05.13.09
Sayers Bows To Pressure
Interesting article from Ted Mann at the New London Day regarding the House vote on the popular vote bill.
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=b670d8dc-c4bf-4f1c-8e2f-f36ac9c93da4
Democrats, the popular vote and hypocrisy
Or, how to lose your argument while winning
House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr. paid a visit to the Capitol Press Room on Tuesday night a little after 10 p.m., and moments after his tiny Republican minority caucus had almost joined with more than 30 Democrats to kill a bill that would change how Connecticut allots its electoral votes.
Almost.
In fact, when the vote tally hit the big board in the House chamber, it looked like the No votes had won: 72-73 with 6 lawmakers missing.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the tally: A mysterious pause, followed by the sudden request of Rep. Peter Tercyak, D-New Britain, for recognition by the chair.
Before Tercyak could even speak, the boos began. They knew what was coming.
Tercyak, tongue firmly planted in cheek, explained that he had benefited from a brief but fruitful discussion in the seconds after the vote was closed (thought not, presumably, in the 2 hours and 15 minutes of debate that preceded it) and now wished to have his vote registered in the affirmative.
As jeers echoed in the chamber, from Republicans and some Democrats too, Tercyak remarked that he wished others could have heard the enlightening pep talk he had heard in the moments after House Speaker Christopher Donovan and the Democratic leadership realized their side was going to lose. That is, the tongue-lashing he took from his party leadership instructing him to take one for the team, change his vote and prevent the powerful Democratic majority from losing a battle – even on a bill that obviously has tepid support among Democrats and is unlikely to pass in the Senate.
Tercyak was quickly followed by a few other mid-level leaders: Fellow Deputy Majority Leader Peggy Sayers of Windsor Locks, and Deputy Speakers Bob Godfrey of Danbury and Buddy Altobello of Meriden.
(The last three seemed less sheepish, perhaps out of the knowledge that the inconvenience of taking bullets in such situations is one reason they get the extra $6,446 per year in salary that comes with the fancy titles.)
This is, of course, not the greatest scandal in Connecticut history. The Democrats have a big majority. The voters gave them enough numbers to push the minority party around. And they do so routinely – as, indeed, Republicans would if the situation were reversed – on the tender little intricacies of parliamentary procedure, in ruling which amendments are germane to the bill at hand, or deciding the order of the bills to be debated, or dropping the biggest and most complicated proposals on their counterparts with as little warning as possible, the better to keep them guessing and ill-prepared.
But did the majority really have to twist arms and change votes for this bill?
Cafero had a good point when he arrived here tonight: There is a special irony in a group of legislators spending two hours of the night declaiming to the heavens about the sanctity of “one person one vote” – and then turning around and leaning on colleagues to change their votes because they didn’t get the result they wanted.
And it provides yet another rejoinder to those same majority lawmakers who always seem so deeply offended, truly wounded, when members of the press or the public suggest that their public pronouncements might sometimes be motivated, oh just a touch, by partisan- or self-interest.
How they recoil at such suggestions, and how they scold the dwindling core of hacks left in the fourth floor garret when we make them, for our abiding cynicism.
Well, once again, I’d say we’ve earned it.