Post by WaTcHeR on Apr 25, 2006 12:30:21 GMT -5
04/25/2006 - It was a bad week for reporters, who have the time, training and inclination to be your liaisons with the policymakers, agency officials and others who wallow at Connecticut's public trough. It was a very bad week for the public's right to know.
The House of Representatives' Democratic majority pushed through an obscure, cockamamie bill that could help protect the identities of corrupt state and local officials. It should be called the "Let the Crooks Hide Act" or, better yet, the "McCluskey Secrecy Act of 2006."
Oh no, it can't be so, you say. We're over that Corrupticut thing and lawmakers — particularly "good-government" Democrats in an election year — are on notice that we want thieves off the state payroll and into prison.
I mean, didn't the House also approve a landmark shield law last week, to protect reporters from disclosing their sources in court?
Well, an amendment to that legislation substitutes the shield for a fig leaf, leaving it wide open for judges to order reporters to testify in criminal cases.
But the paramount outrage of the week was "An Act Concerning the Disclosure of the Residential Addresses of Certain Public Employees," which passed 132-5. It was originally drafted to protect union employees in the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services from perceived future harassment, although there's little evidence that there have been any cases.
Currently the addresses of law enforcement, firefighters and correction officers and the Department of Children and Families are not disclosable under the state Freedom of Information Act. Rep. David McCluskey, D-West Hartford, a thin-skinned legislative dwarf with strong union ties, fancies himself as a good-government type.
So, in the manner that some lawmakers' craniums can expand beyond their hat size, he decided to extend the legislation, which can now be read to make all addresses of people working for the state or local government exempt from public view.
According to last week's debate, during which lawmakers on both sides did not realize the ramifications, even the addresses of senators and House members could become private if this bill is approved in the Senate and not vetoed by the governor.
"This isn't for the unions," McCluskey said with a straight face to a clutch of reporters outside the House. "There have been threats to personnel," he said.
"We promised the unions four bills this year," Speaker of the House Jim Amann told several reporters 10 minutes earlier.
"The unions are for this?" said Senate Minority Leader Lou DeLuca, R-Woodbury, with an inflection of sarcasm, after
the House vote. "They want secrecy? I am shocked. It's another case of the unions talking one way and acting another."
So why should you, the taxpayer, care about whether the address of someone at the public trough is secret or not?
Well, this issue is more important than the shield law — in which a whistle-blowing source needs anonymity — which reporters need very rarely. What happens much more frequently are instances of isolated wrongdoing, exposed by a tip and then investigated by reporters.
You find a corrupt engineer in the Department of Transportation who's suspended pending a criminal investigation? The McCluskey Act would protect his address from reporters who could otherwise track down the $200,000 addition a state contractor might have made on his house.
Knowing that his address was prohibited from public disclosure, you could argue that this bill would encourage corruption. Fortunately, the pending bill is so poorly drafted that it may collapse of its own unbearable lightness before the May 3 adjournment deadline.
"However you look at it, it's not written very well," said Rep. Mike Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who admitted that he wasn't familiar with the details when he voted for it. "It seems like a bizarre thing." But it's scary, especially since McCluskey conned the House into approving it 132-5. When surrounded by a half dozen miffed Capitol reporters outside the House, he talked about the need to keep sensitive information from terrorists.
When a self-styled union-lovin' lefty Democrat starts talking like a White House spokesman, blathering about our "post-Sept. 11" security needs, taxpayers should become concerned.
A terrorist isn't going to target corrupt DOT department heads; on-the-take DPW functionaries; self-serving DEP inspectors, all of which we've had — and seen exposed — in recent years. This is the kind of short-sighted, overreaching legislation that gives the General Assembly the reputation of being a kindergarten without adult supervision.
The House of Representatives' Democratic majority pushed through an obscure, cockamamie bill that could help protect the identities of corrupt state and local officials. It should be called the "Let the Crooks Hide Act" or, better yet, the "McCluskey Secrecy Act of 2006."
Oh no, it can't be so, you say. We're over that Corrupticut thing and lawmakers — particularly "good-government" Democrats in an election year — are on notice that we want thieves off the state payroll and into prison.
I mean, didn't the House also approve a landmark shield law last week, to protect reporters from disclosing their sources in court?
Well, an amendment to that legislation substitutes the shield for a fig leaf, leaving it wide open for judges to order reporters to testify in criminal cases.
But the paramount outrage of the week was "An Act Concerning the Disclosure of the Residential Addresses of Certain Public Employees," which passed 132-5. It was originally drafted to protect union employees in the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services from perceived future harassment, although there's little evidence that there have been any cases.
Currently the addresses of law enforcement, firefighters and correction officers and the Department of Children and Families are not disclosable under the state Freedom of Information Act. Rep. David McCluskey, D-West Hartford, a thin-skinned legislative dwarf with strong union ties, fancies himself as a good-government type.
So, in the manner that some lawmakers' craniums can expand beyond their hat size, he decided to extend the legislation, which can now be read to make all addresses of people working for the state or local government exempt from public view.
According to last week's debate, during which lawmakers on both sides did not realize the ramifications, even the addresses of senators and House members could become private if this bill is approved in the Senate and not vetoed by the governor.
"This isn't for the unions," McCluskey said with a straight face to a clutch of reporters outside the House. "There have been threats to personnel," he said.
"We promised the unions four bills this year," Speaker of the House Jim Amann told several reporters 10 minutes earlier.
"The unions are for this?" said Senate Minority Leader Lou DeLuca, R-Woodbury, with an inflection of sarcasm, after
the House vote. "They want secrecy? I am shocked. It's another case of the unions talking one way and acting another."
So why should you, the taxpayer, care about whether the address of someone at the public trough is secret or not?
Well, this issue is more important than the shield law — in which a whistle-blowing source needs anonymity — which reporters need very rarely. What happens much more frequently are instances of isolated wrongdoing, exposed by a tip and then investigated by reporters.
You find a corrupt engineer in the Department of Transportation who's suspended pending a criminal investigation? The McCluskey Act would protect his address from reporters who could otherwise track down the $200,000 addition a state contractor might have made on his house.
Knowing that his address was prohibited from public disclosure, you could argue that this bill would encourage corruption. Fortunately, the pending bill is so poorly drafted that it may collapse of its own unbearable lightness before the May 3 adjournment deadline.
"However you look at it, it's not written very well," said Rep. Mike Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who admitted that he wasn't familiar with the details when he voted for it. "It seems like a bizarre thing." But it's scary, especially since McCluskey conned the House into approving it 132-5. When surrounded by a half dozen miffed Capitol reporters outside the House, he talked about the need to keep sensitive information from terrorists.
When a self-styled union-lovin' lefty Democrat starts talking like a White House spokesman, blathering about our "post-Sept. 11" security needs, taxpayers should become concerned.
A terrorist isn't going to target corrupt DOT department heads; on-the-take DPW functionaries; self-serving DEP inspectors, all of which we've had — and seen exposed — in recent years. This is the kind of short-sighted, overreaching legislation that gives the General Assembly the reputation of being a kindergarten without adult supervision.