Connecticut
Kevin Rennie: Connecticut Bar Association is familiar with silence at crucial moments
Watch your mouth. That was the message from the Connecticut Bar Association’s three top leaders to the organization’s thousands of members, of which I’m one. The June 13 statement was prompted by perpetually aggrieved Donald Trump supporters hurling abuse at prosecutors, jurors and Judge Juan Merchan after the former president’s conviction this month on 34 counts of violating New York law through a 2016 hush money scheme.
The CBA officers, Maggie Castinado, James T. Shearin and Emily A. Gianquinto, condemned but did not name public officials who issued statements calling the trial a sham, hoax, and rigged; abused Judge Merchan as corrupt and unethical; and claimed the jury was partisan and in the bag for guilty verdicts from the start.
The statement excoriated social media posts seeking to breach the confidentiality of the jurors’ identity. What it did not allege is that any Connecticut lawyers were participating in these assaults on the rule of law. Near its conclusion, the trio’s homily got to the point. “It is up to us, as lawyers,” they wrote, “to defend the courts and our judges. As individuals, and as an Association, we cannot let the charged political climate in which we live dismantle the third branch of government. To remain silent renders us complicit in that effort.”
And then U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a lawyer, had to go and spoil it all three days later by unleashing the same type of hyperbole. He called the Supreme Court “brazenly corrupt and brazenly political” on CNN. Murphy added that Justice Clarence Thomas is “just a grift,” while Justice Samuel Alito is an open political partisan.
As of Friday, the civility umpires at the CBA had issued no statement chiding Murphy.
The CBA is familiar with silence at crucial moments. Six years ago, a mob of antisemites targeted the renomination of Judge Jane Emons to the Superior Court. Judge Emons was the target of appalling rhetoric. The CBA released no thunderbolts as the House of Representatives refused to vote on her renomination, forcing her off the bench.
A few years ago, I wrote about Alice Bruno, a Connecticut judge who failed to show up for work for two years while continuing to receive her salary and benefits. Emails showed plenty of people knew that Judge Bruno had been missing in action, but they remained silent. Bruno’s fate was decided in a secret proceeding when she was granted a disability pension that currently pays her more than $5,000 every two weeks. She worked, often erratically, as a Superior Court judge for only four years before she stopped showing up in 2019.
Before becoming a judge, Bruno did an 18-month stint as executive director of the Connecticut Bar Association. It remained silent throughout the Bruno saga, which undermined the public’s confidence in the judiciary.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a sensational investigation into the appalling saga of a federal bankruptcy judge and his personal relationship with lawyer Elizabeth Freeman, who had been his law partner and clerk in Houston. One of the nation’s biggest law firms, Kirkland & Ellis, brought in Freeman to work with it on cases before her boyfriend, Judge David R. Jones.
An anonymous letter lit the fuse on exposing the shocking conflicts at work in the nation’s busiest bankruptcy court. Michael Van Deelan, a small investor in a firm that filed for bankruptcy in the Houston court, believed he had not been treated fairly in the shakeout of the company. Van Deelan received a copy of the letter and filed it with the court in an attempt to have Jones disqualified from his case. Van Deelan’s motion was denied and the letter was sealed from public view, the Journal reported.
Van Deelan discovered through an internet search that Jones and Freeman owned a house together since 2017. Plenty of lawyers appear to have known that the two were engaged in a romantic relationship. To expose it would have ended a sweet arrangement that was a bonanza for the firms and their bankruptcy clients who brought Freeman in on their cases.
No one said a word. Only Van Deelan, a 74-year-old retired math teacher, brought justice where corruption ruled. It took an Appellate Court judge only a week to find probable cause by Jones for failing to disclose his relationship with Freeman. He resigned.
It requires no courage for bar association leaders to condemn those discreditable officials who donned red ties and made pilgrimages to New York to stand outside the courthouse to mewl and whine that the justice system was targeting the loathsome demagogue, Donald Trump.
To shine a searing light when something goes wrong in the judicial branch of government when no one is paying attention— that’s what protects the integrity of the system.
Kevin Rennie can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com
Connecticut
Lots of sunshine, highs in 60s and 70s Thursday
We will have lots of sunshine mixed with fair-weather clouds, dry breezes and enhanced fire danger on Thursday.
The high temperatures will be in the mid-60s to low-70s.
The northwest breeze will be between 10 and 20 miles per hour.
Tonight will be fair and chilly with lows in the 30s and 40s.
Friday will be fair and cooler, and then it will be much cooler on Saturday.
The next chance of showers is later Sunday night and Monday.
Get a more in-depth look at the forecast on our weather blog.
Connecticut
Opinion: With just days left, we need action on offshore wind
Over a year ago, Connecticut announced its signing of a first-of-its-kind agreement with Rhode Island and Massachusetts that would allow the three states to work together to bring new offshore wind projects to our region. But when Massachusetts and Rhode Island released their offshore wind selections in September, Connecticut was conspicuously absent. Unlike its neighbors, Connecticut has not yet joined in the multi-state offshore wind proposals, and soon it may be too late.
At first glance, this hesitation may seem understandable, even safe. After all, Connecticut customers are feeling the stress of rising energy expenses. But a closer look reveals that failing to move forward on offshore wind today would likely prolong the pain of high energy prices and could reduce
With just days left before the November 8 deadline to join this procurement, Connecticut policy leaders of all parties have expressed concern about energy costs, which have occurred for a number of reasons. This year we experienced one of the hottest summers on record, causing residents to crank up air conditioners and electric bills to increase. Eversource electric customers are also currently on the hook to collectively pay back $800 million from skipped collections during the COVID-pandemic via higher rates over a 10-month period. This fall, Yankee Gas is proposing a rate hike, as is the electric utility United Illuminating (UI). And an increasing reliance on imported natural gas puts customers in a precarious position as the gas supply
While there is no quick fix or single solution that can remedy the energy cost crunch, a “business-as-usual” approach is not going to bring long-term relief to ratepayers. If Connecticut continues down the current path, its growing overreliance on imported natural gas to supply both heating and electricity will further strain energy infrastructure and expose communities to major price spikes. Instead, we should be employing a diversity of resources. Offshore wind is one key way to take back control of our energy supply and maintain system reliability.
Offshore wind represents a significant reservoir of untapped potential for clean power right here along the East Coast. Offshore wind farms are incredibility efficient and effective at producing electricity due to their high energy capacity. The projects proposed in the recent three-state process will offer a nearby dependable power source that will keep money in the local economy, meaning hundreds of good jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars would be invested in Connecticut.
To be clear, building offshore wind does require significant upfront capital, but that’s true for any large-scale energy infrastructure. And costs won’t flow to ratepayers until the projects are completed and electricity is generated – several years in the future. Moreover, once constructed, offshore projects have the advantage of utilizing an inexhaustible supply of wind to generate power. Not needing to pay for fuel translates to long-term cost savings and predictability for emission-free power. That’s a win for consumers. Offshore wind is a sensible investment towards energy independence, electric grid resilience, and decarbonization.
The multi-state procurement was initiated to help the three states solicit major project bids that were more favorable than if each state pursued offshore wind individually. Instead of competing, the southern New England states launched a cooperative collaborative approach that had wind developers compete to serve the region’s collective interest. By collaborating and sharing resources, the states could access more cost-savings and leverage efficiencies of the regional grid.
The good news is that there is still time —just barely— for Connecticut to seize this opportunity by making a critical investment in Connecticut’s future; Gov. Ned Lamont can still opt into the regional bids, joining our New England partners before the next steps of the process in early November. But the clock is ticking, and now is the moment for Connecticut to make a wise investment in its energy future.
Kat Burnham is the Connecticut state-lead at the national business association Advanced Energy United.
Connecticut
See a county-by-county look at how Connecticut voted in the 2024 election
Kamala Harris is the projected winner in Connecticut, according to NBC News.
Which Connecticut counties did she get her strongest support from? And where were President-elect Donald Trump’s key counties in Connecticut?
Check out the interactive map below to look at the voting results for president, Senate, and the state’s five congressional districts.
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