Much muttering in the Capitol village. Every session a few bills garner much more attention that their substance would suggest they merit. This year it’s auto dealers v. Tesla sparring over whether the subsidy and tax credit addicted electric car maker will be exempt from the automobile dealers franchise act and be able to sell their striking products directly to lucky consumers. Colin McEnroe provided some insights last week.

The auto dealers have a compelling case to make that if the state is going to have a franchise law that applies to the sale of new cars, Tesla has to operate under its requirements. Tesla, however, has made some friends in the legislature. It isn’t because the manufacturer of the fashionable car has assembled a notable homegrown team to argue its brief. The auto dealers, possessing deep ties in many communities, have hit some bumps in this contest.

The car dealers’ association, for reasons that continue to baffle observers, is headed by former state legislator and commissioner James T. Fleming, a Republican of Simsbury. He is not possessed of a soothing presence. Fleming’s leadership is making a dog’s breakfast of the auto dealers’ fightback against glamorous Tesla. The brooding, cranky Fleming is a screamer, quick to anger, often on the verge of his red face exploding. (I recall a tiresome, unfiltered potty mouth when I was in the legislature.) He is not a popular figure at the Capitol. Some veterans may recall that Fleming’s career imploded when he mounted a clumsy coup attempt against the beloved late Senate Republican Leader M. Adele Eads in 1998. Our Dell endured, Fleming left elected office. Somewhere she is nodding. Dell knew what the auto dealers are discovering to their frustration.

A Courant editorial urges the state’s parole board to reverse its inexplicable decision to release murderer Gary Castonguay, who executed Plainville police officer Robert Holcomb in 1977.

The federal investigation was over. There was nothing to it. That was the party line spouted by state Representative Themis Klarides in her bid to become the leader of the House Republicans after November’s legislative elections. Klarides and her puppet master, outgoing beleaguered leader Lawrence Cafero, insisted that a federal criminal investigation into House Republican campaign practices was an illusion. No one seems to have been able to obtain a clearance letter from the feds.

While Klarides and Cafero were herding the caucus sheep in her contest against Jason “Mittens” Perillo, the House Republican Campaign Committee (HRCC) was incurring $18,400.48 more in legal fees to the Hartford firm of Shipman & Goodwin between October 27th and December 23rd, when the hefty payment was made, according to campaign finance records. Legal fees consumed more than a third of the committee’s expenditures during the reporting period.

New Friends PAC, another Republican committee under scrutiny, paid $6,113.82 to Shipman & Goodwin on December 15th for “legal and data assistance.” That represented more than half of the campaign committee’s expenses.

House Republican caucus members may want to ask their leaders why so much of their scarce campaign resources was spent on legal fees. That’s money that could have been spent on campaigns. HRCC ended the year with a paltry $4,577.60 on hand as 2014 ended.  New Friends had just over $2,000 left.

This column of a brief January 9th parole board hearing will astound you. By a 2-1 vote, the board decided to release from prison Gary Castonguay, who in 1977 executed Plainville police officer Robert Holcomb. This is not justice.

The Connecticut legislature’s Government Administration and Elections Committee rejected a bid by the state’s ethics agency to smother the public’s right to petition its government. The ethics proposal would have required people engaged in “grassroots lobbying” (commonly known as citizens exercising their free speech rights) to register as lobbyists. The bill, S.B. 850 was reported out of the committee this week without the offending language.

Score one for freedom over the grasping bureaucracy.

A festival of Democratic notables toasting the tossing away other people’s money.

Connecticut’s “permanent fiscal crisis” is taking a mighty toll on Office of Policy and Management Secretary Benjamin Barnes. The budget czar has not been able to get the details of the $40 billion two year spending plan to legislators and the public. The absence of details is proving a serious hurdle for people trying to craft a reaction and testimony to the proposal unveiled by Democratic Governor Dannel P. Malloy.

As of Tuesday morning, February 24th, the details of the document were not available on the OPM website. Capitol village denizens are muttering that transparency has become an early casualty in Malloy’s second term. Others are beginning to doubt Barnes’ competency to lead on basic tasks, such as providing details of the budget that Malloy hip-hoorayed and ballyhooed on Wednesday but has kept shrouded from scrutiny for a week.

Danbury mayor Mark Boughton has spent months trying to manipulate state Republican affairs since November’s host of party defeats. The two-time gubernatorial hopeful could not, however, get his horse across the finish line first in this evening’s contest to fill a vacancy in the vice chairmanship of the state party committee.

Boughton took the floor at the Hartford meeting to nominate Old Lyme’s Margaret Jane Derisio to fill the vacancy. She lost 37-32.5 in the second round of voting to tea party-leaning Annalisa Stravato of Wilton.

State central committee members will elect their leaders to full terms in June.

The business development staff was not up to the job and proved one of many disappointments. The Back9Network, a louche golf network, has suspended operations. The high-profile Hartford entity received $5 million in public funds on its tumultuous path to shutting down.

Memo to former staffers: If you saw something, say something.

Read more in the Courant here.

Here’s a link to my Hartford Courant column on the many programs available in Connecticut that allow criminal defendants to avoid conviction, a record and incarceration. The state’s system provides many more than two chances to most defendants before they risk a conviction. Incarceration is an even more distant prospect on a first, second or third offense.