CT Progressive

Cramdown provisions – allowing bankruptcy courts to adjust the amount owed by homeowners – is coming to the House floor this week.

This is a great idea – not just because it has the potential to keep a lot of people in their homes, but because it’s the first major reversal of the anti-consumer practices of the last two decades in bankruptcy and banking regulation.

It will also be important as a means of evaluating the reliability of our new Democratic Congress – this is the one item that the lenders that kicked off our current crisis don’t want to see passed. It’ll be interesting to see if the “New Democrats” caucus has the stones to try and stop it.

Shelly Sindland has mentioned the possibility of the largely unknown Scott Bates running in next year’s Democratic primary:

While Bates may not be a household name in Connecticut, he has an impressive resume. He has been to Iraq too many times to count—working on keeping weapons away from terrorists and working with local politicians there to promote democracy in Qatar and Bahrain.

He also has an impressive political background. Besides being the elected Police Commissioner for his hometown of Stonington, Bates was the youngest Secretary of State in the nation history when he held that office in Virginia at the age of 26.

He also has worked for Joe Lieberman, Doug Wilder–the first elected black Governor, a Congressman from Illinois and for a time, worked as a Democratic Caucus leader at the Virginia State Capitol.

I don’t know enough about him to have a sense of whether he’d be good or not, but from the way he describes himself, it sounds to me like a bit of bad news for Malloy — at least within whatever built-in constituency exists among Democratic primary voters for a youngish, white, male, just-right-of-liberal technocrat with a long resume of government service across state lines.

He’ll be on TV on Sunday morning — the full slate of Connecticut talking heads can be seen over at The Laurel.

Question, via Rick Green: Great GOP Divide: Pragmatism Or Posturing?

I’m critical of Rick’s columns sometimes, but I have to give him credit here for a great get:

State Republican Chairman Chris Healy told me that what the most popular Republican in the state supports is “a fairly awful piece of legislation. … We argue that this is not a stimulus and it is a spending spree.”

I asked him why national Republicans are opposed to this while Republicans-with-actual-jobs such as Rell and Gov. James Douglas of Vermont and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California are pleading for it.

“We do have differences,” Healy admitted. “She has to make the trains run.”

The Republican Chairman would prefer to, what, see the trains left to rot? Beaten into plowshares?

I obviously can’t speak for progressives categorically, but those that I know seem, to a person, to be involved in politics as a means to a variety of ends: getting cleaner air and water, allowing poor people to get decent medical care, letting old people retire with dignity, and, well, making the trains run. Healy casually admitting that he could give one damn about government working or not working is pretty amazing.

Oh, and just in case you were remembering those “moderate northeastern Republicans” more fondly in retrospect…

Which is why the Republicans in Washington look so feeble here. Former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, very likely Chris Dodd’s opponent next year and an old hand in Congress, explained the dichotomy to me.

“The members of Congress have a different set of responsibilities. They may have greater concern for the long-term impact. Where you stand depends on where you sit,” Simmons said.

“If you sit in the governor’s chair, you have to solve this budget problem. If you sit in the House and Senate, you have to make sure that you don’t collapse the economy more than you already have.”

“I would have voted against it,” Simmons told me.

All of this is pretty revealing. Which do you think is more long-term — taking political potshots or reaching across the aisle and finding common ground?

If your only goal is getting Republicans elected, then you’d want to go the “potshots” route. Which is why Healy has been working himself into such a lather lately.

Lamont debates conservative Catholic priest Father John Morris on the stimulus package:

“But Father, I can’t judge the Catholic church by what some individual priests do. I don’t judge this bill by what some individual items are.”

Ned’s getting a little bit of street brawling on there.

A quote from a Connecticut politician earlier in the week - which I haven’t been able to re-find, sadly - went along the lines of how we all have to sacrifice even though “there are very few individuals that are specifically responsible” for the financial crisis that we’re in. I remember that part of the line, because I immediately thought “Well, why don’t we find those people and make them sacrifice more?”

Seems like a couple members of the CT delegation are thinking the same way. Dodd gets busy at the negotiating table:

WASHINGTON — A provision buried deep inside the $787 billion economic stimulus bill would impose restrictions on executive bonuses at financial institutions that are much tougher than those proposed 10 days ago by the Treasury Department.

The provision, inserted by Senate Democrats over the objections of the Obama administration, is aimed at companies that have received financial bailout funds. It would prohibit cash bonuses and almost all other incentive compensation for the five most senior officers and the 20 highest-paid executives at large companies that receive money under the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. [...]

The pay restrictions resemble those that the Treasury Department announced this month, but are likely to ensnare more executives at many more companies and also to cut more deeply into the bonuses that often account for the bulk of annual pay.

The restriction with the most bite would bar top executives from receiving bonuses exceeding one-third of their annual pay. Any bonus would have to be in the form of long-term incentives, like restricted stock, which could not be cashed out until the TARP money was repaid in full.

The provision, written by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, highlighted the growing wrath among lawmakers and voters over the lavish compensation that top Wall Street firms and big banks awarded to senior executives at the same time that many of the companies, teetering on the brink of insolvency, received taxpayer-paid bailouts.

“The decisions of certain Wall Street executives to enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers have seriously undermined public confidence,” Mr. Dodd said Friday. “These tough new rules will help ensure that taxpayer dollars no longer effectively subsidize lavish Wall Street bonuses.”

… while John Larson gets busy on the soapbox:

“We need new leadership on Wall Street, leadership of a higher caliber that can be trusted with taxpayer money. We need leadership that understands the value of a dollar to the average American. We need CEO’s that don’t spend obscene amounts of money on personal luxuries and bonuses while their actions have caused millions of Americans to lose their homes, their jobs and their health care.

“To date, few of those who got America into this economic crisis have been required to take responsibility for it. In fact, they have continued to make it absolutely clear that they are incapable of restoring the viability and integrity of our financial system. Therefore, it is time for the CEO’s of Wall Street’s crippled financial institutions to pack their bags and go.

Good stuff.

Matt at Hold Fast brings word of a new Progressive Caucus forming amongst the House Democrats, with CT-02 Representative Joe Courtney as a founding member.

Nothing against the old Progressive Caucus – in fact, I think I may have a Barbara Lee Speaks for Me bumper sticker kicking around somewhere – but they really were a weak, cash-strapped, and hopelessly disorganized bunch. Let’s hope for better things from the new caucus.

Update: They’re actually calling it the “Populist Caucus.” Whatever, so long as the job gets done. From Rep. Bruce Braley of Iowa:

The Populist Caucus will make its first major play by advocating for the inclusion of a “Buy American” provision in the stimulus package. Fair trade, healthcare and middle-class tax policy will also dominate the caucus’ agenda, said Braley, a sophomore member.

So I’ve had a grand time prowling through campaign finance reports in the past, and while Cappiello and Sullivan are no longer with us, Shays is still delivering some pretty impressive dirt.

Shays campaign manager Michael Sohn has been alleged to have ripped the campaign off over the last couple of years, and news hit the wire last night of the amount that we’re talking about:

According to Shays’ campaign, Sohn made $70,492 in unauthorized ATM withdrawals, wrote 31 checks to himself totaling $99,080 and ran up $21,835 on a debit card. [...]

“It ultimately took having to go directly to the bank to get accurate financial statements to compare against and confirm the fact that there was something going on,” [Shays spokesman Michael] Fox said.

Shays is now seeking money from supporters to pay off about $207,000 in campaign debt, including some $190,000 in alleged fraudulent charges by the architect of his re-election bid, according to Fox.

Of course, there’s a lot of data to paw through in the 11 re-filed documents, and a lot more than just the unauthorized charges changed.

The most important question to my view is just how that much money disappears from somebody else’s bank account (i.e., the account managed by treasurer Ralph DePanfilis) over the span of two years without them noticing it. And even if that amount of money was in fact ripped off, what bearing does that have on the payment or non-payment of the campaign’s employees and vendors? (That is to say, how did Sohn’s alleged stealing make the earlier payments to vendors invalid?)

It makes me think that one of two things had to be going on: either there was a separate bank account that the treasurer never saw, or there are more people involved than just Michael Sohn.

The new filings have over 400 more records than the originals – and more than 1700 other changes, to records in almost every category. So there’s a lot more to discover about how these problems happened.

The boys over at Capitol Watch got an advance copy of Nancy Wyman’s letter on her interest or non-interest in running for Governor in 2010, and their impression was that Wyman was “stepping back” from a run.

Two day later, someone I know that received it wrote me an email that said that she was indeed exploring a run. So obviously, different people can read different things into the letter – so I’m attaching it below for the curious.

My sense is that she is exploring a run, but is making a mistake both politically and policy-wise by shunning the bully-pulpit that comes with even a potential candidacy. Column-inches and airtime don’t necessarily come easily, and if an elected official makes a proposal with nobody around to hear it…

In any case, the letter is below.

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If there’s anyone reading this that hasn’t been following the Federal “stimulus package” as it wends its way through the sausage factory in Congress, the Senate – led by Joe Lieberman, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins – removed a number of the beneficial items from the House version, and replaced them with (essentially) more tax benefits for the very wealthy.

Don Williams (a potential Gubernatorial candidate) has a couple of things to say about this development:

While final calculations are still being made, it is estimated that Connecticut could lose approximately $350 million if the new Senate version of the stimulus package replaces the original.

In a letter to Senator Lieberman and Senator Dodd, Senator Williams writes, “Please reconsider the very harmful changes to the federal stimulus package proposed in the latest Senate version of the package. The elimination of crucial funding to support education, healthcare and information technology, alternative energy, and state budgetary assistance will have destructive consequences for Connecticut and the other forty-nine states.” [...]

“The changes in the Senate plan represent lost opportunities to put in place the resources that are critical to our economic recovery in the long term, and a loss of jobs and stimulus that are critical to the immediate economic survival of Connecticut families in the short term,” writes Senator Williams.

A Public Defender brought to my attention a list of 130 “obsolete laws” that the Governor wants stripped out of the State Statutes. Gideon highlights one in particular (second from the last in Rell’s list), saying:

If you’re too lazy to click on the link, I’ll tell you what it is: the deportation parole statute. The statute essentially says that if someone is not a citizen and has a final order of deportation, then the DOC shall refer that inmate to parole for release to INS for eventual deportation.

The purpose of this statute is clear, and in my opinion, pretty useful. If an individual is going to get deported anyway, then why should the State pay for the full period of incarceration? Eliminating this bill would ensure that every inmate who could (and probably should) get deported, will instead be housed at correctional facilities in the State, at expense to the taxpayers. Where are the savings in this? Doesn’t this increase costs? Under the statute (when actually enforced), an inmate serving a sentence of 20 years could potentially cost the state only 10 years of incarceration. Now, there would be no potential savings at all. Either someone mistakenly included this statute on the list or there’s some ulterior motive not having to do with saving money.

I decided it would be worthwhile to see which of Rell’s proposed changes are serious, and which changes are actually removing obsolete laws from the books. Part one is below. I’m working backwards from the end of the list available here.

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