4 May—I guess yesterday’s screed was wrong. Well, right and wrong. Right that the whores of Hartford—a.k.a. Connecticut’s august lawmakers—would vote themselves substantial pay raises in the hectic last days of the legislative session. Wrong that they’d do it by sneaking the raises into a consent calendar. They snuck it, all right, along with other gratuitous state pay raises, largess, and subterfuge, more brazenly as an amendment to House Bill 5406, “An Act Concerning a Study of State Revenue Policies.”

And the Hartford Wailers fiddled the legislation so that they’ll be able to get raises in the future without even having to talk about it, let alone tell it to their blissfully ignorant constituents. You’ve got to hand it to them. Practice makes perfect. They gave themselves a 43 percent raise, from $28,000 base pay to $40,000—far better than the excessive raise they had given less exalted state employees.

And the whole collusive bipartisan fiddle had obviously been orchestrated or choreographed—or both, take your choice—well before the suspiciously cordial kabuki debate in the House, where three Republican representatives and two Democrats spoke in favor, no one in opposition.

In the Senate, of course, there was no debate at all; the opponents knew it would have been a waste of time and energy in the circumstance. H.B. 5406 carried 95-53 in the House, 23-13 in the Senate.

Bringing his two decades of diligent, dedicated, non-whoring (and, given the circumstances, rather successful) representation of the 66^th House and 30^th Senate districts to a creditable close, our own 30^th District Senator Craig Miner voted against the pay raise, along with most Senate Republicans and reliably prudent Joan Hartley, a Democrat in name only.

In the House, our own 66^th District Representative David T. Wilson, entirely as expected, altruistically voted for the unnecessary pay raise even though, as he had announced on the opening day of the session, he couldn’t afford to seek a third term to take advantage of it.

David did, however, make an excellent point that the cost of the raises he voted for was minimal compared to other spending. As a financial advisor when he’s not legislating, David T. Wilson certainly knows what he’s talking about.

And it’s gratifying that 75 percent of respondents to yesterday’s Republican-American poll do not think state legislators should receive a pay raise, while only six percent do. Even the 19 percent who would need more information before making a decision don’t seriously affect the magnificent anti-pay-raise sentiment . . .