Several sources, including this one, are suggesting that ethics reform may not yet be dead. It may return, zombie-like, to a special session.
I’ll believe it when I see it, mainly because the problems that led to the bill’s original failure have yet to be dealt with:
There is now talk of acting on ethics in special session, but the same opposition and obstacles continue to threaten to thwart agreement on reforms, including pension revocation.
Democratic leaders already plan to call rank-and-file members back before June 30 to consider extending a local tax on real estate sales. (Hughes)
That session could be called within the month. If ethics reform is to happen this year, compromises need to start being worked out soon.
“Altercation Over Legislation”
Capitol Watch shows how the failure to enact the ethics bill laid bare the obvious dislike between Reps. Larry Cafero and Chris Caruso.
“Chris Caruso has tried to be a champion of the ethics issue,” Cafero said. “He has a trophy that he’s after - he’d be the first to admit it - and that’s John Rowland’s pension. And unless and until he gets his hands on John Rowland’s pension, no ethics reform will take place. And he told me he will make darn sure that happens. He said he would filibuster.”
[…]
“[[Cafero]] is the same ’saint’ who opposed campaign finance reform, opposed reforming the state contracting, and until they [convicted] John Rowland, he and the other Republicans never questioned what he was doing,” Caruso said. He said Cafero and the GOP don’t truly want pension revocation - which he has been pushing for years - so they passed a bill that they knew the House wouldn’t accept, just to kill it. “It’s easy to use me as a scapegoat, because they need to blame someone.”
There’s so, so much more. Go read the whole thing.
Source
Hughes, Paul. “Ethics bills may return in special legislative session.” Waterbury Republican-American 12 May, 2008.
3 responses so far ↓
1 SvenVonErick // May 12, 2008 at 7:51 am ·
--5
There can be no ethics reform if the Connecticut State Police and Connecticut’s Kangaroo Corruptikourts are fixed.
Here is typical official Connecticut corruption and keeping the cash and power among friends and family:
http://starkravingviking.blogspot.com/2008/05/connecticut-state-police-100-club.html
Legislators can end up out of a job and under investigation if they really go after fixing the corruption in the Connecticut State Police and courts. We all live in a “State of Fear” as long as this citizen abuse continues.
2 easthartfordtaxpayer // May 12, 2008 at 8:55 am ·
+3
So on one hand the legislature wants to claim to do something about the people losing their homes by passing the mortgage bill. Then they want to return in special session to ensure that in areas with the greatest concentration of subprime borrowers burdensome taxes still prevent them from getting out from under their house?
In my town the full tax is 1%. That’s $1,000 per $100,000 of property value. So a person may have purchased a modest house 2 years ago for $200,000 (and the town received $2,000) and is now faced with a house worth $180,000. Maybe they manage to sell it for full value at $180,000. They still have to come up with costs to pay the real estate agent, lawyers, etc. and then here comes the state and municipality saying how dare you have the audacity to sell what’s yours. You owe us $1,800 for the privilege or you can’t close. That $1,800 could easily be the difference between having enough money to sell the house or going through foreclosure. It’s especially true here in EH where that tax would be about 3.5% of an average household’s income.
So in a period of two years the state and town would receive $3800 from this scenario. That’s just about what one year of property taxes would be on that property.
This is an issue the WFP should be all over.
3 Headless Horseman // May 12, 2008 at 9:00 am ·
+2
I see. So Amann and Williams want to write the call of the Special Session narrow enough to exclude the GOP budget alternatives, but wide enough to include ethics reform and property tax reform?
This will be some fascinating magic…
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