CT Progressive

Working Families gets an editorial into the Advocate on the subject of Paid Sick Days.

I don’t have a lot to add, except that this is one area where the absence of Jim Amann is most noticeable: the bill passed the State Senate twice, only to be crushed by Speaker Amann at the last minute each time.

Reading down the list of coalition supporters of the bill, ConnSACS (Sexual Assault Crisis Center) jumped out at me as a unique partner – it turns out that in the 2008 and 2009 versions, allowing victims of sexual assault and stalking the ability to use paid sick leave to get medical or psychological services, to relocate, or to participate in court proceedings.

One less positive change from the 2007 version was a revision of those workplaces impacted by the law, changing from those with 15 or more employees in the 2007 version to 50 or more employees in 2008. That cuts most of the non-chain restaurants and retail operations out of the law, and one State Rep that I asked said that the provision made it easy for them to support, “since it wouldn’t impact any businesses in town that don’t already have” paid sick days.

You have to start someplace, I suppose – but it’s a shame that a compromise that failed to win over the conservative Dems last year has become the high-water mark for what we can achieve at all this year.

While I’m setting up the scaffolding here, not every addition to the blogroll is going to get its own post, but one came across the wire today that I think merits special attention: via Lennie at OIB, check out The Laurel, a blog by reporter-turned-consultant Duby McDowell and lobbyist Kevin Hill on the Connecticut news media.

One of the biggest challenges in observing and discussing the media is that, while these outlets put out a daily product, their inner workings are obscure. And most newsrooms are reluctant to treat details of their own staff changes or internal reorganizations as newsworthy – even less so with the shrinking number of owners, as publishers try not to embarrass themselves by announcing weaker coverage in advance.

How much “dishing” there will be remains to be seen – as a consultant, McDowell still needs people to take her calls – but it’s promising to see a blog from someone experienced in the business reporting on the business. I’ll certainly be watching the site.

“Something flickered for a minute, then it vanished and was gone.”
— Lou Reed

A week ago, Ned Lamont’s Facebook politician page casually mentioned that he was a candidate for Senate in 2012 — a soft roll-out with Facebook ads and all — but the page got taken down. Hopefully he didn’t, you know, change his mind.

Update: Turns out it’s a bit of Irish tomfoolery from these folks, University of Cork students doing an American Politics project. Ah well.

As a slightly lesser tease of a Ned 2012 run, you can check out this video that Scarce posted after the Homeland Security chairmanship vote. “Never say never.”

Via Matt Browner-Hamlin, a press release from Senator Russ Feingold:

“The controversies surrounding some of the recent gubernatorial appointments to vacant Senate seats make it painfully clear that such appointments are an anachronism that must end. In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution gave the citizens of this country the power to finally elect their senators. They should have the same power in the case of unexpected mid term vacancies, so that the Senate is as responsive as possible to the will of the people. I plan to introduce a constitutional amendment this week to require special elections when a Senate seat is vacant, as the Constitution mandates for the House, and as my own state of Wisconsin already requires by statute. As the Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee, I will hold a hearing on this important topic soon.”

It’s an added bonus that the Chair of the Constitution Subcommittee is inclined to see the Constitution amended at all, an unfortunate rarity among Dems in recent years. More, please.

It’s a new legislative session, which means it’s time for the Senate Vacancy Law to come roaring back into style. Last year, legislative leaders downplayed expectations of the bill’s passage, but this year it’s looking much more favorable.

You can contact your State Reps and State Senators on the bill — currently known as H.B. 5829 and introduced by Rep. Tim O’Brien.

You can also contact the House and Senate leadership (House Speaker Donovan, Majority Leader Merrill, and Senate President Williams), as well as Government Administration and Elections chairs Gayle Slossberg and James Spallone.

Or, you can get your Town Committee to endorse this well-made resolution drafted up by the Hampton DTC, available below the fold.

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One of the problems with discussing the successes and failures of our political parties is the reality that relatively few activists have had the opportunity to experience them first-hand, especially at the statewide or national levels. These organizations have their own rhythm and logic, and it’s hard to come up with reforms to address shortcomings in a culture you don’t fully understand.

I’ve made an effort to attend Democratic State Central committee meetings during the last two years, and it seems to me that sharing notes of these meetings is a worthwhile service for activists to understand what the parties do (and don’t do). I’ve written up minutes below the fold.

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Sent from Nancy DiNardo to Joe Lieberman last week:

1/16/2009

Dear Senator Lieberman:

I am writing to you in my capacity as Chairwoman of the Connecticut Democratic Party and on behalf of the Democratic State Central Committee to express the committee’s profound disappointment with your words and actions during the course of the 2008 Presidential campaign. As you may know, the Democratic State Central Committee met on December 17, 2008 and they voted to have a letter be sent to you expressing their anger at your actions during this historic election.

Your decision to speak at the Republican National Convention and your support of the McCain-Palin ticket and Republican Congressional candidates directly contradicted the stated purposes of the Democratic Party and undermined the efforts of our candidates in Connecticut and across the nation.

An election is not about personalities, it is a contest of ideas. Your support of Republican candidates and of the views of Reverend John Hagee sent a message that you supported the failed policies of the past and supported views that are considered, at best, anti-Catholic and anti-gay. These allegiances represent a fundamental deviation from the values that our candidates and supporters of the Democratic Party hold dear.

Due to the failed policies of President Bush, our nation faces an economic and fiscal crisis unlike any other since the Great Depression. We remain a nation at war overseas. Present-elect Obama and your Democratic colleagues in the United States Senate need your unequivocal and active support to make us stronger at home and to regain respect throughout the world.

We ask that you apologize to President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden for the unfounded words that you uttered in the heat of the campaign, questioning their ability to govern. We hope and expect that you will work constructively with the new Democratic President and Congress, and will give your full and active support to the Democratic agenda to help enact the policies and reforms so badly needed to get America headed in the right direction.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

[Signature]

Nancy DiNardo
Chairwoman, DSCC

I could critique the letter at length (for example, Lieberman’s comments about Obama were scripted and read off of teleprompters, not said “in the heat of the campaign”), but overall a decent effort.

The previous incarnation of the site – the “News Wire” – was an exciting idea that proved too big and complex to get going all at once. Still, I’ve missed active blogging, and despite the privilege of taking part in a successful group blog for the last two years, I’ve really been looking for an outlet with a narrower and more focused mission, and so ctprogressive.net is back for a second (and more modest) run.

I’m a progressive Democrat, and I’m interested in grassroots political organizing – especially field (canvassing, voter files/data), media (letter-writing, rapid response), and institution building. 

This week has been a strange time to start a site like this. On the one hand, President Obama was just sworn in, and his campaign has been very willing to credit organizers and volunteers with his victory in public. On the other, progress towards a more grassroots-friendly, decentralized Democratic Party looks to be receding with the rolling-back of Howard Dean’s 50-State Strategy, and the seeming triumph of progressive politics in the state represented by Chris Donovan’s ascension to Speaker of the House soured by the tone-deaf and bone-headed decision to hire the notoriously conservative Jim Amann as a policy advisor.

Of course, after a media uproar and a fair amount of negative feedback, Donovan and Amann called it off – but the situation highlights a few issues that contrast the relationship progressives have with the Democratic Party and the one conservatives have with the Republicans. First, the elected Democratic leadership obviously wasn’t in touch with anybody on the ground in the run-up to that decision being made. This is an echo of party leaders trying to keep Lieberman in the fold after a high-participation whooping in the 2006 primary – word from the grassroots doesn’t seem to be reaching our leadership no matter how clear the message.

In contrast, Republicans, from the legislative leadership to their state party to the letter-writing activists sprung into action simultaneously, and while I wish progressives could claim credit for putting the brakes on the Amann pick, I don’t think that’s very realistic. Coordination counts, and we largely lack it.

Finally, newspapers around the state immediately panned the pick, which is something that happens with alarming frequency to Democrats. As former Speaker, Amann is certainly qualified for a senior advisor position, and the caucuses have a staffing budget that gets spent regardless of whether the money goes to one guy or a raft of legislative aides, so the unanimity of the response was remarkable, especially since the legislative Republicans gave a similar golden umbrella to fallen politician David Cappiello just days earlier. That reflexive posture towards Democrats is the result of years of sustained conservative pressure on the media – attacking the relatively conservative Courant as being too liberal, along with practically every other newspaper and media outlet in the country. It illustrates the value of a sustained long-term strategy to shape the political environment, and as the roll-up of the “50 State Strategy” illustrates, we too rarely maintain even successful strategies over here on the left.

So, that should give you a sense of what “beats” I’d like to cover here – looking at the way both “the party” and “the movement” function and relate to one another, learning lessons from worthwhile and/or effective strategies wherever they come from geographically or ideologically, and seeing how we can use those lessons learned to be better advocates for our political interests. Plus, of course, some tidbits on the day to day goings-on of politics in the state. It should be a blast.