Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Republican Blockade

The hearings investigating the Marco Polo fundraiser have commenced, and the Republicans appear to be laying their bodies across the tracks to hold them up.
The first day of legislative hearings into events surrounding a campaign fundraiser for Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell produced few facts and got bogged down Wednesday by protests from the GOP, which claimed the process was unfairly partisan and unnecessary.

"I still do not know why we're here and doing this now," said Rep. Livvy Floren, R-Greenwich, the ranking Republican on the legislature's Government Administration and Elections Committee.
...
[Rell campaign treasurer Luigi] Vasquez's appearance came after the bipartisan committee battled for about four hours over the rules, procedures and scope of the hearings. Republicans offered numerous amendments that died on party-line votes. (AP)

What are they up to? Is this about precedent, as Rep. Robert Farr (R-West Hartford) said, or about something else? Is this about Democrats steamrolling Republicans, or Republicans obstructing an investigation?

I tend to suspect the latter. The public has a right to know why, for example, elections enforcement director Jeffrey Garfield sent an email to the Rell campaign containing a proposed settlement to the Moody fiasco.

Procedure and precedent are important, this is true. But the fact remains that these hearings wouldn't be happening if there wasn't something to investigate. Republicans should cooperate.

Source

"Legislators launch hearings into Rell campaign fundraiser." Associated Press 10 May, 2006.

2 comments:

ctkeith said...

Consensus allowed Hartford to become the sewer of corruption it is today.If everybody is happy, like Hartford was during the 90s, then they're all stealing.

I loved the partisanship I saw today while watching the start of these hearings and especially liked watching those dum-ass Republicans ask for 24Hrs advanced notice of the names of witnesses when they were getting 72hrs + before their assinine amendment.

It's about time we saw friction between the party's in Hartford.Friction exposes corruption and if this becomes a trend I'll expect many,From both sides of the aisle, to be exposed for the thousands of obvious conflicts of interest that have become accepted behavior in our Legislature.

BRING IT ON!!

David said...

What are the Republicans trying to hide? Don't we have an open government?