The clock was ticking toward the Public Safety Committee’s Thursday deadline to pass bills and as the panel neared the end of its 39-item agenda, Sen. Herron Gaston stood from the table, made for the exit and dialed a colleague. “Hey,” he said, “I need you to come vote.” Gaston, a first-term Democrat from Bridgeport, co-chairs the public safety panel and his legislative priority — a bill that would require police to tell drivers why they’d been pulled over — looked in danger of failing after a midday committee vote. Republicans opposed it and at least a couple of Democrats had joined them.
