Drive-By Snark Attacks

Two little blurbs I wrote about some of the yummy legislative deliciousness wafting through the halls of my home state’s General Assembly:

Witches OK Now, Say Lawmakers

You know those people murdered by the colonial government after being accused of witchcraft? The legislature has passed a joint resolution stating that this was wrong.

"The General Assembly declares its belief," says resolution number 26, "that such proceedings, even if lawful under the then existing law of the colony of Connecticut, were shocking, and the result of community-wide hysteria and fear."

You can dismiss this as pointlessly symbolic, and it's true such posthumous vindication matters little to the long-dead victims.

But you could also say it's a good sign when a governmental body is capable of admitting "wrong is wrong, even when wrapped in the majesty of the law." Considering how long it took for the legislature to atone for the bewitching sins of the past, we predict that by no later than 2350 the General Assembly will pass a resolution stating "imprisoning harmless sick people for smoking illicit cigarettes, even if lawful under then-existing law, was the shocking result of community-wide anti-drug hysteria and fear. And we're sorry about that whole 'gay people are second-class citizens' thing, too."

— [Name redacted, because it occasionally amuses me to pretend I'm anonymous here]

Freedom of Information Isn't Free

Bill 5922, currently before the General Assembly, is 11 pages chock-full of law-altering goodness concerning the Department of Correction. Some of it deals with the Freedom of Information Act, and sets prices for people seeking copies of documents under FOIA: "the fee for a copy of any record provided by the Department of Correction to an inmate ... shall be [25] cents for each page." Brian Garnett, a spokesman for the DOC, said that inmates doing prison labor are paid anywhere from 75 cents to $1.25 per day, so any inmate making a Freedom of Information request will have to stamp out a lot of license plates to cover the costs. Ironically, another section of 5922 mandates that inmates open savings accounts for their return to the outside world.

— [Ditto]