And Other Recent Bills of Note
Rep. Fleischmann has proposed the following bill proposing that we elect the insurance commissioner:
AN ACT REQUIRING ELECTION OF THE INSURANCE COMMISSIONER.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
That the general statutes be amended to establish the Insurance Commissioner as a state-wide elected official and to require that (1) the Insurance Commissioner (A) be elected in accordance with section 9-181 of the general statutes in the same manner as is provided for constitutional officers; (B) be elected to a four-year term; and (C) be first elected in 2006, and then every four years thereafter; (2) candidates for Insurance Commissioner be subject to the same rules on campaigns and fundraising as apply to candidates for state constitutional office; and (3) no exploratory or campaign committee for a candidate for Insurance Commissioner be permitted to accept contributions from: (A) Individuals, firms or corporations holding contracts for five thousand dollars or more with the Insurance Department; or (B) individuals who own a firm or corporation subject to regulation by the Insurance Department or an individual who is a manager, officer, director, partner or employee with managerial responsibilities at such a firm or corporation.
Why?
Seriously, is there a good reason why this position should be elected instead of appointed? If there is, it’s not immediately apparent to me.
In Which We Meddle in Presidential Elections
This one is from Rep. Drew, who wants us to elect the president by popular vote, instead of the electoral college.
AN ACT AUTHORIZING THE STATE TO ENTER INTO A COMPACT WITH OTHER STATES TO HAVE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES ELECTED BY POPULAR VOTE.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
That the general statutes be amended to authorize the state to enter into a compact with other states that provides for the election of the President of the United States by popular vote rather than by the electoral college.
Have fun with that. Next!
Register, Please
Sen. Stillman has proposed a violent offender registry:
AN ACT ESTABLISHING A VIOLENT OFFENDER REGISTRY.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
That the general statutes be amended to require the Department of Public Safety to create a registry of persons convicted of violent offenses and post and maintain such registry on the Internet for public access.
Okay, I kind of understand why we subject child molesters to this peculiar sort of public humiliation. There’s a high recidivism rate, I know, and apparently they do get checked. However, I have yet to see any conclusive evidence that those registries actually do much of anything to prevent crimes.
Creating a registry of “violent offenders” for public display seems to me to be going way, way too far. Is jail not enough? Do we need to create one more barrier to re-integration once someone has served their time?
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe justice really is more about revenge than anything else.
22 responses so far ↓
Tom Drew’s bill seems like a strange one to introduce at the state level.
Drew is a strange one!!!!
I wish I had the link handy, but I remember seeing somewhere that there are a small bunch of state who are apparently being presented with the same type of bill. Not that it makes it any less of a head scratcher, but it is worth noting that it seems to be a multi-state initiative.
The bill actually weakens CT’s vote since it is the states that elect the President not the people under our Constitution. Maybe Derw wants to eliminate the US Senate too, that would really help CT!!!
The bill to elect an Insurance Commissioner should include a clause that precludes the creator of the bill from running for the office the first time an election is held. If such a clause is included, would this bill have been introduced? And one other small point… isn’t it a bit late for a 2006 election?
As for Drew’s bill… Article I, Section 10… “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress… enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State” How difficult is that to understand? Of course, we no longer “declare war” either. Instead, we get to hear Hilary’s “nuanced” explanation on her Iraq votes
Maybe Fleischmann is looking to make a new elected office he can be elected to since Bysiewicz isn’t going anywhere anytime soon
Tim, Republitarian,
I would venture to guess you’re both on to something, there.
Bysiewicz wants to be governor. She may get another shot in 2010, or, failing that, she could run for AG if Blumenthal (ha!) runs for another office.
When Bysiewicz was (temporarily) out of the running for SOTS in 2005, a host of very interesting people got into that race. Then they all disappeared. Flesichmann was probably the front-runner of the bunch, however.
I don’t care much for Hillary just as I never liked Slick Willy but the Congress authorized the President to use necessary force to disarm Saddam Hussein not go to war with Iraq. That vote pushed Saddam to allow the weapons inspectors back into Iraq where the US and its allies were operating no fly/no drive zones to the north and south - and the weapons inspectors should have been allowed to finish the job. Cops don’t disharge their weapons until necessary under a fairly strict set of rule and procedures and the same should apply to the use of military force when protecting our national security. Now Iraq is in the middle of sectarian violence…..and there needs to be a discussion about what’s the best wya to protect our national security with the military..aas I pointed out yesterday there are some former warriors who are now GOP US Senators like Hagel and Warner that want to disuss that
In the May 2004 issue of Harper’s Magazine, Richard Rosenthal made a convincing argument for abolishing the U.S. Senate because of its destructive influence on the democratic republic.
I would prefer to see Drew or someone introduce a bill for Instant Runoff Voting first, instead of electing the president by popular vote. IRV expert Caleb Kleppner of New Haven (formerly of San Francisco) and the New Haven Advocate have teamed up on a sample IRV ballot for the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.
As for voting for insurance commissioner, I worry that probably 50 percent of people who voted in Nov. 2006 probably couldn’t tell you what Susan Bysiewicz’s biggest achievement as Secretary of State was. So if people have trouble identifiying constitutional officers and their duties, I think we should amend and repair that flaw in our representative system before we add more statewide candidates to the ballot.
The election of the insurance commissioner seems like a good idea. It’s a powerful regulatory body that historically has struggled to put consumer’s welfare over the industries interests. And now that CT has public financing, having that job elected as opposed to appointed would go along way to protect the consumers interest and better assure that the people not industry are running the show.
[...] Connecticut Local Politics brought to my attention that there is a bill proposed in Hartford that would make the Insurance Commissioner an elected official starting in 2010, rather than being an official appointed by the governor. [...]
Genghis–
I’m not sure when you were last called an idiot, but you might want to do some simple googling before you so boldly “pan” CT’s latest reform movements…
Why must you prejudice people against electoral reform with a initial headling of “In Which We Meddle in Presidential Elections”? The Electoral College is about as archaic as it comes, and after the Florida, (and Ohio), election debacles, I would hope that the National Popular Vote effort would interest you more. I mean “one person, one vote” is generally considered to be at the heart of democracy.
Here is a stat for the curious minded. Wyoming has a population of about 510,000, and three electoral votes. That comes to one elector per 170,000 people. California has a population of 36,100,000, and 55 electors. This comes to one elector per 650,000 people. In other words, — thanks to that relic known as the EC, — a Wyoman’s vote counts more than three times as much as a Californian’s!
Personally, I don’t know what it’s like to be a Republican in New Haven. But if you were one, why would you ever go to the polls? Thanks to gerrymandering, Rosa DeLauro is congresswoman for life. And thanks to the EC, CT’s votes will continue to go solely to the Democrat. So I guess what I’m suggesting is wouldn’t it be nice, if in something as important as a Presidential election, your vote actually meant something at the margin?
The NPV effort is meant to rid Presidential elections of the EC’s inequities, to make our system much more immune to embarassment, (Florida and Ohio), and to re-enfranchise every voter, regardless of whether they live in a red state, a blue state, or a swing state.
And yet you mock it? Smell the coffee. We need you man….
The intent of the electoral college was to give small states (population-wise) more say. This was the same reason that the Senate was created. The small states feared that the big states would dominate.
While a lot has changed since 1776, we still have states, and these 50 states have a fair amount of power to set their agendas. This has been somewhat eroded by a fairly broad interpretation of “interstate commerce”, but even still, states in the United States have more jurisdiction than provinces or regional areas in many other countries. States are important in our system.
Wyoming has fewer voters per electoral vote than other states. But it also has fewer voters per Senator. Way fewer. Originally, Senators were chosen by the state legislatures, and the senate was there to protect the interest of the states. Because we put so much importance on states, the states are going to — as political units — have somewhat disproportionate influence. Once you move beyond the 8 or so states that have only 1 representative, the voters per electoral vote are more equitable (but still not the same because of the minimum of 3 EVs per state).
Previously, many Democrats lamented the fact that Republicans had many Senators from small states. However, the Democrats now have about as many Senators from small states. Democrats have both Senators from Delaware, Montana, and Vermont, and 3 of the 4 Dakota Senators.
Love the “Bush Country” map … you know, where basically the entire country is red (pink for this website) and a few spots such as New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles are blue (purple for this website) …
Gee, would the current complainers be complaining if the structure benefited their favorite politicians?
You never know. We went for GHWB back in ‘88, and Reagan in ‘84 and ‘80. If the national GOP ever nominates a moderate candidate again, I think we could be in play.
But that’s a pretty big “if.”
Yeah, Nutmeg_constitution, this “complainer” would have a beef with the Electoral College, even if we had won Ohio in 2004. It’s an archaic system, that renders most voters’ Presidential votes all but meaningless.
None of you guys have made a good argument in favor of the status quo.
And I’d also like to have you answer me this, “Why should Iowa and New Hampshire play such important roles in Presidential politics, with Connecticut being rendered an afterthought and meaningless joke?”
P.S. Genghis–
Sure, in the event of a Republican landslide, Connecticut sometimes goes with the flow. That doesn’t mean your individual Presidential vote ever counts for anything!
Drew did this for his pal, Joe Lieberman. It’s for show becasue ot can’t go anywhere becasue of all those comments by those who got ir right above.
The Stillman bill stems from a case about a young mother in Waterford named Sierra Giorgi. Giorgi’s friends have a website and here is an article about her story http://www.sierragiorgi.com/re_txt.aspx.htm
She did check the sex offender registry to check on a person in her life she had questions about. He was not a sexual offender but did indeed have a violent history that she could not discover because there was no process for it.
Were you born ignorant, or did you work at it your whole life? The point of the violent offenders registry bill is not revenge, its keeping society safe from violent offenders who are released from the prison system on an unsuspecting public only to offend again. The guy who killed Sierra killed someone else and served a fraction of his original sentence because he got ‘good time’ !. He was out for a year before he did it again, and the same scenario repeated itself twice in the state last year! Sorry chief, but I’d rather have my children have access to information that may save their lives then to play the little violin for convicted killers. Go to http://www.sierragiorgi.com to support the bill.
Oh, and while Im at it, stick this in your pipe and smoke it… If you willfully take the life of another human being, YOU SHOULD NOT BE REINTEGRATED INTO SOCIETY! Life should mean LIFE! You still think differently? Try explaining your little theory to Sierra’s 7 year old son!
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