Archive for November 1, 2008
So what happens after a Constitutional Convention?
Nov 1st
Given the important question that will appear on our ballots here on November 4th, I’ve had a few questions swirling in my head for the past few weeks. Here are some of them:
- Who pays for a Constitutional convention?
- How much does it cost?
- How long does one last?
- How do issues get debated at a ConCon?
- Do we still have to vote on the issues after they’re approved by the convention?
- What happens when direct initiative is approved?
- Why do we need legislators after direct initiative is approved?
- Can the legislature supercede a law passed by referendum?
- What’s to stop people from putting abortion to a popular vote?
- What’s to stop people from repealing Article 1, Section 8 of the State Constitution (the bill of rights, as it were)?
- How is this push for a Constitutional convention not driven by bigotry?
- Can one voter initiative repeal an earlier one?
- What will the point of a legislature be, if we can pass all laws?
- Is the legislature forced to fund all initiatives that pass?
- What if they can’t?
- What if a Constitutional Amendment violates another provision of the Constitution?
There are so many variables here. CT News Junkie has a nice piece touching on a few of these aspects, but that still leaves many unanswered questions.
For example, if a statute is passed establishing a three-strikes law, what’s to stop the legislature from passing a new statute declaring the previous statute void? And so on and so on in circles?
It seems to me that this call for a concon is driven solely by special interest groups that know they don’t have the votes in the legislature and want to to get their agenda approved.
The system works very well as it is. Why fix something that isn’t broken?
This is why I’ll be voting no. What about you?
Because they’re better than you
Nov 1st
One of the underlying themes of the tough-on-crime movement is that there are two classes of people: “us” and “them”. “We” are good people who would never commit crimes and if “we” do, we are deserving of sympathy and understanding and it is because “we” have a substance abuse problem.
“They” are just bad people who will murder your babies, rape your mothers, castrate your brothers and eat them all alive in a cannibalistic stew.
It is this fundamentally narrow-minded approach that has landed us in the hot soup we are in vis-a-vis prison overcrowding and poverty and the endless cycle of prison families.
A recent example of this divide between “us” and “them” is this story from the Courant chronicling the special treatment given a former state legislator who is serving 4 months for DUI.
Because “we” have a substance abuse problem.
Top state officials including Democratic Comptroller Nancy Wyman, Environmental Protection Commissioner Gina McCarthy, and several legislators have been allowed special access to visit [former State Rep. Jessie] Stratton at the York Correctional Institution in Niantic.
Stratton’s list contains 15 approved visitors’ names, more than twice the maximum of seven names that York officials say are allowed for any inmate. The correction department’s central “public information” office wouldn’t confirm that the maximum is seven, but regulations allow no more than 10 “active” visitors’ names on any inmate’s list.
Although regulations permit an inmate to receive only three visits per week, visits by seven of the people on Stratton’s list do not count against her weekly allotment.
As per DOC’s regulations, these “special visits” are for people traveling from out of state or those meeting with inmates to prepare them for their release. None of her visitors fulfilled either requirement.
Sometimes, while applications and background checks are pending for prospective visitors during the first couple of weeks of an inmate’s sentence, members of his or her immediate family are allowed in to visit. But Stratton is nine weeks into her sentence, and three visitors said Thursday that they never had to file the normally required request, or undergo any check that they knew of.
Another “consideration” given her is entry into a heavily demanded substance abuse problem, for which there is a long waiting list.
Not long after starting her sentence at York, Stratton was moved into the prison’s widely recognized Marilyn Baker residential treatment unit for substance abusers. Sources say there is a waiting list for that program. Banevicius would not respond to questions of whether there’s a waiting list and whether Stratton got special treatment to get in. The Baker program normally lasts six months.
“We” have a substance abuse problem. “They” are substance abusers. Let’s ignore the fact that so many of our clients actually need some treatment in prison, because they aren’t getting any when they get out. Let’s also ignore the fact that because these people don’t get treatment, they are considered dangers to society when they are released and placed on strict probationary conditions. The system grows them, like plants or vegetables, feeds on them, then releases them as manure to fertilize the field and the cycle continues.
Whether this state rep herself asked for and received special consideration is uknown, but the point still remains. There is a divide and until there is a divide we will never be able to honestly address the problems that plague our society and bring about a reduction in crime. We will never get to the root of these problems and actually help people if we keep thinking we are better than them.
If nothing else, I hope that the good Rep. Stratton and the Honorable Comptroller have come out of this experience with a deeper understanding of how people end up where they are and that looking beyond the criminal act is a better approach to our criminal justice problem.
Stopping for school buses, or: yet another needless post
Nov 1st
To stop or not to stop?
On my way to work yesterday, I observed a curious (and at the time a very frustrating) event. The road was a four lane city road (maybe if I call it an avenue it paints a clearer picture). There was a 2-3 foot long grassy median separating the two opposing sides of traffic, with two lanes in each direction.
There was a school bus, with its stop sign pulled out and its lights flashing on the other side of the road. And there, on my side, were about 15 cars. Stopping for the school bus on the other side of the road at 7:45am, when all the kids were obviously getting on to the bus.
So, as is my wont, I wondered out loud: “What the f is wrong with these people Must we stop for a school bus on the other side of the road?” I decided to don my deerstalker and do a little investigatin’.
Turns out there is a statute addressing this. Connecticut General Statutes Section 14-279 states:
(a) The operator of any [...] motor vehicle [...] shall immediately bring such vehicle to a stop not less than ten feet from the front when approaching and not less than ten feet from the rear when overtaking or following any registered school bus on any highway or private road or in any parking area or on any school property when such bus is displaying flashing red signal lights, except at the specific direction of a traffic officer…The operator of a vehicle upon a highway with separate roadways need not stop upon meeting or passing a school bus which is on a different roadway.
So the question, then, is whether a city “avenue” is a “highway”.
The answer is this:
(37) “Highway” includes any state or other public highway, road, street, avenue, alley, driveway, parkway or place, under the control of the state or any political subdivision of the state, dedicated, appropriated or opened to public travel or other use
It makes sense that you don’t have to stop. What’s the purpose of this statute? The annotations provide some guidance:
Evidences a legislative intent to create a safety zone within which school children can safely cross a street after alighting from a school bus. 180 Conn. 302.
Given that school buses will stop on both sides of any such road where there is a median, there was absolutely no risk that a child would be permitted to alight and attempt to cross such an avenue where there is heavy traffic. Obviously, no child would have been doing that yesterday morning, because it was morning and they were going to school.
So there we go. I was delayed for work by a bunch of idiots people who were not aware of this statute and hopefully now someone will let them now. Hopefully now you know and you don’t stop.
Obviously, I’m not advocating driving dangerously and if you are on a two-lane road with no median or on the same side as the bus, then you damn well better stop. But, if you’re, like on a highway with separate roadways, um, do the rest of us a favor.
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