Worst Bills You May Not Know About

I was asked a great question today. “What were the worst bills
passed that people don’t really know about.” That is actually a difficult
question, considering there was some really horrible legislation passed over
the last two years and I can't tell what people have actually heard.

I do get a sense that some issues are under reported by the look
of surprise on a constituent's face when we speak. Here are just a few I think
have big consequences.

1. Early Release Program. The budget is actually implemented through
many bills, but it is presented in its entirety. The Governor’s budget
increased spending a time when we couldn’t afford it. As a result, we were
retroactively taxed and taxed on many goods and services. But more importantly,
there were bad policies outlined in the budget to save money. Most notably is
the Risk Reduction Earned Credit program to let prisoners out of prison early
with good behavior. Only under Republican pressure did the Democrats amended
the bill to disallow participation for individuals convicted of murder,
aggravated sexual assault in the first degree, and home invasion.
Unfortunately, many other violent criminals and sex offenders qualify for early
release, despite Republican attempts to keep them behind bars. This bill was
particularly troubling to me because it was stuck in the budget with no
opportunity for victims to testify at a public hearing. Now we have already
begun to hear stories of re-offenders creating more victims of violent crime in
Connecticut. A bipartisan approach would probably have resulted in a law that
allowed nonviolent offenders an opportunity for early release.

2. Election Day Registration. In 2014, Connecticut citizens will be
able to register to vote on the same day of the election. Unfortunately, many
safeguards to eliminate voter fraud have been eliminated. In addition, the
Democrats would not allow an ID be required to register to vote, even if an ID
were provided free of charge to those who are not eligible for a driver’s
license. In addition, any vote that is found to be fraudulent after the
election is still counted! This bill is touted as part of the continuous
efforts to increase voter turnout, like the effort to remove absentee voting
requirements from the State Constitution, and let the Secretary of State and
the Legislature decide these rules. My belief is the voting issues were
included in the state constitution to safeguard voting rights. My advice to
residents of Connecticut – Voter fraud will be rampant in 2014 so, be ready.

3. All Payer Claims Database. It doesn’t sound interesting, but I
think this one will haunt us. The bill requires insurance claim information be
collected into a state database. The up side is we will have a health database
we can use to asses public health across the state. The bad news is that there
are those in the state who will use the information to influence your care,
like pressuring your doctor to practice medicine in a certain manner or
pressuring you to lose weight or stop smoking. I don’t think the state should
be that involved in your health-care. The other issue is now all of our
personal health information will be one central database just ready to be
hacked. I tried to separate identity information from the data and add means
for citizens to opt-out of the program, but my efforts were defeated on a
mostly a party-line vote.

When I have my next opportunity to write, I will cover the best
bills that I believe people don't know about!