Someone in the comments asked for the posting of the youtube clip on the bill to allow 17 year olds to vote in primaries if they would be 18 on election day. The bill runs counter to my unified age theory, not to be confused with Einstein’s unified theory. In my unified age theory, I believe that one age, 18, should serve as the legal age for everything. Thus at 18, you can vote, you can sign a contract, you can drink, you drive, you can get drafted, you can get tried as an adult. This greatly simplifies laws all geared towards “re-deciding” where adulthood lies.
In related news, State Supreme Court Justice Chase T. Rogers said to an AP reporter that she backs a bill to return 16- and 17-year-olds back into the juvenile courts and out of adult court. Chief Justice Rogers is right on target with that. From the Courant:
Chase T. Rogers, the newly minted chief justice of the state Supreme Court, said Wednesday she backs a legislative proposal to move 16- and 17-year-olds out of adult court and back into the juvenile system.
Rogers said the state’s juvenile courts can handle the influx of teens if the judicial branch gets the necessary funding from state lawmakers.
“It makes sense to me that the juvenile brain is different - and that’s one of the primary driving factors on this - that they should be treated differently than adults,” Rogers said during an interview with The Associated Press.
Some lawmakers have pushed for several years to change the law. Connecticut is one of three states that always treat 16-year-olds as adults in court. Ten states begin treating teens as adults at 17 years old; 38 states at 18 years old, said Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee.
Under the bill before the legislature this session, prosecutors would still be able to transfer any felony case involving a juvenile to adult court.
“I think there’s a total head of steam behind it,” Lawlor said of the bill. “Her support probably seals it.”
Meanwhile Rell has shown a nimble flair for outmaneuvering Democratic legislators. Behold the mastery of the “My budget is better than yours because we don’t need an income tax increase.”
In a stunning turnaround, Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Wednesday that state tax revenue is so robust that the legislature can pass a budget this year with little or no tax increase.
Rell told reporters that she is considering dropping her proposed income tax increase, which has been heavily criticized by Republicans and fared poorly in a poll released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University. Only 16 percent of those surveyed said they supported Rell’s original plan to increase the state income tax by 10 percent over the next two years.
Rell’s change in tone followed the release Wednesday by the legislature’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis of new figures that showed state revenue coming in far faster than expected. Overall, the state is projected to collect $627 million more in revenue than originally estimated. The new projected surplus is $846.8 million for the fiscal year that ends June 30.
Of course, credit belongs to Larry Cafero’s House GOP who outflanked both Rell and the Democrats with their version of no new tax increases. From a a political maneuver, brilliant.
But from a policy standpoint, all proposed budget plans suffer the same fundamental revenue flaw. As long as Connecticut operates on what I can only charitably describe as “Enron Accounting” practices, all the rosy projections of increased revenues are not worth the paper they are forecast on. The reason is one of the legislature not adopting GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), which basically require in this case out government to only book revenue when it is actually received. Connecticut instead, books revenue based on anticipated collection, which as we all know can differ wildly from actual collections. To her credit State Comptroller Nancy Wyman has been pushing for GAAP for years. But the Democratic controlled legislature has been busy focusing on spending money or creating bills like the “17 year olds vote in primary” that take time away from moving Connecticut government into the 21st century. The GAAP proposals die each year. A reason is that it allows both the Governor and the Legislature to spend future revenue instead of revenue at hand. The result is that the same future revenue can get spent multiple times because there is no financial control in place.
So silly bills get more attention than serious bills.
Here now the video clip that was posted on MyLeftNutmeg.com:
source: Courant, AP INTERVIEW: New chief justice backs bill returning teens to juvenile court, May 10, 2007
source: Courant, Rell Reconsiders Tax Hike, By CHRISTOPHER KEATING,, May 10, 2007
