An operator’s guide to the Conn. Legislature
What is the world’s 1,282nd greatest deliberative body?
The Connecticut state Legislature.
When do they meet?
Ordinarily, for months and months at time. Under a current, novel arrangement, each chamber meets for one day.
How can that be? Won’t a body known for its deliberations and ranked in such a way that it soars, eagle-like, over the Norwegian Commission on Osteopathic Registration need more than one day per chamber?
They vowed to limit themselves to one day.
How will they legalize the sale of marijuana?
They were unable to address this when they had all the proverbial time in the proverbial world.
How will they pass a comprehensive law on sports betting?
See “marijuana.”
How will panels be formed to further study various burning issues?
Presumably the legislators will be too busy to form time-wasting panels. But the jury is out on that one.
Speaking of burning, what about increasing the penalties for the theft of used cooking oil?
They did that last session.
They did? Because I wasn’t serious. Was having a laugh and all.
This was quite a problem and they doubled the penalties on evildoers. What about now? What are they doing in these one-day sessions?
They are attempting to address insulin pricing, telemedicine, mail-in ballots and police accountability. How were these selected?
They are of urgent importance.
Wouldn’t that be a good reform going forward? That the Legislature will only address urgent matters and will limit its scope to a handful of actionable items?
Next question.
How’s it going? How is this one-day session thing doing?
Well ... the House of Representatives was not able to confine its imperishable law-making potency to one day. Come again?
They went over. Even as we speak, they are readying to meet for a second day. Why is that?
After racing through insulin, telemedicine and mail voting with great alacrity, they foundered over police accountability.
And why is that? Who doesn’t like police accountability?
The police.
Any particular reason?
The biggest problem seems to be “qualified immunity.” Is this a COVID thing?
It is not. It is a doctrine that keeps individual police officers immune, in most cases, from civil lawsuits deriving from their conduct at work. Well if that’s what it says in the Constitution ...
It’s not in the Constitution. It’s more the product of a series of interpretations by the courts, and it applies to many other government workers.
Let’s say I’m in handcuffs, and a police officer coshes me on the head with his flashlight. I can’t sue him for my subsequent blurred vision?
You might be better off suing the flashlight manufacturer No, seriously.
You would have to prove that your right not to be struck in the head in this particular circumstance was so glaringly evident that any officer, from a shining paragon to a lowfunctioning flatfoot would know not to do it. Where’s the fairness in that?
Put yourself in the shoes of the flatfoot. In the course of subduing you, he has handcuffed you, and yet you continue to shout epithets at him. If he has to
second-guess himself, if he has to ask himself nuanced legal questions about potential monetary damages arising from the interaction of his flashlight and your skull, how is he going to do his job? Well, when you put it that way.
And then project it out across a whole series of scenarios. Everything from “Can I arrest this peaceful protester?” to “Can I shoot this person running away from me?” and you can see the implications. The officer would be paralyzed.
Well, more typically, the
person who gets shot or beaten is paralyzed, and those are exactly the kinds of people who hire ambulance chasing lawyers to pursue their mostly imaginary interests.
But doesn’t the tort system exist so that, if we can prove that we have been wronged, we can have justice in the form of compensation for our pain and suffering?
I’m sorry. You’re breaking up.
Isn’t that a fundamentally American concept? Otherwise you’ve got a government whose agents — and not just the police — can inflict harm without facing the normal
range of consequences.
I sense a disturbance in the force. It’s a panel! Yes, someone is forming a panel to look at this complex issue.
In the meantime, what if a member of the police force uses undue force against me?
Then may the force be with you.