Senate President Donald WilliamsSoon after Attorney General Richard Blumenthal criticized them for not doing enough, state legislative leaders touted their successes Thursday. “Consumers should be appalled and angry their legislators have failed to debate or vote, let alone approve, a single significant energy proposal,” Blumenthal said Thursday. Blumenthal said the legislature should return for a special session to address these energy issues.Click here to read more from The Corner Report. But President Pro Tempore Senator Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, and Majority Leader Senator Martin Looney, D-New Haven, disagreed.
He said the legislature has taken small steps in an effort to encourage energy conservation by extending the tax-free holiday on weatherization materials and promote the development of clean energy by investing in fuel cells. The fact that they don’t even have a general bond package approved didn’t bother lawmakers either. Williams said the state hasn’t even started some of the projects it has previously bonded. “I don’t think there’s a clear need for a special session,” Looney said. 
Williams and LooneyBut even without a special session there will be plenty going on at the state Capitol. Today Rep. Christopher Caruso, D-Bridgeport, will hold a press conference on his plans for the General Administration and Elections Committee to move forward with its plans to investigate matters surrounding campaign violations by Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s Chief of Staff Lisa Moody. Thursday Republican Minority Leader Robert Ward called Caruso’s investigation a “partisan political witch hunt.” He said it was a campaign ploy that was going to backfire on the Democrats gubernatorial candidates. The Democrats will need to find a way to dirty Rell’s approval rating if either hope to win. A May 2, Quinnipiac University poll of more than 1,500 voters in the state found Rell buried her two Democratic challengers, Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy and New Haven Mayor John DeStefano.The poll shows Rell with 66 percent to 20 percent for DeStefano and 65 percent to 20 percent for Malloy. “If Governor Rell has an Achilles heel, the Democrats have not found it,” Quinnipiac Poll Director Douglas Schwartz said Tuesday. Ward said he overheard one of the gubernatorial candidates ask Williams how the Moody investigation was going. Williams said Thursday he has not discussed the matter with either of the two candidates.
