democratic ‘friends’ at times. 

Her brief speech to the state on television was warmly received and her Budget Address met with commendation from across the state, as Mayors and First Selectmen cheered a budget which did not balance the books on their backs and taxpayers rejoiced in her firm “No tax hikes” pledge.  A week after the speech, the Q Poll had her approval at 75% and her closest Democratic challenger trailing her by 21 points.

Q has just wrapped up sticking a thermometer in Connecticut’s ear and will give a progress report on the Governor tomorrow, along with their much-anticipated head-to-head matchup numbers between Sen. Chris Dodd and potential Republican challengers.  Until 11am tomorrow, take the time to follow the CTGOP team on Twitter:  Governor Rell and Chairman Chris Healy.

A committee bill, RB 1098, is designed to take the Roman Catholic Church apart and roll back 2,000 of canon law via the state of  Connecticut.  Many Catholics have been calling their legislators, talk shows and our own Republican headquarters asking how could such a thing happen?

Easy.

The chairmen, State Rep. Mike Lawlor, D-East Haven, of State Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, have been at odds with the church over many issues – gay marriage, school choice and abortion, to name a few. This  comes barely a week after Lawlor held a hearing on abolishing the death penalty and kept Dr. William Petit cooling his heels for almost seven hours before testifying. Dr. Petit survived a brutal attack on his family which claimed the lives of his wife and two daughters.

The fact that this bill singles out the Roman Catholic Church got the Archdiocese into full combat mode. The word went out to the faithful over the weekend, and many other religious groups, fearing they will be next, also took note of the legislation.

This is what happens when one party gets too full of itself.  It is interesting that Democrats, who have long accused the Republicans of being beholden to Evangelicals, have decided to put into statute a law that dictates lay control to every parish in the state.

The bill would create lay councils where the Archdiocese would have a non-voting representative. These councils would control literally all aspects of the operation of the church, save for the homily.

Lawlor and McDonald have put the word out that the bill is in response to several acts of theft and malfeasance among some churches. But in each case, the perpetrators were caught, tried and sentenced. This is another classic case of the driving a wedge into people of faith, and it should make every resident, regardless of their beliefs, both angry and frightened that this is what Democrats think is appropriate.

The hearing is Wednesday, March 11th at noon in Room 2c at the Legislative Office Building. Mike Lawlor loves playing to a big audience and he will get his wish.

Dr. Bill Petit testified in front of the Judiciary Committee yesterday on a proposal to abolish the death penalty in Connecticut:

“My family got the death penalty, and you want to give murderers life,” Petit said. “Any penalty less than death for murder is unjust and trivializes the victim and the victim’s family. It is immoral and unjust to all of us in our society.”

His full testimony (pdf) is equally thoughtful and poignant.

While the Governor stood and gave what was easily the best speech of her tenure – talking about the need to refocus state government core missions, calling for an end to bloated government and waste, and painting a broad picture of her vision for state government – the supermajority Democrats looked like a crew of sailors who just found out their ship was sinking.

To be sure, there are real questions that will need to be addressed by the Legislature, and many painful cuts to be considered.  No one will like making them.  But it was clear to everyone in the room that stonewalling wouldn’t be accepted while this Governor is around.

The Governor laid out her case that the State can’t continue to be so dependent on the fluctuations of Wall Street and property values to make ends meet as a society.  Her Republican allies in the House and Senate seem to have figured this out. Many Legislative Democrats, on the other hand, seem to have a burning desire to spend money we don’t have on things we can’t afford.

At one of the key moments in the Governor’s speech, she called out all the critics who would challenge her budget in this way:

To those who would disparage or dismiss the cuts or reforms my budget contains: You have that right. But you also have the obligation to put your specific alternatives on the public table – and to do so soon.

While there are many critics of the Governor’s budget who will lodge their criticisms in good faith,  there are some whose actions are always more insidious than they seem. 

This is the next chapter in the book we saw written during the debate over the constitutional convention question last autumn.  Opponents of Question #1 spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a coordinated campaign – on television, radio, and in the mail – to defeat the measure.  

Had it not been for the late entry of the Catholic Church, Q1 proponents would have been outspent at a ratio of perhaps 8:1, instead it was only 3:1 - and yet it was all of the opposing commercials that fear-mongered against corporate titans, crackpots, and other big money interests.

We’ve already seen it on our televisions – “In This Together CT” – a project of Big Labor to convince us that there is no waste in State Government, that there are no jobs done by the state that couldn’t be done better by private enterprise, and that we need a big, bloated government or the poorest among us will be allowed to perish. 

They pitch their ’shear the rich’ solution as a simple case of fairness.  Of course, any Connecticut resident paying his property tax, income tax, sales tax, business entity tax, car tax, or gas tax has to wonder how much more ‘fairness’ he can tolerate these days. 

The taxpayers also know that a 20%/40%/60% tax hike on incomes of $200k, $500k, and $1m+ raises almost exactly the same amount as a 20% tax increase on everyone from $35k to $200k, and there is a lot more revenue stability when you depend on 700,000 taxpayers instead of 138,000.  This is a Trojan Horse proposal in a state that can’t afford more gimmicks.

The real lesson to be learned from this economic downturn are the same ones learned by societies every time the economy goes south – sacrifice and thrift.  Republicans used to be the purveyors of these lessons – values, we once called them.  The Governor did her best to put us back on the right track yesterday – and it is much to her credit.