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The final 24 hours of the legislative session are is always a perilous time. The Senate provided a vivd reminder of the danger posed by darkness. It voted 35-0 to gag the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) and send some other startling messages.

The bill, brought out by Senate President Martin Looney, serving his twentieth term in the legislature, would limit the SEEC executive director to two four-year terms. They have finally found a term limit they can support. It would strip the commission of its power to act in a variety of enforcement acts, including general auditing and enforcing rules on straw donors.

A tranche of dismayed House Democrats, Daily Ruction can report, has mobilized to oppose the bill and expects to be able to run the clock down on the surprise measure that is a bipartisan concoction created in the Senate.

As a curiosity, the bill contains this provision that looks like what is often called a rat:

One other odd moment: Senator Mae Flexer, who co-chairs the committee that oversees elections law, declined to bring out the bill on the floor of the upper chamber, but she voted for it.

Nothing subtle here. The legislative calendar is crowded with bills as the session nears an end and legislators Mae Flexer, Matt Lesser and Quentin Phipps have decided it’s the right time to solicit donations from lobbyists for Middletown Democratic mayoral candidate Mary Bartolotta. Flexer and Phipps are the hosts, Lesser the “special guest.”

They could not have waited a week until the legislative session ended? The unseemly scheduling of the event for Bartolotta, whose campaign for her party’s nomination appears to be in distress, finds the trio of Democratic legislators trying to deploy their maximum influence on behalf of Bartolotta. It’s a reminder that the state’s campaign finance laws need to be amended to address legislators soliciting lobbyists for their friends during the legislative session.

Suggested donations are $100, $250, and $500. The event is at The Officer’s Club in Hartford, a short walk from the Capitol complex for the army of lobbyists at their posts.

Governor Ned Lamont is not a model of consistency in seeking to find the right size for Connecticut’s deficit-ridden government. Capitol insiders expect a late proposal to expand the state’s Public Utility Regulatory Agency (PURA) from three members to five.

The purpose of the legislation, which will be slipped into a bill with other purposes, is to give a job to former Democratic state chairman Nick Balletto, the loyal soldier who stood down from his party leadership position to make way for former Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman.

State Comptroller Kevin Lembo is not pleased. Lembo complained to The Hartford Courant that health insurance giant CIGNA threatened to leave Connecticut if state government went into competition against it. CIGNA denies making the threat.

Lembo waited until late last week to unveil his plan to expand state government’s role in providing health insurance in a state struggling to maintain and expand its reputation as an insurance center. He complained to The Courant that CIGNA asked for a variety of last minute changes. Time keepers in the legislature thought that Lembo waited until the last minute to unveil his complex proposal.

Revealing a major piece of legislation late in the legislation comes with risks and rewards. Opponents and careful examiners of the bill may not have enough time to mount an effective opposition but they can assert the argument that it’s unfair to proceed with so little time left in the legislature. They may also warn legislators that they may not understand the consequences of that is before them. Proponents of a complex bill may use the ticking clock to avoid scrutiny while quickly building momentum for a proposal that sounds good but may have unknown consequences.

In this case, the public option proposal seeks to convince legislators that of hundreds of thousands of people working in the health insurance business, Lembo is the one who knows how to lower its cost. And he’s right here in Connecticut! The Lamont administration (and at least one person close to it) decided to take the risk of backing a complex proposal it helped to shape as the legislature nears the end of its regular session with a budget yet to be adopted. It was a risky strategy, though the proposal cannot be considered dead until midnight next Wednesday as Lembo may not yet be ready to return to the sidelines.

Governor Ned Lamont may want to read the report by the Connecticut Economic Resource Center (CERC) on the health insurance industry, and the state’s economy before he agrees to have the state become their competitor. You can contact expert healthcare lawyers to know about health care regulations based in Colorado, healthcare insurance, and more.

The comments that accompany the report on investment for senior long term care, which are below, provide a polite warning that health insurance companies will consider leaving Connecticut if the state goes into competition against them. The coda to thanking Aetna for staying in Hartford cannot not be that the state is gong to try to take your business and operate under much more lax rules than the insurance companies do.

Also here is a summary of the report, which was prepared for the Connecticut Association of Health Plans:

Insurance Matters to CT Releases New Study on Health Plans Economic and Job Impact on Connecticut

Hartford, CT – A recent study on Connecticut’s health plans confirms their significant contribution to state’s economic health. The study, produced by the Connecticut Economic Resource Center (CERC), demonstrates a $15 billion a year positive economic output generated by the health plans based in Connecticut: Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, ConnectiCare, Harvard Pilgrim, and United. These health plans employ over 17,000 employees directly and support another 31,000 indirectly in Connecticut, for a total of 48,000 jobs.

“The study proves how important health plans are to Hartford remaining the insurance capital of the world. There are 25,000 good paying health plan related jobs in the Hartford region that are being recruited by other states. As a state, we need to stay competitive and support the growth of the industry here, which includes pushing back against legislation that says government run insurance is a better model,” says Steve Jewett, a West Hartford homeowner, a former health executive, and spokesperson for the coalition Insurance Matters to CT.

“We can’t take for granted that they stay here, insurers are being courted by other states. The region’s economy, housing prices, and vitality are all dependent on a healthy local insurance workforce.” 

“A public option poses a significant risk to Connecticut’s economy, including the loss of 5,000 private sector jobs and $1.6 billion in annual economic output,” says CBIA president and CEO Joe Brennan.

“That’s not a risk worth taking for a state-run healthcare program that will neither lower premium costs nor improve the quality of care while further burdening taxpayers and small businesses.”

“Big anchor companies support the eco-system of small business and retailers. When they get downsized, we feel the impact too. We need to create a business environment where the health plans choose to grow here and not in other parts of the country. They have operations throughout the US and global footprints, they have choices,” said Tim Phelan, President of the Retail Merchants Association.

The study by CERC uses the IMPLAN economic impact method. For this study, economic output measures the value of production by a business or industry, including total sales and inventory changes.

Additional summary tables will be forthcoming when the full report is released.

We bewail the vexing troubles of the rich. Such burdens they lug around in their Teslas. The tale is told in vivid detail in a May 10th court filing (excerpts posted above) by state Senator Alexandra Bergstein (D-Greenwich), refuting claims of her defendant husband, Seth Bergstein, about her spending marital assets.

Alexandra Bergstein declared at Wesleyan University recently that is she now free to fight a war on privilege. Perhaps it was that $20,000 in cash that went missing from the safe in the marital home. Mrs. Bergstein accuses Mr. Bergstein of taking it. She is aggrieved.

Mr. Bergstein spent $47,000 on tickets at Madison Square Garden. The rich have to be many places. She is aggrieved.

Then there was the check to the Adirondack League Club. She accuses him of tearing it up when a fee was due to the tony 53,000 acre elite club. How could he do that when he had just joined the Harmonie Club, New York’s second oldest social club? He already belongs to five social clubs. She is aggrieved.

To pay $5,000 a month to rent a place to live is a mere bagatelle for Alexandra Bergstein, and Seth Bergstein should not be complaining, don’t you know. She is no longer surrounded by the furnishings, artwork and other luxuries to which she became accustomed during what she characterizes in her public motion as a loveless marriage for the past 15 years. She is aggrieved.

Bergstein’s war on privilege is an erratic affair. Her office is on the second floor of the Legislative Office Building (LOB), which is the ground floor of the east side of the building. There is a heat vent outside the building near Bergstein’s office. It has been there for many years. A woman who appeared to be homeless would stand there, near the exit from I-84, to warm herself during the winter. Alexandra Bergstein objected. She complained to the Capitol police. The privilege warrior wanted the woman removed and her own security increased, Daily Ructions has learned from multiple sources. Her requests were denied because the poor are allowed to seek warmth in public places to which have sadly had become accustomed. They are aggrieved.

The Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA) opposes Governor Ned Lamont’s proposal to impose a network of tolls on Connecticut highways. The statement, which was posted and disappeared last week, is here.

CBIA has been an erratic supporter of sensible state fiscal government policies. The organization was a key booster of the critical 1991 decision to enact a state income tax in 1991, ignoring warnings that the tax would inevitably rise and fund unrestrained spending.

Here’s part of CBIA’s statement on tolls:

“Improving our infrastructure is part of the solution, but there is widespread distrust that transportation funds will go to transportation projects, despite the lock box, because of the state’s continued fiscal instability and a history of diverting funds to cover spending levels rather than for economic investments like transportation.”

Lamont’s moving target of a tolls plan appears not to have enough support to pass in any form in the remaining two weeks of the regular legislative session. The legislature is expected to convene a special session this summer to consider adding to the cost of living in Connecticut.

Governor Ned Lamont told a Washington business group on March 31st about “big savings we’ll soon be able to announce on health care very soon with our state employees.” Seven weeks later, Lamont has yet to announce a deal.

Details from Lamont of what savings he’s been able to achieve in negotiations with the unions would assist the legislature craft a budget in the final weeks of the legislative session. State employees would also like to know what those “big savings” will mean to them.

Daily Ructions readers, I want to share a personal note. It has been my good fortune to know the incomparable Phyllis Salvin Tierney for the past 35 years. Phyllis departed this world in peace Wednesday night. I cannot properly convey the joy of knowing Phyllis, but this beautiful tribute does. I’ve known people as funny as Phyllis, but no one funnier.

What is the matter with Ned Lamont? The CTMirror.org highlights his stunning offer to get his toll proposal passed: Vote for it and I will give you money.

Lamont’s promise to raise money for Democrats who are reluctant to vote to punish working people is causing considerable unease in the Capitol village. Lamont’s tawdry inducement would be a violation of the law if it was made by others to legislators considering legislation.

Lamont has spent $50 million of his fortune in three statewide elections, losing two of them. It is unlikely that he would have been a serious candidate in any of those races if he were not the lucky descendant of a wealthy American family. Money spent on campaigns has been the critical element of Lamont’s viability as a candidate. He made the mistake on Wednesday of letting the mask slip and revealing he thinks Democratic legislators share his calculation.

Lamont embarrassed them and diminished himself with his taste for the naked transaction of legislation for donations.