The state House of Representatives early Friday approved a bill requiring foods with genetically modified ingredients carry a label.
But because the measure is different than the version passed by the Senate earlier this week, it needs to return to that chamber before heading to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy for consideration.
“I am very pleased we were able to pass GMO labeling legislation that can become the first of its kind in the nation,” House Speaker Brendan Sharkey said in a statement. “It was done on a bipartisan basis in concert with the governor and I’m hopeful it serves as a model for other states to join us.”
While Connecticut would be the first state to approve GMO labeling legislation, the law would only take effect if five other states with a combined population of 25 million people pass similar rules. That’s a change from the version of the bill approved by the Senate, which would have required three nearby states to approve similar laws by July of 2015. If no other states did, Connecticut’s law would still take effect in July of 2016, under the Senate version.
Sharkey and Malloy had both expressed reservations about the Senate bill. Sharkey said he was concerned about the costs that Connecticut businesses could incur if the state were the only one to require such labels.
The state Senate voted Thursday night to raise the minimum wage - an issue that has been controversial through the years.
The latest version calls for raising the wage by 75 cents per hour over two years with no index for inflation. As such, the wage would increase to $9 per hour by Jan. 2015, up from the current $8.25 per hour. That translates to slightly more than $17,000 per year for a fulltime job at the current rate.
After a lengthy debate, the Senate voted at about 8:45 p.m. Thursday on a mostly party line vote of 21 to 15. Conservative Democrat Joan Hartley of Waterbury, who has also recently opposed redefining the state’s spending cap, voted with 14 Republicans against the bill.
Five months after the Newtown massacre, the state Senate debated Thursday over a bipartisan bill designed to improve the emotional and mental health of children in an attempt to avoid another tragedy.
The measure is designed to detect behavioral problems at an early age and then begin early intervention to prevent the issues from worsening. Some supporters of the bill say that finding the proper care for children can be difficult in a long-running battle that often involves clashes with insurance companies and sometimes-slow diagnoses by pediatricians.
After a detailed debate that ended shortly before 5:30 p.m. Thursday, the measure was placed on the “consent” calendar and was later approved by 36 – 0.
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The state House of Representatives granted final legislative approval Thursday to strengthen the state’s racial profiling law by adding more police departments to monitor the race of drivers who are stopped by officers.
The vote on racial profiling was taken with lightning speed on an issue that has previously been controversial through the years at the Capitol.
The bill, which was previously approved 36 to 0 by the state Senate, passed the House unanimously by 130 to 0 with 20 members absent.
The debate originally started on Wednesday night, but it was temporarily postponed so that the House could begin debating over a controversial bill that would begin the steps for allowing drivers licenses for as many as 54,000 illegal immigrant drivers in the state.
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For years, Sunday hunting has been a highly controversial topic at the state Capitol.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives approved a very narrow version of the measure – allowing the hunting of deer on Sundays with a bow and arrow on private land.
The measure passed by 107 to 19 with 24 members absent as all 19 negative votes came from Democrats.
Just in time for the rainy holiday weekend, Occupy Hartford has issued a communique saying it will return to the city with a three-day engagement planned for the sidewalk outside the offices of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association beginning today. An email states the action is designed to
… draw attention to corporate lobbying in Connecticut and the growing gap between the rich and the poor. The occupation will last until Sunday morning.
The festivities begin at 4:30 today with a march from Bushnell Park to the CBIA offices at 350 Church St. in Hartford. In 2011, Occupy Hartford spent two months camping in the vacant lot near the intersection of Broad Street and Farmington Avenue.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will join Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and other elected officials for a town hall-style forum on school security on Friday at noon at Hartford’s Classical Magnet School.
Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy will join the panel, along with other members of the Congressional delegation and representatives from Newtown.
A new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & The Press finds that Americans still strongly support strengthened gun control. Better than 7-in-10 would support passage of the background checks bill that failed in the U.S. Senate last month. An even larger number, 8-in-10, favor background checks for private firearms sales and transactions at gun shows.
Interestingly, the survey also shows, by a 56-to-52 margin, that Americans don’t think Congress will actually do something.
Onenewtown.org is a one-stop shop for Newtown residents. First Selectman Pat Llodra writes:
Today I am pleased to launch onenewtown.org. As we create our collective path forward, this website will serve as a way to bring information regarding the recovery together in one place. It is different from the Town website which focuses on the town’s business. This site provides informational and inspirational topics as we move through our healing process.
Onenewtown.org is focused on connection and communication. In this context, Connection means being engaged with one another and sharing experiences that refresh and inspire us; to provide transparency and promote community participation. Communication is about the importance of sharing timely information about the recovery.
Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and Rep. Elizabeth Esty introduced a bill in both the House and the Senate Wednesday that would provide federal funding for Sandy Hook and other elementary schools that have suffered trauma or violence.
The legislation would offer federal funds to a “school in which the learning environment has been disrupted due to a violent or traumatic crisis that took place on the school campus.” It was proposed in response to a Newtown task force voted to spend $60 million to build a new Sandy Hook Elementary school at the site of the tragedy.
Schools could apply for funding through Project SERV, a U.S. Department of Education grant program that offers financial assistance for mental health counseling and other education-related services to schools recovering from a traumatic violent event. The bill proposed would allow schools to use SERV funds for building reconstruction.
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