Red Light Camera Bill Takes Nose-Dive

A controversial bill to allow red light enforcement cameras at Connecticut intersections has taken a pronounced nose-dive in legislative support in recent weeks, despite strong public backing this year by prominent Democrats including Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and state Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney of New Haven – and, in a last attempt to salvage it, proponents came out with a scaled-back, amended version Monday night.

One of the bill’s chief backers, Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, acknowledged Monday night that if the bill as originally written were voted on, “we would not win.”

And so, he said, he will count votes for the next two days in the House Democratic caucus to see if he can find 76 willing to vote for the scaled-down version; that’s the number required for a majority in the 151-member chamber.  If he can’t find those 76, he said legislative leaders would not want to try to bring it to a vote in the House; the debate would be expected to take hours, and perhaps even a full day, at the expense of other legislation that needs action in the few remaining days before May 9 adjournment.

Red-light camera bills have failed in each year they have been introduced up to now, and now a couple of factors – including public criticism and legislators’ skepticism in a General Assembly election year – have brought it to the brink of another failure in 2012.  One of the bill’s recent problems was a blast of criticism by the Connecticut NAACP, which said concentrating the municipally-run enforcement cameras in big cities, as the bill proposes, would unfairly target poor people and members of racial minorities. The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut has strongly opposed the bill, saying it encroaches on citizens’ privacy and due process of law.

Fines would be $50 per violation plus a $15 administrative fee.

The amended version of the bill would cut the number of cities and towns that could establish camera enforcement from the original bill’s 19 down to seven.  It would give the state commissioner of transportation the power to evaluate the proposals of municipalities that seek to use the cameras, to be sure that they comply with the rules set up in the bill.  The bill does not name the towns and cities eligible to apply to set up local camera-enforcement programs – but, based on population guidelines in the bill,  sources say the seven probably would be New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford, Hamden, East Hartford, Manchester and Norwalk.