The ongoing showdown about who is going to have the final say on the bonding package continued its theatrical performances. Wednesday’s special session open and closed, a silent statement in reaction to Rell’s state trooper order that the special session be called.

Rell had attempted a district pleasing appeasement that the legislature approve the school construction bonding parts, and the legislature wasn’t buying it.

Democratic legislators defied Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell on Wednesday by refusing her demand that they reduce a $3.2 billion bond package to a few hundred million dollars for school construction projects.

The House and Senate sessions lasted but minutes, barely long enough for a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance and a clerk’s fast, muffled reading of Rell’s call for the special session.

If no one could hear, that was OK. Copies had been hand-delivered to most legislators over the weekend in unannounced visits to their homes by state troopers, the curtain-raiser for a day of political theater.
Everyone drove to Hartford knowing that no business would transpire Wednesday, only a ritual exchange of insults delivered in front of a press corps that dutifully pin-balled around the Capitol.

By day’s end, Rell stood apart from the proceedings, adopting the weary mien of a mother habitually disappointed by the antics of unruly adolescents.

“Well, actually, I think you would all understand when I tell you that the first word that comes to mind is that I am disappointed,” Rell told reporters. “I am disappointed that the legislature did not take up the school construction dollars that I had asked them to do.”

Rell invited Democratic and Republican legislative leaders to meet with her Monday at 11 a.m. at the Executive Residence, saying everyone agrees on 80 percent of the bond package.

“I believe we can agree on the other 20 percent. No more potshots. No more politics,” Rell said. “People want us to work together. They want us to get this job done.”

Of course Rell has managed to ratchet up the political rhetoric on the bonding package, despite being the arbitrator of what the bonding agenda actually votes to approve. It’s a two step process, and Rell is looking like she is out of tune.

source: The Courant, Rell Order Sparks Defiance, Inaction, By MARK PAZNIOKAS, September 27, 2007