House Speaker James Amann and Governor M. Jodi Rell have tangled numerous times over the past three years - often with the Democratic speaker jabbing at the Republican governor.
The latest version came after Rell said that Amann should be questioned about his views on the "three strikes'' law that would put those convicted of three violent felonies into prison for life. Rell said in an interview in Hartford that Amann said he was "comfortable'' with the version of the three strikes bill in January before voting against it during the special session following last summer's triple slayings in Cheshire.
Rell refused to meet with Democratic legislators this week after she was trashed over her three strikes proposal, which she pushed Monday in the hours after a 62-year-old woman was pronounced dead in the New Britain shootings. The suspect in the case - longtime criminal and convicted felon Leslie Williams -had been living most recently at the Stewart B. McKinney homeless shelter in Hartford before the New Britain crime spree began. Rell complained that Democrats have not done enough on crime, including rejecting her three strikes proposal in the House and the Senate, as well as the new, updated version recently in the judiciary committee.
Amann told Capitol Watch on Wednesday that his voting record on crime is rock solid as he favors the death penalty and is "a 100 percent NRA guy'' on gun-control issues.
"Don't even compare, madam governor, your record on crime to mine because I'll go toe to toe with you,'' Amann responded after being told of Rell's remarks. "She wants to be partisan on this? Let's go toe to toe, OK?''
"What is she talking about?'' Amann asked at the Capitol. "It's time to stop the rhetoric. ... I told her straight out that I'm for a law that works, not for one that sounds good. ... In her task force - her hand-picked experts - they never recommended three strikes. Let's remember that.''
After Amann noted that he was an original sponsor of the "three strikes'' legislation that passed years ago as the dangerous felony offender statute, Rell's spokesman, Christopher Cooper, said Amann's tough-on-crime statements don't jibe with reality.
"If he's so committed to three strikes, then why did he vote against it?'' Cooper asked. "Where's his proposal? Where's three strikes? The silence is deafening. There's an old saying: don't just listen to what they say, see how they vote.''
Rep. Christopher Caruso, an Amann ally, said the rhetoric needs to cool down under the gold dome.
"I think the politicizing and the demagoguery of these issues has to stop,'' Caruso said. "We're putting out a lot of false hopes to people. The three strikes law - plain and simple - is not going to stop this from happening in the future. It's troubling to me. ... It will probably be used in the campaign. For those who do that, shame on them. The logic is being overshadowed by the demagoguery. It makes great for political spin. It's great for a bumper sticker. Will any of this demagoguery bring any of the victims back?''
--Christopher Keating
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