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May 2, 2008
House Members Count The Ways They Love Lawn Signs, Loathe Chris Caruso
Friday May 2, 2008
It's late, hours after majority Democrats agreed to blow Dodge without messing around with the $18.4 billion budget crafted (THERE'S a verb) last year.
Before we get too far away from Thursday night, however, Blog-o-rama wants to go back to a wild debate that had lawmakers on both sides of the aisle lined up against Rep. Chris Caruso, D-Bridgeport, co-chairman of the Government Administration & Elections Committee.
The result was a 90-minute debate on a bill that was supposed to be quick, unanimous a technical fix to the elections-reform jive that editorial writers call taxpayer-financed elections.
Fill in your own reasons to loathe Caruso. Blog-o-rama has known him for a quarter century and likes him. There's a place for him in the Legislature, although apparently NOT as GAE co-chairman in the anticipated, imminent reign of Chris Donovan, D-Meriden, as speaker of the House.
Be that as it may, Caruso was put in the unenviable position of trying to fix a stupid section of the new election law that BANS incumbents from using their old lawn signs in the upcoming election.
The issue is a level playing field with the public financing. Lawn signs in the hand are an advantage.
Caruso tried to explain an amendment - the bill was ultimately suspended in time, "passed temporarily" for possible consideration later - that would have required incumbents to charge 30 percent of their sign stockpile off their 2008 cash from the Citizens Election Fund.
"It doesn't make sense not to reuse something you paid for," Rep. Themis Klarides, R-Derby, said. "It's only common sense. There was a large consensus in both chambers as to the use of lawn signs," she said. "At some point it's up to the chairman to take that into account. We think we should be able to use our signs."
"We're trying to make it as fair as we can," Caruso said Friday morning, when folks had cooled off a little.
"They love to beat up on him," said Caruso's deskmate in the House, Rep. Diana Urban, D-North Stonington, smiling.
"If we don't work out a compromise," Caruso said. "The lawmakers can't use their signs."
It's another cliffhanger for the waning few days of the 2008 General Assembly.
Here's an assessment of the scene by Rep. Jim O'Rourke, D-Cromwell, a former GAE chairman: "Leave it to Chris Caruso to turn a consent calendar into a filibuster," O'Rourke said in an interview.
Posted by Ken on May 2, 2008 10:43 PM
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