HARTFORD, Conn. — In the past decade, most states have turned Medicaid over to private plans with hopes they could control costs and improve care. Nearly half of the 60 million people in the government program for the poor are now in the managed care plans run by insurance giants such as UnitedHealthcare and Aetna.
But Connecticut, the “insurance capital of the world,” is bucking the trend. On Jan. 1, Connecticut will jettison its private health plans from Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program. Instead of paying the companies a set monthly fee to cover the health costs of more than 400,000 children and parents, the state will assume financial responsibility.
State officials say the firms, including Hartford-based Aetna, did not fulfill their promise of lower costs and better care. “Connecticut has a 15-year history with managed care organizations and there has been a diminishing confidence in the value of what they are providing,” said Mark Schaefer, the state’s Medicaid director. “Their measured performance is not impressive.”
Sounds reasonable. They gave it 15 years, privatization didn’t save money or improve care, so they’re going back to a version of the public plan.
But how did they manage to get this through in Connecticut? How did they cut off 800 million a year in contracts to private companies, after 15 years?
Maybe this had something to do with it:
While officials in other states struggled to balance their budgets in 2011, Governor Daniel Malloy and the Connecticut General Assembly closed a deficit of historic proportions one month early, agreeing on a mix of tax hikes and union concessions. That topped a list of unmatched legislative accomplishments: Connecticut passed in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, a transgender-rights bill, a major genetic research initiative, a bipartisan job-growth package, and the nation’s first paid sick-leave mandate.
In a year of reactionary politics and partisan gridlock nationwide, what made Connecticut so different? One-party control over both the governor’s office and the legislature for the first time in 21 years played a role. But the secret behind the Democrats’ success was sweeping campaign-finance reform enacted six years earlier. Reeling from the embarrassment of a corruption scandal that landed a governor in federal prison, Connecticut legislators grabbed the national spotlight in 2005 by stopping the flow of millions of special-interest dollars, banning lobbyist contributions, and instituting a public-financing system that record-setting numbers of candidates have embraced.
Denise W. Merrill, a longtime legislator who’s now secretary of the state, saw a dramatic change among lawmakers. Suddenly, she says, “these guys didn’t even know they were supposed to check with the lobbyists.”
As the lobbyists’ clout diminished, grassroots mobilizing began to pay off. “Campaign-finance reform improved the situation for organizations that know how to research the issues and excel at grassroots organizing,” says Jon Green, director of the Working Families Party. “That kind of constituent contact has started to outweigh the pressure of lobbyists. You still have to go out there and do the work, but public opinion is starting to matter more.”
Candidates seeking public dollars would first have to raise a minimum level of funds, all in small amounts, from individual donors. A state senate candidate, for example, could receive $85,000 in state funds for the general election after first raising $15,000 from private donors—none of whom could contribute more than $100.
The level of state funding is where Connecticut has distinguished itself from other states that offer public financing. Its grants for legislative candidates are up to six times larger than those provided by Maine and nearly 20 times greater than those offered by Arizona. Unlike those states, whose initial attempts at public financing drew between 25 percent and 35 percent participation rates by legislative candidates, nearly 75 percent of the candidates participated in Connecticut in both 2008 and 2010.
“The state has made enormous progress, transforming from ‘Corrupticut,’ an example of rampant wrongdoing after years of scandal, into a model for campaign financing and the future of democracy,” says Beth Rotman, who directed Connecticut’s Clean Election Program from its inception through January 2011.
The American Prospect article is absolutely glowing and sounds almost too good to be true, but, boy, if it’s at all accurate, I want this in my state.
Too, I’m wondering if people who live in Connecticut notice any difference in the duration or tone of campaigns now that 75% of state candidates rely on public funding. Are campaigns shorter under the new rules? Fewer ads blanketing tv and radio? Less stupid, dishonest and destructive?
Valdivia
This does sound like dreamland. Can we haz that everywhere? Thank you Kay for highlighting this and bringing to our attention. I also have a lot of respect for the Governor of Maryland who seems to me to be totally on the ball.
Brandon
Does the state financing come at the primary as well as general election?
Cat Lady
This is the GOP’s worst nightmare come to life – policy for the 99%. Go Nutmeggers!
Unsympathetic
Republican lies don’t have an effect when lobbyists are removed from the equation? Shocking.
The Ancient Randonneur
Imagine that … take the lobbyists out of the equation and legislators get the job done. No one could have predicted …
BTW, Kay are we going to hear from you about this:
Would love to read your take on this.
kay
@Brandon:
I couldn’t find it in the article, but I’d look here.
The Moar You Know
I would like this very much, please.
kay
@The Ancient Randonneur:
Thanks. I’ll look at it, unless some huge emergency intervenes.
Friday is the day for huge emergencies/disasters in this office. We’ve already had an exciting morning!
Violet
Wow! Thanks for posting this. I had no idea about any of this. Go Connecticut! Thanks for posting this, Kay.
Benjamin Franklin
Kay;
This is an example of the Fear. Obstructionism has been the only goal of the GOP. Obama would fail if they didn’t give his ideas a chance. “They had to destroy the Village, in order to save it”
Violet
I love this part:
Their performance is not impressive. If they’re measuring how rich the CEOs got, their performance is very impressive. But health outcomes? Notsomuch.
cat
I’ve lived in CT since 2005.
I don’t watch live TV so I have no idea if the TV ads are like, but we get lots of mailers the week before and they are positive. I dont remember any robocalls from anyone but national candidates and my wife got a push-poll once.
Our state rep was a regular person, a nurse, in 2008-2010 but we still ended up with an R in 2010 because we have a pretty big teabag population in our area.
Its hard imagine how corrupt CT was, but apparently it was pretty sleezly back in the day.
Nellcote
How to they keep out superPACs?
Dave
I grew up in CT and went to UConn. CT wasn’t always sleazy, but the potential was there with so much money in such a small state. It was John Rowland who really blew it wide open and exploited that potential. Guy was an asshole (met him more than once) and it put a smile on my face when he went to jail.
Also, it’s nice to see Sec. Merrill get a mention. She’s one of the really good people in CT.
CT Voter
I can’t tell if there’s a difference in tone for statewide elections–they tend to have been much lower key than federal elections. Except for the governor position. But even that didn’t approach the level of noise and firepower that the Senate election did last time–McMahon essentially firebombed the state with mailings and commercials, and really, it was hard to notice there were other people running for other offices, as a result.
I can tell you something else about the concession agreements with the unions: it was a very tough sell with the unions. SEBAC (coalition of all public employee unions in the state) wound up changing the voting requirements for passage (and a not unreasonable change, actually) before the concessions got a yes vote–the concessions got an overall yes vote the first time through, but since more than one union voted no, the concessions were voted down, per bylaws. After the change in bylaws, and a revote, the concessions went through. What’s interesting about one of the changes wrt to health benefits is that you (as a state employee) must agree to seek preventive care, and, if you’re diagnosed with a chronic condition (e.g., hypertension), you must also seek chronic care. And if you choose not to, your premiums go up $100 a month. It’s going to be interesting to see how essentially forcing people to either pay way more OR look after their health affects healthcare costs here in CT.
PeakVT
Sounds awesome. Here’s the text of the campaign finance bill, I believe.
kay
@Benjamin Franklin:
It’s a great story, because both Republicans and Democrats were cynical at the outset. Both sides assumed the other Party would never go through with it, so it was safe for both R’s and D’s to jabber about it, knowing it would never come to pass.
Then it did.
gluon1
For those who join Valdivia (1st Comment) in wanting a similar system everywhere, see the “Fair Elections Now Act” (HR 1404) introduced by Rep. Larson.
thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.01404:
(make sure you include the closing colon; sorry that I’m not bright enough to make the hyperlink).
There are problems with the bill — some resulting from the differences among states, e.g., the cost of media in Montana vs. Connecticut and rural California vs. Los Angeles as two kinds of examples — but it’s trying to bring Connecticut’s model to the rest of the country. Prof. Lawrence Lessig is a huge proponent.
GWB
I’m in CT. The biggest year for public campaign financing was 2010, when the campaign for governor wasn’t shortened in the least because each party primary had one publically-financed candidate and one largely-self-financed candidate (the self-financed candidate won the GOP primary; the publically-financed candidate won the Dem primary (against Ned Lamont, for those who remember 2006) and just barely became governor). The tone of that Dem primary was not at all heightened by the financing, though I do think the smearing ads on both sides didn’t come out until only a month or so before election day. I think it had a better track record in local elections, though.
Since then the public financing system has taken several huge hits in court, thanks to a Green Party lawsuit about equal access.
Bludger
Reverse Citizens United v. FEC decision now…
Mnemosyne
Is this still allowed under Citizens United? I ask because Dahlia Lithwick had an interesting article yesterday about Montana’s Supreme Court deciding that CU doesn’t apply to their state because of their pre-existing laws.
It would be pretty interesting to have a state-level rebellion against CU so the Supremes would have to review their decision over and over and over again.
The Republic of Stupidity
That’s it…
***starts pulling up tent stakes…***
I’m off to Connecticut…
When I get set up, I’ll let ya’ll know where I am…
kay
@CT Voter:
I saw that weeks ago and I think it’s an interesting thing to try.
Except: STATE COERCION! LIBERTY! This may fly only in Connecticut.
Mardam
But how has this not been challenged in the courts? Isn’t money speech in Connecticut?
ornery_curmudgeon
Awesome, some really good news … thank you, Kay.
The idea is to get money out of politics and then regulate commerce … best of both worlds. Seems so simple when it happens, and not doing it brings such complications.
nastybrutishntall
In related news: Montana challenges Citizen’s United (via Salon) Seems like States need to lead the way, as they are already doing in areas such as gay marriage, single-payer, medical marijuana, greenhouse gasses, etc. Isn’t it funny that, for all the States Rights shit peddled by Paul et al., States are leading the way in progressive causes.
Hmmm. Strong Federal government + State activism = Progressive change. Maybe you’ll even get your weed without Ron Paul one day.
Benjamin Franklin
This is interesting…kinda on-topic
blog.american.com/2012/01/january-surprise-is-obama-preparing-a-trillion-dollar-mass-refinancing-of-…
PeakVT
@Mnemosyne: CU was about outside spending, not public financing. There’s been some SCOTUS support for portions of the CT law, but a quick search hasn’t yielded a comprehensive article about the current status.
gogol's wife
“Are campaigns shorter under the new rules? Fewer ads blanketing tv and radio? Less stupid, dishonest and destructive?” Judging by the Linda MacMahon campaign, I would say the answers are No, No, and No.
Dr. Squid
Is Joe Lieberman’s retirement another result of the public financing law?
Giving the stiffarm to insurance companies by the state of CONNECTICUT should make people just sit up and say, “Wow.”
CT Voter
@kay: I was actually pretty surprised there was little of the “GUBMINT IS TRYING TO TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHTS” argument against the concessions.
I think what we did here in CT with respect to health benefits is probably going to be copied in other places. Seems like the direction everyone will be heading to.
kay
@gogol’s wife:
Federal! Doesn’t count :)
I think it’s great she donated 50 million dollars to you guys though. In a way…
CT Voter
@gogol’s wife: She really outdid herself last time. Looking forward to more of the same this year.
But that’s a federal election. I don’t think the campaign finance changes apply to that. (And wouldn’t have, even if they could, given her wealth).
cmorenc
It’s probably only a matter of time before some GOP-aligned group mounts a challenge to Connecticut’s system, moves it up through the court system for SCOTUS, and the Roberts faction gets a chance to flex its Citizens United laser-weapon to slice it to confetti to resuscitate pay-for-play and big corporate PAC domination of state campaigns. This reformed Connecticut campaign finance scheme makes it too easy for legislators to be responsive to citizens rather than corporate masters and GOP political manipulators.
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne:
This is where you get into the truly arcane stuff that is taught for one or two days in elective courses third year. In this case, the concept of the “adequate and independent state ground.” I only took the federal jurisdiction course because it was at a convenient time and was taught by my Civ Pro prof, who was awesome (Judy Resnik, who’s now at Yale).
gocart mozart
It wasn’t just Gov. Rowland who went to jail but two consecutive mayors of Waterbuy (one is now out the other never will), the mayors of Bridgeport and Hartford also. The congressional delegation is pretty good and will be better when we get that fucker Lieberman out.
gogol's wife
@kay:
I had a feeling my comment was wrong. But still. Linda MacMahon can singlehandedly make it feel as if the state is still in the toilet Rowland-style. And whenever I mention the name Molloy around here, people scowl and spit. They hate him for some reason.
kay
@CT Voter:
I read the Vermont law, and it’s great, but I think the difference might be that Vermont had a sort of non-profit primary care infrastructure in place with that Bernie Sanders-community-health-centers-ethos going on.
I want those, too.
I’m coming to your states to take your stuff.
Mark S.
DougJ, please come to the white courtesy phone:
Guess who
Benjamin Franklin
Kay;
The wingerz are saying this isDan Malloys payback to the Unions.
Article doesn’t say who ‘state officials’ are.
nhregister.com/articles/2011/09/26/opinion/doc4e7d07f86a94f048513790.txt
kay
@gogol’s wife:
What happened to her? I forgot all about her. Why didn’t she get a reality show and a “news analyst” position at FOX?
I’m outraged on her behalf.
gocart mozart
@kay:
It was cruel and unusual punshment inflicted on all television viewers though.
gocart mozart
@kay:
She is running for Lieberman’s seat God help us.
Geeno
Connecticut can impose limits on state offices only. Federal elections – congressman, senator, president – MUST follow Citizens United rules. I don’t think the SCrOTUS has ruled on incorporation of those standards on the state. Montana’s SC decision may force that ruling shortly.
I DO hope Anthony Kennedy has seen the error of his ways, at least enough to let state level regulation stand. Sadly, I doubt that self-regarding prick has seen anything.
nastybrutishntall
The real irony here is that CT is the home to so many of the 1% who work on Wall Street. Somehow, despite Darien, New Canaan, Greenwich, etc. CT is helping to get money out of politics.
Reality is cool.
Mark K
I work in the health care field doing heart scans all day. United Helath Care is the absolute worst insurance company, imo. They deny coverage out of hand hoping the doctor won’t call back justifying the procedure (then they always cave) I read somewhere that United hired 2-300 people to do just that…deny in the hopes you won’t follow up and get the coverage they already agreed to provide. Just scum.
Monday, I had Blue Cross deny a stress test for a patient with “pre-existing condition of chest pain”. I’m having the office mgr. follow up because its my understanding that it is now illegal to do?
When I was in Europe, they were amazed that the American people had become so brainwashed as to believe you could do things cheaper like health and defense by making a profit?! I keep telling my liberal/progressive colleagues use the word “Profitization” not privatization, dammit. Otherwise, you are doing the RW a huge favor by using their brainwash words.
slag
Honestly, kay, this post made me drool a little. It does sound too good to be true.
And I think the only solution to the MacMahon problem and all like it is for people to stop watching television. But I’m biased.
Kevin B ex-CT resident
I recently lived in Ct for a couple of years. The local and state elections seemed low key. However, I can tell you that Linda McMahon was all over the TV (and lost!).
burnspbesq
OT, and depressing:
I would have thought that the Aussies were too smart to follow our example on this.
smh.com.au/environment/afp-spies-targeting-green-activists-20120106-1pogq.html
kay
@slag:
You can’t really escape it, though. I didn’t see a single one of the (latest) attack ads against Sherrod Brown, except one (sitting at a bar- so not even “watching tv”) but I HEARD about them.
People were telling me about them in great detail. Both friends and foes. Everyone else saw them.
jibeaux
There was a pilot program for NC state employees I got to participate in..it was voluntary and you got a little health screening and a report with any problem areas, like at risk for hypertension or overweight,etc. If there were red flags, there were conditions like you had to agree to join their weight management program or whatever. In return, you could take advantage of an on-site clinic and see a nurse practitioner for anything, free, no copays and no need to use sick time for the visit. If there weren’t any health recommendations, you could still use the clinic program. It was very popular and saved the state money, because hiring one NP to set up shop in an unused office and one company to make her appointments is cheaper than paying for office visits to doctors even with the co-pay. So naturally when the Republicans took over the legislature they canned the program and raised state employees’ contributions to their insurance.
passerby
Once again Kay has put her finger on the problem that exists with all government programs: who controls the money.
Getting that money away from private hands is no small feat but Connecticut shows the way: a shift in the politcal power of the state.
In Louisiana (a state–pop.4.8m–that has also seen a Governor in jail- Edwin Edwards) we’ve got Bobby Jindal whose purpose seems to be to shepherd government money into private hands and crony businesses. I have little hope that the mentality and ignorance of our electorate would allow for such a shift. [He was just re-elected to a 2nd term without much effort.]
It’s heartening to see CT (population 3.8m + insurance mecca)demonstrate how it can be done.
Seems like the next step is to have this successful…coup take root in congress where it can be applied nationally. But, since I have no hope, zero hope that Congress is the least bit interested in actually providing public service, well…here’s hoping.
[And, Kay, I’d like to add that even when you were “just a commenter” here at BJ, you always contributed thoughtful insight into the topics. Cole was smart to make you a FP–or maybe he was just lucky–because for those of us interested in good discussion you provide solid and sane ideas for us to chew on–sans emotional elements. So thanks.]
shortstop
OT, where’s BG? Is the baby here yet?
wobblybits
@shortstop: Yes, he and the Mrs. welcomed a baby boy early this morning. He posted in the late night thread (I believe).
liberal
I thought there was a USSC decision in the past year or two which pretty much means campaign finance reform is dead, or will be soon.
ETA: ah…maybe Geeno @44 has this clearer than I do.
Mnemosyne
@Geeno:
Ah, okay. IIRC, states get to set their own election laws per the Constitution, so I have no idea what the SCA would decide in this case.
JPL
@shortstop: Just to add to what wobblybits said
Kay Thank you for the post and I also want to thank you for keeping us informed on what the states are doing.
cckids
Is there a state anywhere that the “privatizing/profitizing” Medicaid HAS saved the state money? I can’t imagine that there is even one where it has led to better patient outcomes. Here in NV it has led to a mass stampede away from Medicaid by any provider who can afford it. You literally cannot find some types of spec*alists, like orthopedists if you are on Medicaid. Not only have reimbursement rates gone down, they take 60-180 days to pay providers. And they are always “saving” money by denying care, sending people home early, etc, leading to more bounce-backs & higher bills later. It is a crock.
slag
@kay: I know. Every time I accidentally stumble out of my carefully crafted rarefied existence, I’m reminded: Oh yeah, THIS is how the world really works.
But that’s why these kinds of good news posts are helpful! They remind us that the world really doesn’t have to work this way. And in order to get from here to there all we have to do is something similar to what they did. It’s like reading science fiction–but non!
A brief shot of optimism can, indeed, sometimes inspire an act of pragmatism.
liberal
OK, I’m thinking of Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett.
Chris
Haven’t read the comments yet, but – fucking hell! You go, Connecticut!
Amir Khalid
@shortstop: A boy, 8lb 3oz, name TBA; mother and child doing fine, pics to come.
realbtl
Re: Montana constitution. It’s funny that having your entire state politics run by a corporation, in this case Anaconda, leads the citizens of that state to say “Screw this” and write rules to prohibit it. Kind of like our written-into-the-constitution right to clean air and water. Hopefully the people of the US will (eventually) get the message.
By the way our current crop of Republican assholes would love to gut the clean air and water rule but can’t w/o amending the constitution.
r€nato
Arizona has a similar Clean Elections law, and the GOP has been fighting it like crazy since the moment voters approved it 10 years ago. They’ve filed no fewer than 12 lawsuits and the far-right Supreme Court handed a partial victory to them when it declared unconstitutional the provision which grants dollar-for-dollar matching funds to a publicly-financed candidate when a privately-financed opponent spends more than the publicly-financed candidate (I believe only in a general election).
MikeJ
Clean elections lead to electing Democrats. Any time you try to get clean elections anywhere else republicans will point to CT and say, “fuck no.” They will do anything they can to stop it. CT got lucky when they sent Gov Jailbird up the river.
Bubblegum Tate
Yay, Connecticut! It’s nice to actually be proud of my home state instead of mildly embarrassed.
SteveM
@Benjamin Franklin: This is apparently not true, although a more modest plan may be in the works.
Hawes
Once we get rid of Lieberman, watch out!
I’ve been very impressed with Dannel Malloy. He’s a responsible grown up, which is a nice change. The tone of campaigns here in CT has been generally the same, but mainly because few House races are competitive (I live in Murphy’s district). The one exception will be and was the Senate campaigns, but that’s entirely a function of Linda McMahon taking a folding chair to civil discourse.
LFC
This should be no surprise for anybody that has been following the Medicare program. Medicare Advantage was supposedly going to do the same thing. Instead the taxpayers are paying a 14% premium to the private insurance companies over the cost of traditional Medicare run by the federal government. There is really no evidence that privatizing will do anything but raise costs and reduce the quality of care.
As a side note, I had United Healthcare during a time of high medical need. They are a criminal enterprise that simply refuses to pay bills on time. (One of my bills was paid roughly net 420 days and many went over 180 days.) A quick web search of lawsuits against them by various states show that this is simply their business model. I no longer have to suffer with UHC insurance (my company dumped them in no small part because of how they treated me as well as others) and I have no desire to be forced to deal with them again.
Chris
@passerby:
Privatization has to be the easiest scam vulture capitalism’s ever pulled. Don’t need any brains or talent or luck at all – all you need to do is bankroll a politician and have him deliver perfectly good “public” companies to you on a silver platter once they’re in office.
Not only does it attract the most unscrupulous kinds of businessmen, they’re probably the laziest too.
shortstop
Thanks, baby updaters! Well, you know what I mean!
John Casey
@Hawes: Actually, CT Representative races have been competitive, other than Hartford (1) and New Haven (3). Chris Murphy unseated Republican Nancy Johnson to get his seat, Landslide Joe Courtney took his sear from a Republican, and was re-elected to his next term by less than 1000 votes, and Jim Hines beat Chris Shays (the last Republican Rep in New England 4 years ago.
Linda McMahon is responsible for me loading AdBlock onto my browser.
JC
slag
@MikeJ:
Tell that to Arizona. Regardless, I’m for ’em! All the way.
passerby
@jibeaux:
I’m about to find out how a self-paying individual can get care in Louisiana. My thyroxine prescription is running out and I need to hook up with a nurse practitioner. There a Daughter’s of Charity Clinic near by and I’m going to give it a shot. Some docs won’t take patients who don’t have insurance, as I have discovered
Uncle Ebeneezer
I eagerly await the plethora of Hooray-for-States-Rights! posts by Althouse, Instapundit, etc.
Great story. I can only hope that other states will follow CT’s lead.
mark k
Chris, its “profitization” not privatization. Its like being pro-choice instead of anti-life.
thanks……..
Mnemosyne
@passerby:
Definitely ask around — sometimes you can negotiate a lower fee with the doctor if you’re planning to pay cash because they don’t have to dick around with an insurance company holding up the payments. I was able to do it, but I’m in Los Angeles where there’s a lot of competition. If you’re in a more rural area, you may be hosed. :-(
passerby
@Chris:
Yep, sounds like Louisiana. Jindal is so far up Rick Perry’s campaign that it’s a wonder he’s not ashamed of his naked, political hackery. Unscrupulous and lazy.
Their machinations are not even clever enough to be considered guile. Can it still be considered guile if it’s all out in the open?
passerby
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, when I was in Chattanooga I went to a nice hospital-connected clinic which gave me a 30% discount. I was very happy with the set-up. But here in Looziana,…well, I’m about to find out.
ETA: And I should confess to a deep loathing I have for shopping around for healthcare. It’s become necessary though so I need to put on my big girl panties and get out there.
passerby
@MikeJ:
I ask that you permit me to tweak this a bit:
Clean elections lead to those who embrace democratic ideals.
In my view, party affiliation is just a means to polarize the electorate. When Dems had power, they allowed plenty of self-serving legislation to get through, always whining that they were powerless because of those mean, mean Repubs. Bullshit. They, Dems and Repubs, reap personal benefits from their office. To me, they are all DINOS and RINOS.
That’s why I think this cartoon is funny, and more pointedly at Democrats (and my personal favorite), this one.
The soulution being: kneecap the lobbyists which is the root of CT’s success.
ThresherK
@nastybrutishntall: But those sort don’t consider themselves from CT, just New Yorkers with a bedroom in far, far Westchester.
Linda MacMahon can singlehandedly make it feel as if the state is still in the toilet Rowland-style.
That’s a feature, not a bug. No surprise to fellow Nutmeggers who follow this blog, but she and hers want people less interested than us to throw up our hands and say “rich gummint people have ruined it, let’s get a whole new (sic) sector of rich CEOs to clean it up”.
Maybe there’s something to being near all these corporate headquarters (greater Hfd and Gold Coast alike) to keep the hoi polloi from licking the 1%er’s mud-in-a-cone like it was ice cream.
DT
Brandon – Yes, the public financing in CT is available at the primary level.
Dr. Squid – Interestingly enough, no, Lieberman’s stepping down had nothing to do with this, because public financing in CT only applies to state races, not federal. Lieberman’s departure likely has more to do with the fact that he is a lying weasel who has exhausted his last friend in the Nutmeg State. :-)
PeakVT
@MikeJ: Clean election laws get rid of excessive corporate and plutocrat influence. If the region is full of social conservative nutjobs, people will still vote for Republicans, as slag points out is the case in AZ.
maurinsky
Connecticutian here. I am pretty happy with Malloy, for the most part. I’m very excited about the New Britain/Hartford Busway (and hoping for a Manchester/Hartford busway in the future), and the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield rail line.
I think the Democrats are still going to have problems in the next elections. I suspect there will be a lot of unethical shit going on with money from outside the state. And Malloy is doing some delicious wonky things that will improve the State of CT, but most people are completely unaware of those things or how those improvements make life better.
And there is the ongoing problem that the State of CT has traditionally been an enemy of the municipalities of CT. There is some hope, but it’s all going to be “Malloy raised taxes – retroactively!” Yes, the taxes were raised mid-year, and they took extra out of our paychecks for the rest of the year to retroactively charge us the increased tax rate since the beginning of the year. I don’t mind, it was a barely noticeable amount for a working poor person like myself, but we are a heavily, heavily taxed state (you’re welcome, mooching southern states) and people hate tax increases.
maurinsky
Oh, and I just want to second the awesomeness of our Sec. of State, Denise Merrill. She is making huge changes, making good use of technology, and hopefully she will be getting rid of registrars of voters (political appointees of varying degrees of competence – one for each party).
Megumi
Connecticuters are not generally prone to being demonstrative and by consequence, our elections tend to generally be decorous affairs. Admittedly, there was a lot of vitriol and hand-wringing on the right about Malloy but I think he’s done a solid job since taking office.