CONNECTICUT, THE OTHER WHITE MEAT?

Gov. M. Jodi Rell kicked off the state's new $4.4 million "Connect" tourism
campaign last week.

No matter how much energy the understated and arguably underfunded effort
may give the state, it will never eclipse the multi-year self-promotion of
John Rowland, the disgraced former governor.

Who knew he was right on many levels when he promoted the state as "Full of
Surprises." One of the surprises to us was Rowland's corruption.
Fortunately, the federal investigation that landed him in prison for a
year, was a surprise to Rowland.

Rell, questioned last week, said she at no time considered becoming a
running character in the campaign like Rowland and former First Lady Patty
Rowland.

Still, a more-exciting TV campaign could still feature Rowland. Picture him
in an orange jumpsuit, skewering litter on the side of a road in rural
Pennsylvania, near his federal prison-camp residence. Or maybe he's bent
over a toliet, merrily scrubbing away. That goodness for the one-piece uniform.

He looks in the camera and cocks a classic Rowland wise-guy smile. "You
know," he says, "on the whole, I'd rather be back in Connecticut."

What Goes Around Comes Around

Rep. Larry Miller, R-Stratford, held the House hostage for an hour or so
early Friday night. Considering the holiday traffic was frozen on
interstates around the Capitol, it was probably just as well that he
offered one amendment after another to try to give towns like Stratford
some local control on affordable housing projects.

The amendments kept failing and Miller kept introducing new ones, as if he
didn't know that the Democrats run the House with its unwieldy, sometimes
self-destructive, always vain 99-52 majority.

Anyway, around dinner time, there were about 25 lawmakers in the House, 20
of whom were Republicans. Deputy Speaker Buddy Altobello, D-Meriden, was at
the podium and at one point, after another of Miller's amendments went down
in flames, he tried to call a hasty vote on the underlying bill.

"Hold on Mr. Speaker," Miller yelled. Altobello, who when he's on the
podium runs the House as if he were yelling nonstop prices at a tobacco
auction, slowed down, smiled and said, for the sixth time, "For what reason
do you stand, Representative Miller?"

Black And White In Color

Gov. Rell may be in for more reaction than she bargains for if she vetoes
the bill before her that would equalize penalties for crack and powder cocaine.

Currently, a half gram rock of smokable crack, the choice of urban addicts,
can land someone in prison for five years, while someone holding just less
than an ounce, 28 grams, of powder can avoid the mandatory five years.

On Friday, Rell seemed to be leaning more toward vetoing the bill,
remembering that in 1987, when she was in the House, the law was an attempt
to reduce senseless urban violence that flower around the crack trade.

"I've learned more about cocaine in the powder form and the crack form in
the last couple of days than I ever thought I would learn," she said. "But
I also learned that the same amount of powder cocaine can make...and I
don't remember the exact number, but a lot of the crack cocaine. And that
possession and also the addictability, I guess, if there's such a word,
that...it's much easier to become addicted to crack and you become addicted
quicker."

Well, Rell's wrong and wrong, according to the Washington-based Drug Policy
Alliance. Michael Blain, the director of public policy for the nonprofit
reform advocates, said an hour or so later crack actually produces the same
weight, or less, after cooking it down.

If an ounce of powder cocaine is 80 percent pure, during the cooking
process with baking soda and water, everything will cook away but the pure
cocaine, leaving eight-tenths of an ounce of crack. He said that recent
research is also showing that powder and crack and equally addictive.

"The thing to focus on is the effects of the drug are basically the same,"
Blain said. He said that national civil rights figures including the Rev.
Jesse Jackson and Republican governors who have signed similar laws, have
joined in a letter-writing campaign to persuade Rell to sign the bill.

"Do not let people fool you or your publication on this being anything
other than a fairness issue," Blain said. "She has to ask herself Am I
going to treat African-Americans the same way I treat white Americans?' Her
pen will determine how she'll feel about that. Eighty five percent of
people locked up for crack cocaine are African-American, not biege, not
white, not Latino."

He called Hartford "ground zero" in the war on drugs. "At a time when this
country is looking for leadership, Gov. Rell needs to do the right thing,
the non partisan thing. She needs to be fair and just."

Talking His Language

Rep. Chris Caruso, D-Bridgeport, the reform-minded co-chairman of the
legislative ethics committee, was making a lot of people in his own party
uncomfortable last week. The campaign finance reform bill was set to take
away a lot of the leverage that leading lawmakers used to get where they
are today.

The bill would reduce Speaker of the House Jim Amann's five political
action committees down to one, albeit with no spending limits. Another
provision would create taxpayer-financed elections for governor and other
top statewide seats like attorney general.

The bill unveiled as a done-deal one day last week, was hitting a
low-pressure system up in the Senate. So what do you do when the going gets
tough? Call a road trip? Not exactly. You call a news conference.

So there was Caruso and other House members calling for the Republican
governor to compromise, when what they really wanted to do was get Senate
Democrats to swallow their medicine.

Caruso came close to saying such, using some vestigial Italian. While the
Senate majority and others want to sit around the table eating and drinking
[ "mangia breva"], they get "paurosi" when faced with cutting off the flow
of political money.

Caruso defined "paurosi" as nervous, but Rep. Joe Mioli, D-Westport, a
native Italian and former co-owner of the landmark pizzeria in downtown
Westport, later defined it as the plural for "fear."

They Can't Get Any Respect

Democrats, particularly in the House, have been in the habit this year of
steamrolling any Republican opposition. During one debate last week,
Republicans complained that it was a blatant attempt to study any occasion
when the governor proposes laying off state employees.

Republicans called it sour grapes, left over from Rowland's layoffs of
union workers a couple years back.

At one point, toward the end of the debate, House Minority Leader Bob Ward
stood tall and announced "Maybe,in your sense, there won't eve' be a
Democratic governor, so you have to take away their power."

It took a few stunned seconds for this to sink in before a few scattered
boos came from the Democrats, who had been busted on the spot by the truth.
Then, a soft, guilty booing rose from the majority, like a few scattered
cows in a pasture.