Below is the letter to the editor I submitted to Connecticut Post, a truncated sanitized version of which was printed today:
Earlier this month Hearst Newspapers' chief political correspondent for Connecticut Ken Dixon wrote on his blog: "Got A Bright Idea, like Hang the Lawmakers?" Really. He was referring to an upcoming meeting of the Commission on Enhancing Agency Outcomes (CEAO) chaired by Democratic State Senator Gayle Slossberg, which is looking for ideas to streamline government and cut spending. That was Mr. Dixon's notion of a bright idea: "Hang the Lawmakers". Later, attributing criticism to "a couple of the more sensitive, or possibly guilty, lawmakers", Dixon retracted his remarks. But referring to hanging lawmakers, then stating that those who complain are "guilty", actually makes his words more threatening.
Though Mr. Dixon might have thought he was being funny, he wasn't. And it is certainly not the sort of comment that should ever come from the chief political reporter for Hearst Newspapers, the largest newspaper company operating in Connecticut. Certainly not today, given the rise in violence and threats of violence across the country.
Right-wing provocateur Hal Turner is being prosecuted for threatening the lives of federal judges and elected Connecticut state legislators on his webcast. He stated, "Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed," according to the June 24 indictment. "Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions." The FBI indicated that Turner threatened the lives of State Senator Andrew McDonald (D-Stamford) and State Representative Michael Lawlor (D-East Haven). As the late Capitol police chief Michael J. Fallon remarked,
"(Turner) is inciting others through his website to commit acts of violence and has created fear and alarm. He should be held accountable for his conduct."
In light of Chief Fallon's remarks, should Mr. Dixon be treated differently?
Let's also recall that Dr. George Tiller, a doctor in Kansas who provided abortion services, was murdered earlier this year. Far-right Fox News pundit Bill O'Reilly had for years demonized Dr. Tiller, repeatedly labeling him "Tiller the baby killer" and once said,
"..if the state of Kansas doesn't stop this man, then anybody who prevents that from happening has blood on their hands."
O'Reilly didn't actually tell people to murder Dr. Tiller, but he used inflammatory language that could be interpreted to support violence against him. The weak-minded can be egged on to violence by this sort of inflammatory speech in the media.
Mr. Dixon's "hang the lawmakers" remark was made in an atmosphere of rising threats of right-wing domestic terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis issued a report in April warning that, "Right wing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for right wing radicalization and recruitment." Death threats against President Obama have surged, according to author Ronald Kessler, running 400% higher than against George Bush, and stretching the Secret Service to its limits.
Mr. Dixon's "hang the lawmakers" remark is especially troubling coming from a journalist, a profession whose practitioners are themselves particularly vulnerable to violence. The Committee to Protect Journalists lists 795 journalists as having been killed around the world since 1992, including 93 in 2009 alone, making this the deadliest year ever. And journalists are far more likely to be killed investigating political and economic corruption than to be killed in war zones. So for Mr. Dixon to display such blindness to the violence perpetrated against fellow journalists, while hinting that violence against politicians is a "bright idea," is shameful and irresponsible.
Mr. Dixon might try to suggest that he was only joking. But no one should find it funny, not his readers, and certainly not Hearst management. In these times, no one should be making jokes about killing anyone, least of all journalists suggesting violence against government officials.
I know there has been some talk about the judiciary committee and the recent public hearings to send judges back to the bench (I don't know what is on the mind of others but I have decided that what you see on CTN doesn't necessarily give you a glimpse of the internal thought process of legislators so I am updating my facebook page with my thoughts):
The endorsements for the Senate from the website http://www.electionvolunteers.org were posted on MLN on Friday. Here are the candidates for the House of Representatives.
Again, they are in order by district. Entries with "***" in front are expected to be hard-fought races. In those cases a special effort was made to provide campaign contact information so that volunteers might easily sign up to work.
Please help by providing corrections, additions, disagreements...Thank you.
The website http://www.electionvolunteers.org tracks incumbents in the Connecticut General Assembly (Senate and House). It includes speeches by legislators, vote tallies, and ratings on key issues relevant to "Democracy and Humanity". Today the full list of endorsements for the November general elections was published on the home page of that website.
The endorsements for the Senate appear below the fold, in order by district. The ones for the House of Representatives will be posted on MLN within a short time.
The listings in bold and italics are the districts where a hard-fought contest is predicted, and for most of those candidates there is information on how to contact their campaigns so that people can easily choose to volunteer where their work might make a big difference.
For incumbents, endorsements are based on the Democracy/Humanity Rating - a percentage of "Good" votes on 8 key issues. For challengers the selection of candidates is based on a mixture of conversations with friends who are active in politics and discussions with the candidates themselves.
There is still time to revise this endorsement list and to add further information before the election. Comments posted by MLN contributors or sent to the email address on the website will help in this process. Thank you.
State
legislative candidates will find many supporters who will offer copious
advice, sometimes more than is actually helpful, on campaign
strategy. They will find fewer individuals who can provide
informed counsel on developing a public policy agenda. This
diary
is intended as a resource
for state legislative candidates, campaign
workers, and others who are seeking innovative, evidence-based, and
progressive solutions to Connecticut's public policy problems.
The resources are grouped into four categories below.
CT
organizations. Local organizations with
online
publications and fact sheets that offer specific state policy
and legislative recommendations.
National
organizations.
No need to re-invent the wheel. Nationwide groups
that
provide online reports, news, and technical assistance on state
legislative topics.
Research
legislation (and your opposition). Find CT
legislation and where incumbents stand.
Communicate
your policy message. It's not enough to
have smart ideas. Express them in language that resonates
with voters and that moves the debate to your ground.
See below for the resource links, and please consider forwarding the
list, along with your policy suggestions, to your local
candidates. Please add your own ideas and resource
links in the comments.
It's midway through the state legislative session, and the end is
nigh on May 7. The "JF
deadlines"
of several General Assembly committees -- the dates by which bills must
get be approved by their initial committees before they die on the
vine -- are arriving this
week. Legislators, the Governor, progressive organizations,
and
nonprofit organizations are scrambling to make sure that their
respective wish list items keep moving along the legislative pipeline.
Below are summaries of
the legislative agendas of a variety of
state leaders and organizations. Their priority
issues span
health, human services, housing, energy, education, smart growth,
taxes, criminal justice, transportation, the environment, civil rights,
worker
rights, and economic security.
Some
proposals common to multiple organizations include: creation
of a
state earned income tax credit, reducing property taxes, progressive
income tax, universal health care, state-sponsored health insurance
pools, smart/responsible growth, farmland preservation, curbing global
warming pollutants, banning the use of toxic chemicals in products for children,
and protecting river front buffers.
What
would make up your ideal state
legislative agenda? How should progressives act to move this
agenda
forward? Are there particular state bills or proposals you
are
promoting and tracking? Key hearings or deadlines coming up?
How can bloggers and other individuals
help? Also see the State
Legislative Advocacy Toolkit. (Summaries below are
abbreviated highlights, wording is
often mine.)
About four out of five likely candidates in the 2008 state legislative elections say they intend to participate in the Citizens' Election Program, according to a new survey conducted for the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC). The telephone survey, implemented by the UCONN Center for Survey Research and Analysis, indicates that 86% of incumbents and 76% of unsuccessful 2006 candidates who plan to run again say they will definitely participate or are inclined to participate in Connecticut's public campaign financing program. More than three-quarters believe that too much campaign time is spent raising money.
Some likely candidates say they might not participate (9%), definitely won't (3%), or don't know (6%). Please speak to potential candidates in your area to ask them for a commitment to participating in the Citizens' Election Program.
Tomorrow, January 3rd, the SEEC will unveil and demonstrate a new Electronic Campaign Reporting Information System (eCRIS) for candidates, PACs and party committees. I hope that public reports from the new system will be easier to view and interpret than the old electronic "reports," which were painfully difficult to access and interpret and impossible to export. This event will take place at the Legislative Office Building at 11 am (event flier). It will be broadcast on the CT Network and may later appear in their online video archive.
(mikect scores again! - promoted by Jon Kantrowitz)
It's not so easy to find a green this year in the Connecticut General
Assembly,
according to the latest
legislative scorecard
from the Connecticut
League of Conservation Voters. Average scores on
environmental
legislation have declined precipitously in the House and Senate for
members of both parties.
All legislators
Democrats
Republicans
House
Senate
House
Senate
House
Senate
2005
85%
91%
94%
95%
67%
83%
2006
88%
97%
98%
98%
69%
94%
2007
71%
70%
76%
73%
59%
64%
* Partisan calculations are mine
This handful of legislators was among the list of high scorers in
each chamber:
House
Rep. Elissa Wright (D) 100%
Rep. Terry Backer (D) 100%
Rep. Tom Christiano (D) 100%
Rep. Andy Fleischmann (D) 100%
Senate
Sen. Andrew Roraback (R) 100%
Sen. Judith Freedman (R) 100%
Sen. John McKinney (R) 88%
Sen. Bill Finch (D) 85%
West Hartford Democrat Andy
Fleischmann has the "greenest" record, as the only legislator
with
a
consistent 100%
rating from the League over the last several years.
Democrats should be embarrassed to find that three
Republicans scored
higher than nearly all Dems. Republican Senator Roraback has
had a
strong environmental record in recent years.
Black thumbs
These legislators were the most hostile to our environment:
Connecticut's
new system of public financing of campaigns promises to
help liberate our democracy, diminish the influence of monied
interests,
open up the electoral process to more citizens, free
candidates to
spend more time meeting voters than chasing money, and challenge
entrenched politicians.
Whether or not this promise is fulfilled depends in part on
how well
potential candidates and volunteers understand, embrace, and adopt the
new system. Below
I've outlined the basic rules of clean elections funding and
how grassroots candidates for the state
legislature can use the program to take back our democracy.
(Note: I am neither a lawyer nor a campaign finance
expert, and do not guarantee the accuracy of my summary of the
law.
Candidates and volunteers should review the
rules themselves and consult the State Elections Enforcement
Commission.)
Most importantly, spread the word and encourage potential progressive
candidates to take advantage of public financing, run for office, and
make sure that every
Republican and at least a
few DINOs are challenged in 2008.
Rep. John Piscopo: worst record in the legislature
How did your state legislator perform during the 2007 session? You'll find some answers in an impressive, multi-issue report card issued by People of Faith, a progressive faith-based organization. The scorecard is unusual in the number of votes and issues considered, evaluating legislators based on 34 votes across several categories:
Nearly one-third of Republicans behaved particularly abysmally, scoring overall Fs:
Senate: Dan Debicella, Lou DeLuca, and Judith Freedman
House: Al Adinolfi, Mike Alberts, Richard Belden, Vincent Candelora, Clark Chapin, Anthony D'Amelio, Kevin DelGobbo, Ruth Fahrbach, Richard Ferrari, Leonard Greene, DebraLee Hovey, Lawrence Miller, Craig Miner, John Piscopo (worst grade - 41%), T.R. Rowe, Anne Ruwet
Not surprisingly, over half of these Republicans ran unopposed by a Democrat in 2006. Unchallenged politicians can and do get away with anything.
(Unchallenged candidates of either party are never good for democracy. Certainly these people ought to be held more accountable. - promoted by Scarce)
Many Republicans in Connecticut attempt to cloak themselves in a
moderate
reputation, however undeserved. Others seem eager to alienate
their
constituents, voting against their interests at every opportunity.
Reviewing legislative scorecards, I set very stringent
right-wing criteria to identify Republicans with the worst
records across a variety of issues. These legislators have
worked
hard to hurt their constituents, undermine environmental and worker
protections,
deny civil
rights, keep
guns on the street, and refuse health care.
One obvious similarity emerges -- nearly all of the most right-wing
Republicans in the state won re-election with no
Democratic opposition in 2006. Republicans who are not
seriously
challenged can and do get away with anything. The
only
candidate who had a challenger, Kevin Delgobbo, out-spent his
Democratic
opponent by an
11 to 1 margin. With public financing of campaigns, Democrats
can
no longer use funding as an excuse to avoid a challenge. With
the
combination
of a 169-town electoral strategy and public financing, Democrats can
force the GOP to account for the damage they have tried to wreak on
state
residents.
(Some food for thought with a great deal of research. - promoted by Scarce)
Democrats in the state
legislature enjoy a
veto-proof majority, which,
in theory, should enable them to approve any law, regardless of
GOP opposition. Such unity of purpose remains
entirely theoretical, however, since some Democrats share more in
common with their Republican colleagues than with the voters
who elected them. As a means of ferreting out the most
unreliable Democrats,
I've tried to develop a method of gauging the performance of
elected officials that is not based on
personality, reputation, or single issue positions, but on measurable
behavior.
Primarily using legislative scorecards, I identified the Democrats with
the worst
records across a variety of issues - labor, environmental, gun control,
campaign finance reform, public interest, civil rights, and others.
The state
legislators below scored as the worst Democrats in the state, i.e, they
ranked poorly on four or more measures.
Their records cry out
for some kind of accountability -- by means of constituent
meetings,
retirement, or primary challenges.
Senators
Paul
Doyle,
9th, Cromwell, Middletown, Newington, Rocky Hill &
Wethersfield.
Former state rep. Opposed campaign finance reform,
one of
the worst lifetime labor records among Democrats, years of
anti-gay and anti-choice votes, worst CCAG record in Senate.
Joan
Hartley,
15th, Naugatuck, Prospect and Waterbury. Opposed campaign
finance
reform, Lieberman ally after primary, long anti-gay and anti-choice
record, among the most
pro-corporate.
Juan
Candelaria, 95th, New Haven. Anti-gay record,
endorsed by Family
Institute, opposed workplace smoking ban, Dem for Joe.
Bill
Dyson,
Tried to become House Speaker through alliance
with Republicans (put
out to pasture), friend of Rowland (opposed impeachment), friend of
Joe.
Mary
Fritz,
90th, Cheshire, Wallingford. Endorsed by Family Institute,
worst
environmental record of any Democrat, long anti-gay and anti-choice
record, supported Lieberman after primary, opposed income tax, opposed
Sheff v O'Neill ruling, tied for worst overall record in House (# of
poor ratings), 25-year incumbent.
Shawn
Johnston, 51st, Killingly, Putnam & Thompson.
Tied for worst overall record in House.
Corky
Mazurek, 80th, Southington & Wolcott.
Opposed civil unions, supported health care cuts, Lieberman
booster.
Steve
Mikutel,
45th, Griswold, Lisbon, Plainfield, & Voluntown. One
of only two
Dems to vote 100% with anti-gay and anti-choice
Family
Institute,
poor labor record, supported Lieberman after primary.
Peggy
Sayers, 60th, Windsor & Windsor Locks.
Opposed campaign finance reform, buddy of Family Institute,
endorsed by NRA.
Chris
Stone, 9th, East Hartford, Glastonbury, Manchester.
Opposed campaign finance reform, municipal ethics reform, and
clean contracting bills.
Full details on the criteria and ratings for other legislators below.
Democratic National Committee Chair Howard
Dean's 50
State Strategy
is credited with helping
to shift state and federal elections
throughout the country to the side of the Democrats in the last
election. Dean seeks to revitalize
Democratic organizing at the grassroots level in every part
of the country, refusing to cede
any territory to the Republican party. Translating Dean's
successful
strategy to Connecticut would mean that
every Republican candidate is challenged by a Democrat in the general
election, and no legislative district or town is sacrificed to the GOP.
Connecticut new system of public campaign financing should
remove
the last legitimate barrier to strongly challenging Republican
incumbents in state legislative elections in 2008.
In 2006, voters from one
in six state legislative districts in Connecticut elected a Republican
who ran unopposed by any Democrat (see list below). This means that that most
Republicans elected to the General Assembly had no Democratic opposition
(33 of 57, or 58%) . In
contrast, only 28% of elected Democrats were unchallenged by a
Republican
(37 of 130). Connecticut is ranked only 22nd
in the
nation in the percentage of seats contested by both major
parties.
So while Connecticut Republicans raised only 71%
of the total funds raised by Democrats
in General Assembly elections in the last cycle, current GOP
legislators are twice as
likely to have won unchallenged by a Democrat.
Below, I discuss the free-ride Republicans, their regional
breakdown, and their vulnerability.
State
legislative candidates will find many supporters who will offer copious
advice, sometimes more than is actually helpful, on campaign
strategy. They will find fewer individuals who can provide
informed counsel on developing a public policy agenda. This
diary
is intended as a 
About four out of five likely candidates in the 2008 state legislative elections say they intend to participate in the Citizens' Election Program, according to a 
Many Republicans in Connecticut attempt to cloak themselves in a
moderate
reputation, however undeserved. Others seem eager to alienate
their
constituents, voting against their interests at every opportunity.
Reviewing legislative scorecards, I set very stringent
right-wing criteria to identify Republicans with the worst
records across a variety of issues. These legislators have
worked
hard to hurt their constituents, undermine environmental and worker
protections,
deny civil
rights, keep
guns on the street, and refuse health care.
Democrats in the state
legislature enjoy a
veto-proof majority, which,
in theory, should enable them to approve any law, regardless of
GOP opposition. Such unity of purpose remains
entirely theoretical, however, since some Democrats share more in
common with their Republican colleagues than with the voters
who elected them. As a means of ferreting out the most
unreliable Democrats,
I've tried to develop a method of gauging the performance of
elected officials that is not based on
personality, reputation, or single issue positions, but on measurable
behavior.
Democratic National Committee Chair Howard
Dean's 
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