GREEN PARTY FACES SOME THORNY ISSUES

Consider the Green Party with its warts, threats to the status quo and
all. Decriminalizing and "medicalizing" drugs could jeopardize the
judicial system, where a disproportionate percentage of inner-city
blacks and Hispanics fill the state's prisons.

That's one of the Green Party planks that, in real life, marginalizes
the group in so-called mainstream public-policy debates. While it may
make eminent sense to many people around the world, any Democrat or
Republican who even utters the word "decriminalize," is soft on crime
and a candidate for early political retirement. Every year it costs
about $600 million in your tax dollars to keep Connecticut's prisons
operating, including paying for its 7,000 employees. This week, more
than 23,300 are being "supervised" by the state's Department of
Correction, including 17,334 men and 1,403 women in prison, plus
nearly 5,000 people in local jails awaiting court appearances.

The judicial system costs another $395 million a year.

At the intake end of the system, defense lawyers make millions trying
to keep dealers and users out of the slammer. So if the Green's ideas
of decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana and turning cocaine and
heroin into prescription drugs were realized, does that mean more
defense lawyers would be driving Chevys instead of Mercedes? What if
you could cut the DOC budget in half? You could offer $300 million in
state-college scholarships. Chances are, if you see Cliff Thornton,
the Green's candidate for governor, during the upcoming gubernatorial
debates, he'll point out the fiscal and social costs of
institutionalizing a portion of the state's population at per-capita
costs comparable to room, board and classes at a state university.

"This is a tremendous uphill battle," Thornton admitted in an
interview last week. "But we're the only party that's going to raise
the issues that people are most concerned with."

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell last week asked Democratic challenger
John DeStefano to include Thornton in whatever debates they may agree
to along the way to November.

It's a good strategy for Rell. Another person on the stage means less
time for the New Haven mayor to possibly attack her. "She is for real
democracy," Thornton said of the governor. "If we're on the ballot, we
should be part of the debates."

Thornton also understands the governor's motives for adding another
voice in the debate, especially one that's not expected to win.

"Pawns, in the game of chess, can become queens," he said, noting for
you non-players that if a pawn occasionally survives the game, it
reaches the opponent's end of the board, then is transformed into the
most-powerful of pieces. Thornton and the rest of the Green Party
slate, including Ralph Ferrucci, the Green's candidate for U.S.
Senate, have two chances on Nov. 7 -- slim and none.

But for the first time, the little national party has a complete team
of high-level candidates in Connecticut. Consider the Greens more than
a boutique party for the patchouli-oil-and-water-pipe set in
Connecticut college towns. Then ponder the similarities between
Connecticut Republicans and Democrats.

Forget those whines from hyperventilating Democrats over Green Party
icon Ralph Nader's 2000 Election Day showing. He siphoned so many
Florida votes from Al Gore and Joe Lieberman, that they conveniently
forgot that they couldn't even win Gore's home state of Tennessee.

During a coming-out event for Nancy Burton, the Green's candidate for
attorney general, last week in Hartford's Bushnell Park, the campaign
staff busily erected a circle of campaign signs, arranged campaign
material on a table and tethered the green balloons.

The staff then jogged over to the parked Jeep and changed from garden
boots into black pumps and kicked off the brief press conference for
herself. The odds are so stacked against Burton, that it's quite
likely the issue of her having been disbarred as an attorney in
Connecticut will never come up. It is intriguing to think, though,
what would happen if she were elected to a job that requires a lawyer
have their license. "Anyone who votes for me is voting for someone who
qualifies for this office," Burton said last week, adding that she's
still a member of the New York bar and if she wins, will apply for
reinstatement in Connecticut. "I'm qualified for this office and would
serve this office well. I should have my law license returned."

Burton's main platform is a promise to close the Millstone nuclear
complex in southeastern Connecticut. "There are good grounds to shut
it down as a public nuisance," she said.

What about the argument that Connecticut needs the megawatts? She
recalled that in 1996, the state was without any nuclear generation
for two years.

"There was never a blackout or brownout, but we should have learned
our lesson long ago," said Burton, of Redding. "We need clean,
sustainable energy including solar, wind and other sources."

Connecticut voters, emerging from their summer slumbers, should pay
attention to the Greens and the resulting public policy issues that
will rise during the march to Election Day.