I'm happy Malloy is doing the right thing now. Over on the GOP side, this guy came to town to campaign for one of Malloy's potential opponents:Responding to pressure from immigrant rights activists who held a rally Tuesday to urge the state to welcome children crossing the border, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said he was exploring the former campus of Gateway Community College in New Haven as potential housing for migrants.The tens of thousands of children crossing the border from Central America this year created a need for temporary housing for the minors, before they are placed with a relative or other sponsor while their court cases proceed.
Malloy was criticized earlier this month when he rejected a federal request to house children at Southbury Training School, a large residential facility for the developmentally disabled. The governor's office said the state "simply does not own appropriate facilities" to provide residential housing, but offered to assist the federal government in finding homes for migrant children who have family in Connecticut.
In a statement released Tuesday, Malloy said 320 migrant children have been placed with relatives in Connecticut. After participating in a conference call Tuesday with the White House, the secretary of Homeland Security and the secretary of Health and Human Services, Malloy said "substantial progress" had been made to diminish the federal government's residential property needs, and pointed to a facility in Arizona where 22 children are being held, down from more than 1,000 earlier this year.
But, Malloy said, he instructed state agencies to work with the federal government should any future needs arise, and "that would include exploring the Gateway property."
The governor's statement followed a rally organized by the Connecticut Immigrant Rights Alliance and held Tuesday at the former Gateway campus. Activists called on Malloy to "stand up for immigrant children."
Malloy faced backlash from the state's immigrant community for his initial response to the Southbury request. In emails to the federal government, Malloy administration officials said that state statute requires at least two years to re-allocate "surplus state property," so even if a viable location existed, it would not be available within the necessary time frame.
The Gateway property "is owned and controlled by the Board of Regents system and is not a surplus state property," the governor said Tuesday. - The Courant, 7/23/14
Christie even had the audacity to defend his veto:The scene was more Jersey Shore than Greenwich. A crowd of 200-plus gun control activists carrying signs and chanting "Not one more," protested Monday evening along the lush Shore Road, outside Greenwich's exclusive Belle Haven neighborhood.Standing yards from the guard house of the gated development, the group gathered to show New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley just how important the issue of common sense gun control is to the voters of Connecticut.
The largely peaceful group got as close as possible to the home of hedge fund magnate Brian Olson, who hosted the GOP fundraiser that Christie attended on Foley's behalf. The demonstration was led by the group Connecticut Against Gun Violence, along with the Newtown Action Alliance and the Greenwich Council Against Gun Violence.
"Our message is that in Connecticut we have strong gun laws," said Ron Pinciaro, executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence. "We have the second-strongest gun laws in the nation, and we also have the sixth-lowest rate of gun deaths in the nation. Smart gun laws work and are important."
Christie's intervention in the Connecticut governor's race immediately stoked the emotional debate between gun-control advocates and Second Amendment supporters that has been smoldering since the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012.
Speaking to Hearst Connecticut Media after a bill-signing ceremony Monday morning at Weston High School, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy blasted Christie for his recent veto of a bill that would have reduced New Jersey's magazine-capacity cap from 15 rounds to 10.
Parents of the Newtown shooting victims lobbied on behalf of the legislation, but said they were snubbed by Christie when they tried to meet with him.
"For him not to have sat down with people who lost their children to talk about the importance of a piece of legislation that he was going to sign or veto, it's so insulting," Malloy said. "Then to call their potential input trivial, I suppose in some ways puts salt in the wounds of folks who've suffered mightily already. But it's also in keeping with his governance attitude." - CT Post, 7/22/14
Real class act. It's no surprise Malloy and gun control activists would be enraged by Christie's visit:Mr. Christie never came face to face with the demonstrators on the street. But inside a diner, a Newtown resident named Richard Boritz confronted him about his veto of the gun bill, which was passed in May by a Democratic-controlled Legislature and would have reduced the allowable size of magazine rounds to 10 from 15.“How,” Mr. Boritz asked, “would you limit gun violence in this country without limiting access to high-capacity magazines or —”
Mr. Christie interrupted him, saying there was no evidence that limiting high-capacity magazines “does anything to limit violence.”
He repeated his insistence that government grapple with the mental health problems that he said were often at the heart of the shootings. “Every one of these instances of mass killings, we had people with significant mental health issues, and that needs to be dealt with,” he said. “It’s not the sexy part of it. It’s not the stuff that gets you big headlines when you are a politician. It’s the stuff that actually gets the job done.”
Mr. Boritz tried to follow up with a second question, but Mr. Christie cut him off.
“I am not engaged in a debate,'’ he said. “You asked a question. That’s my answer.” - New York Times, 7/21/14
http://www.newsobserver.com/...
And Malloy was never a fan of Christie but his veto only enraged him:More than 18 months after a gunman killed 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Sunday he thinks of the massacre five or six times a day."It's still with me," he said in an interview on WVIT-TV. "You can't have lived through that or watched all of those parents who lost their loved ones and not be permanently impacted. And you certainly couldn't be the person in the firehouse who ultimately had to tell all of those families that they weren't going to be united without being impacted."
The Democratic governor, who is seeking a second term, released TV campaign ads that cite the December 2012 shootings. Without mentioning Sandy Hook, an announcer refers to "unimaginable evil let loose in the school."
The ad also mentions "historic storms that battered our communities."
Tom Foley, the endorsed Republican candidate for governor, said in a separate interview on WVIT-TV that Malloy connected with Connecticut residents in the aftermath of destructive storms and the Newtown massacre.
"Everybody sort of looks for leadership in times of crisis and tragedy so there's a natural inclination for people to want somebody to provide comfort and take charge and say that things will get better and people seem to have responded to what Gov. Malloy did, certainly with Hurricane Sandy and what happened at Sandy Hook."
Foley faces a challenge from Senate Minority Leader John McKinney in a Republican primary on Aug. 12. - News Observer, 7/20/14
If you live in Connecticut, you should expect to see Christie more out campaigning for Foley. Of course Foley still has to win the nominee and things are getting ugly:On July 2, just hours after Gov. Chris Christie refused a meeting with the families of children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, he vetoed a bill that would limit the size of gun magazines to 10 rounds. Even more appalling, he referred to their efforts as “grandstanding” and called the bill a “trivial approach to human life.”As governors, we’re frequently forced to make tough choices, to support solutions that are essential to the safety and well-being of our citizens, regardless of their popularity. Gun violence is a complex issue, one that requires a multifaceted, multidisciplinary approach that addresses both the mental health of the perpetrator and the tools used to carry out destruction. Mass shootings, urban gun violence, and domestic gun violence are all problems that require unique responses, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
In Connecticut, we are addressing gun violence by increasing access to mental health care, making sure those who pose a risk to themselves or others are unable purchase weapons, restricting the sale and purchase of assault weapons, and combating urban violence with initiatives such as Project Longevity.
We also banned the future sale and purchase of large-capacity magazines, and required registration of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds and were owned prior to my signing the legislation. Not all of those reforms were politically convenient, but they were the right things to do.
In vetoing the legislation that the New Jersey Legislature worked to pass, Gov. Christie said the bill wouldn’t eradicate or even reduce mass violence. Limiting the number of bullets that can be fired before reloading won’t prevent a mass shooting. But in the event of a shooting, the type of which we see almost weekly in the United States, a smaller magazine could provide more opportunities for precious seconds in those chaotic moments, seconds that can save lives, and nothing about that potential is “trivial.” - Gov. Dannel Malloy (D. CT), Star-Ledger, 7/11/14
Let the GOP duke it out. In the mean time, click here if you want to get involved and donate to Malloy's campaign:In a new television commercial, John P. McKinney hits his fellow Republican gubernatorial candidate, Tom Foley, for suggesting in an ad that McKinney supported tax, spending and other policies of the Democrat they are trying to unseat, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
“Is he kidding?” McKinney asks, speaking over a Foley ad. “I opposed Dan Malloy’s policies, and he knows it. Tom Foley is just not being honest about my record.”
Well, that’s true – but only to a point.
Foley’s ad was misleading on one key point: By lumping McKinney and Malloy together on a number of issues, it created the misimpression that McKinney voted for Malloy’s tax-and-spending plans.
In fact, McKinney voted against all four Malloy budgets, just as he voted against nearly all tax increases during his 16 years in the state Senate, the last seven as GOP minority leader.
But Foley’s ad also accuses Malloy and McKinney of “pushing failed policies – costing us jobs.” And that is a matter of opinion.
For that claim, Foley points in a footnote to two Malloy bills that McKinney actually did support: one created the “First Five” economic assistance program for major employers; the other ratified a deal extending $400 million in tax credits to United Technologies Corp.
In the new ad, McKinney also doubles down on a claim from his first ad that Foley won't cut spending and that he is too deferential to the 2011 concession deal negotiated by the Malloy administration.
“The truth is, it’s Tom Foley who won’t cut spending. I will. And it’s Tom Foley who supports Dan Malloy’s sweetheart deal with state union bosses. I don’t," McKinney says in his ad. “I’m John McKinney. I’m the only candidate willing to target the size of state government."
The basis for those claims are Foley's promises to level-fund state government for two years and not seek state employee concessions before the current collective bargaining agreement expires. In 2011, Malloy negotiated a concession package that took two tries to win ratification from the rank and file. - CT Mirror, 7/22/14
