CAPITOL WATCH

Waterbury Chief Responds to DeLuca

     Suffice to say, Waterbury Police Chief Neil O'Leary and Sen. Louis C. DeLuca have differing recollections.

    His letter to the Bipartisan Committee of Review can be read here.

    DeLuca's lawyer, Craig Raabe, also has written the committee, challenging its right to view a confidential police file.

     -- Mark Pazniokas

Maybe She'll Dress As Joan Hartley

     Gov. M. Jodi Rell and husband Lou will greet trick or treaters at the Executive Residence at 990 Prospect Avenue in the West End of Hartford tonight, starting at 5:30 p.m.

     Last year, Rell spoofed her image, dressing as Snow White. No word on the plan this year.

     We can suggest one costume if she wants to scare Don Williams.

     -- Mark Pazniokas

The Bonds That Tie

      The bonding stalemate is over.

      I wish I could tell you what it was really about. I wish I could find someone who could say what it really was about. Ostensibly, it was about money, of course. Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed a $3.2 billion version, only to happily embrace a $2.8 billion package that passed nearly unanimously.

     So, you might think, it was all about cutting $400 million. That's the message that Rell got to trumpet, allowing her to declare victory. You might think it was a political test, a Republican govenor vs. the "veto-proof" Democratic majorities in both houses.

     Trouble is, the $400 million cut is not really a cut. The legislature can only authorize bonding. It is up to the governor to actually act on those authorizations, so there never was any chance that the $3.2 billion would be spent.

     The stalemate could have been a political test. If Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, had won over one holdout Democrat, Sen. Joan Hartley of Waterbury, he could have engineered the first major override of a Rell veto.

     Instead of cutting a deal with Hartley and handing Rell a political defeat, he cut one with Rell, proving, um, that he can handle a state senator. Hartley, by the way, voted for the final version.

    Now, what was that all about?

     -- Mark Pazniokas

Colbert's Joke On The Press

     Last summer, I sat with ad man Bill Hillsman in the green room of The Colbert Report, watching the intersection of entertainment, news and politics. Hillsman's client, Senate candidate Ned Lamont, was being interviewed by America's favorite faux newsman, Stephen Colbert.

     Before the show, Colbert told Lamont to be real -- leave the entertainment to him. On camera, Colbert gave his absurdist take on a Bill O'Reilly-type of interviewer, feigning outrage when Lamont said that Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman was enabling the president by supporting the war.

     "Should we hinder the president, sir?'' Colbert asked. "It is a time of war. Shouldn't we stand behind him unquestioning?''

     "No, not when he is wrong,'' Lamont said. "When he is wrong, it is our duty to stand up.'

    The studio audience cheered wildly. The exchange worked as comedy and as politics. Colbert was funny, while Lamont sounded his campaign themes. Lamont's staff was drained after the taping, knowing the appearance was a calculated risk.

     Now, Colbert is pretending to be a presidential candidate -- and journalists like Tim Russert are playing along, inviting him on the venerable Meet the Press. Wonder if Russert dropped by the green room and told Colbert to be real -- and leave the entertainment to him?

     The backlash is starting, with this piece at Media Matters and this take at Market Watch.

     -- Mark Pazniokas

DeLuca Affidavit Now On Line

     In an affidavit made public today, Sen. Louis DeLuca told a legislative committee that he never specified what was to happen to his granddaughter's husband, Mark Colella, when he asked a trash-hauler, James Galante, to intimidate him.

     "He offered to have someone 'visit' Mr. Colella. We did not discuss the possibility of violence," DeLuca told the committee. "I accepted Mr. Galante's offer to have someone 'visit' Mr. Colella. We did not discuss what that would entail."

      A legislative committee will recommend next month if DeLuca should be disciplined for conspiring with Galante to threaten Colella, whom he suspected of abusing his granddaughter.

     DeLuca says in the affidavit that he cannot authenticate photos he submitted that he says show bruises on his granddaughter's arm. The photos were taken by digital camera, and he did not save the images on the memory card.

     DeLuca also complained that he believes the committee is exceeding the scope of its authority. He refused to provide the committee with government recordings of two conversations he had with an FBI undercover agent, who posed as a representative of Galante.

     The committee has no authority to demand the recordings, he said.

     -- Mark Pazniokas

Rell to Sign Revised Bond Package

     Just back from a vacation to Colorado, Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she will sign the revised, slimmer bond package passed today by the General Assembly, ending a months-long stalemate with the legislature's Democratic majority.

     -- Mark Pazniokas

A State Where Everybody Knows Your Name

     Sarah Merriam reminded me again today how frequently people cross paths with each other in Connecticut's tight, intersecting circles of politics, government and the law.

     Merriam shared a few memories of her old boss, Thomas J. Meskill, who died Monday after a long, notable career in politics and the law. Meskill was a conservative Republican, who served two terms in Congress and one as governor from 1967 to 1975, then became a federal appellate judge.

     Meskill interviewed Merriam for a sought-after clerkship in 2002. Fully aware that Merriam was not  conservative and not a Republican, Meskill smiled broadly and mused that if he were younger and she were older, they might not be friends. Then he hired her.

    For a year, the young Democratic activist learned from a Republican judge about the fine points of law, including how to separate political opinions from legal ones.

     Four years later, Merriam called the judge to break the news she was back in politics with a new client, a young liberal Democrat, Chris Murphy. With Merriam as his campaign manager, Murphy was going after Meskill's old seat in Congress.

Rowland Remembers Meskill As "A Great Friend''

John G. Rowland and Thomas Meskill shared something in common: they were the only Republican governors in Connecticut in the nearly 50 years between 1955 and 2004.

Democrats Abe Ribicoff and John Dempsey controlled the office for 16 years before Meskill took over in 1971. Ella Grasso, Bill O'Neill and Lowell Weicker of A Connecticut Party served after Meskill and before Rowland gained power in January 1995.

Rowland, who could not be reached earlier Monday, told Capitol Watch that Meskill will be remembered for generations.

"Gov. Meskill was a wonderful public servant serving all three branches of government,'' Rowland said in response to an e-mail. "He was a great friend to me and counsel and role model to young politicians all across Connecticut. My prayers are with Mary and the family. His contributions to the state of Connecticut will continue on for generations to come.''

--Christopher Keating

Dodd Opposes Mukasey for AG

     Sen. Christopher Dodd told reporters over a conference call this afternoon that Michael Mukasey should be denied confirmation as attorney general over his view that a president can justify ignoring federal law.

     Mukasey's belief in "the supremacy of the executive" over federal statute is more troubling than his defense of waterboarding as an interrogation method, Dodd said, adding that an attorney general must be a reliable defender of the rule of law.

     "That is about as basic as it gets," Dodd said. "You must obey the law. Everyone must."

     Dodd is the first of the Democratic presidential candidates to oppose Mukasey's nomination.

     -- Mark Pazniokas

Former Governor Meskill Dies Suddenly in Florida

Former Gov. Thomas J. Meskill, a longtime federal judge, former mayor, member of Congress, and a giant among Connecticut Republicans in the early 1970s, died suddenly Monday of a heart attack at a Florida hospital at the age of 79.

After being named a federal judge by President Richard M. Nixon in one of his final acts in office, Meskill remained out of the spotlight and purposely avoided getting involved in politics while seated on the bench.

But in a rare joint appearance, Meskill spoke publicly in 1997 during a taping for Connecticut Public Television with then-Gov. John G. Rowland and former Gov. William A. O'Neill in a roundtable discussion about their toughest decisions and greatest accomplishments.

Meskill said his toughest decision was deciding not to run for re-election in 1975. Many believed that he did not run because of the public outcry over his failure to remain in the state during a major ice storm in December 1973, but Meskill rejected that widely held belief. Instead, he said the real reason he stepped down as governor was that he no longer wanted his five children - aged 2 to 13 - to be living in the governor's mansion at 990 Prospect Avenue in Hartford's West End.

"It's a very unreal life for very young children to be brought to school by a state trooper,'' Meskill said at the time. "I didn't want to continue that lifestyle for them.''