Judiciary Committee chair volunteers to be tasered in hearing.

I am in the Judiciary Committee hearing on this snowy day at the Capitol. The Committee is holding a hearing on, among other things, a couple of bills to regulate the use of tasers.

A representative of a company that manufactures tasers was testifying about these devices, when Rep. Micheal Lawlor, House Chair of the Committee, asked if the gentleman would use a taser on Lawlor, himself, to demonstrate their safety. The gentleman agreed.

It certainly did not look or sound like a pleasant experience, but Lawlor went through with it. I do not think I have ever heard of this happening at the Capitol.

Mike Lawlor has a reputation has a very intelligent and fair legislator. This kind of thing earns him a lot of respect. Whatever position he takes on how legal these devices should be, he will not be advocating for it without putting himself on the business end of one of them.

New Britain General Hospital bonding proposal moves to Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee

The legislature's public health committee voted today to move Senate Bill 79, which was introduced by Sen. DeFronzo, to the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. The legislation would provide $1,500,000 in bond funding "for the purpose of expanding and enhancing emergency room facilities at the Hospital of Central Connecticut, " which is what New Britain General Hospital was re-named when it merged with another hospital.

Here is a link to the text of the bill, as it stands now.

This legislation had a hearing in the Public Health Committee on February 21st. As reported by Scott Whipple in The Herald, Larry Tanner, president of the Hospital, pointed out that "Patient care is being affected by the unavailability of treatment rooms, current floor plans not designed for today's high volume, lack of privacy and security for those who need it."

The Public Health Committee is the committee responsible for the health care systems in our state, but it is really the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee that makes decisions about what is included in the bond act part of the state budget. So the Finance Committee is really the right place for this bill to be.

It is especially the right place, because Sen. DeFronzo is the State chair of the Bonding Subcommitee of the Finance Committee. In addition to being a member of the Public Health Committee, I am also on the Finance Committee. So I will also be working to get this plan approved as part of the state bond act.

It goes without saying how important it is for the people of our whole area that the ER in New Britain General Hospital is for our whole region. It is important that the state can make sure that the hospital can meet these needs.

Panel discussion at the Capitol on electric rates.

I am taking advantage of the State Capitol's new wi-fi internet access (which, by the way, is available to members of the public) to write you an update while I sit in the audience of hearing room 2C listening to the Energy and Technology Committee panel discussion on electric deregulation.

Different speakers have been talking about just how big of a mistake it has been for Connecticut to enter into the strange world of "electric deregulation".

Electric deregulation is taking away the laws that limit electric prices to what it costs companies to generate the electricity and, instead, letting the owners of power plants charge us whatever the open market will bear.

Connecticut has been, for years, now been phasing-into a deregulated electric market, and this deregulation is what is at fault for the huge increases we have been having in electric rates. All indications are that rates will continue to rise, unless the deregulation is undone.

Economists and consumer advocates have discussed the disastrous effects of electric deregulation in California in which Enron and other companies bilked consumers out of huge amounts of money and the harm to consumers deregulation has caused in Texas. Texas electric customers who are subject to deregulation pay dramatically more than customers in neighboring states. This is true, nationwide. Electric consumers in states with electric deregulation pay more than customers in states that never deregulated.

So, why did this happen? It is because the legislators who were in office back in 1998 were told that Connecticut had enormously costly electric rates and that only the "market reform" of electric deregulation would lower that cost.

Well, deregulation did not cut electric rates, as was promised. Instead, electric rates went up. By the time I was elected to the legislature, even the supporters of deregulation were confessing that deregulation would not lower electric rates. In fact, they even said that they wanted electric rates to go up even more, because higher rates would make Connecticut a more attractive market for marketers of electricity and, therefore, would give us a choice of electric companies.

So, in other words, when they were first getting deregulation approved, its supporters said that it would lower electric rates by creating choice of electricity suppliers. Now, they say that we must pay higher prices so that we can have a choice of electric suppliers. If this does not make any sense to you, don't feel bad. It does not make any sense to me, either.

That is why I am working so hard in support of legislation to undo electric deregulation and lower electric rates.

I will try to write, in the future, some more details about what needs to be done to go back to a common-sense system and lower electric rates.