Chris Shays must have been thinking about this when he floated out his “give me a chairmanship or I quit” demand a few weeks ago. This being the reports that are scuttling many plans to for Republican congresscriters to fund challenger campaigns.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) reported $1.6 million in cash on hand and $4 million in debts as of Aug. 31. The group helps bankroll House campaigns for GOP candidates.

Its counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, reported $22.1 million, more than 10 times its Republican counterpart. 

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Chalk this report released by SWRPA as stating the obvious. As real estate prices have shot up in the last few years, the affordable factor in housing disappears. And that’s what the report basically says in today’s Advocate. One solution, the report states is to encourage 40 year mortgages:

The study recommends state and local governments pursue density bonuses and other incentives for developers to create affordable housing in those areas.

Other recommendations include SWRPA becoming an affordable housing information clearinghouse in its role as the region’s main intergovernmental planning agency, and urging lenders to create more flexibility in mortgages so home buyers can borrow more within acceptable limits.

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The Discovery channel started a new show aimed at teaching how it is that things like hockey sticks, get made. In the wee hours of the morning, shows like this play in between the infomercials that try and sell you weight loss pills and how to get rich selling real estate with no money down. Congress, in many ways, resembles this mix of hucksterism and process, with the occasional tabloid drama thrown in.

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While the Norwalk Democrats are busy funneling their energy into alienating the centrist core of Norwalk voters. the Norwalk Republicans are making waves throughout the state. Most people would say that following the 2006 elections, the Republican party in Connecticut was dead. Let’s review the election from the Republican perspective:

Rell and Michael Fedele, were the only Republicans to win statewide office. Republicans lost seats in the legislature; Republicans number 44 of 151 in the House and 12 of 36 in the Senate. And then, they lost 2 congressional seats to Democrats, and came very close to losing a third.

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Part of the art of blogging is finding things that people want to read about and better yet, talk about. So I often check other blogs for what is news in the blogsphere. Tonight I found a post by Weicker Liker on Connecticut Local Politics (CLP) which linked back to MyLeftNutmeg (MLN). And the comments following that post were less than happy over the post appearing on MyLeftNutmeg, which is an interesting reaction to what seemed to me a fairly interesting post. Roiling debates with people that have differing views is a good thing, but at MLN, it’s batten down the hatches time, and attack the dissenter. For me at least, I prefer the dissent and debate, it’s what makes watching the British Parliament way more interesting than watching C-Span. But I digress … the post for your review:

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One of the great many things that always bothers me about Congress is that no one actually reads the final bills that are passed. Too often, language gets inserted that introduces completely unrelated provisions. Or something is added to chip away at the intent of the bill. Or earmark funds to something ridiculous.

So I am pleased to see some grassroots group out there funneling some energy into the Read The Bills Act. In addition to the requirement that Congress reads the bills it votes on, it also allows a provision to require a waiting period of 7 days after it is posted to the Internet, so that the public can go over the final proposed bill.

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