Atticus Finch

Eleven years ago I released my first CD, The Billable Hour Blues, which my good friend and then-publisher of the Connecticut Law Tribune, Vince Valvo, produced.  He wrote the liner notes for the CD, beginning with: “Cross Mel Tormé with the Capitol Steps, add a dash of Atticus Finch, and you get Dan Klau.” I’ve always loved that sentence. The Mel Tormé and Capitol Steps references captured my musicality, and the Atticus Finch reference was both flattering and inspirational.

So, what am I to do now that the world has learned that Atticus Finch was not the man we all thought he was, the man we desperately wanted him to be, the man Gregory Peck portrayed, the man who inspired so many people to become lawyers?

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Pluto!!!

I know this is a legal blog, but I must digress for a moment to share my excitement about the impending arrival of the New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto!!!!  Barely 20 hours from now, the spacecraft–launched nine years ago and having traveled 3 billion miles–will pass within 7,800 miles of what was formerly the ninth planet in our solar system, but was downgraded several years ago to “dwarf planet” status and is now considered part of the Kuiper Belt, a vast population of small objects orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune.

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Malloy Signs Arrest Records Law

Kudos to Governor Dannell P. Malloy for signing Public Act 15-164, which makes arrest records public.   (Click here for a summary of the act.)  The act reverses the Connecticut Supreme Court’s unfortunate decision in Comm’r of Public Safety v. Freedom of Information Comm’n, 312 Conn. 513 (2014), which rejected the Freedom of Information Commission’s two-decade old interpretation of the state’s open government law as requiring public access to arrest records.   Christine Stuart has more on this important development over at the CT News Junkie.

In honor of this auspicious occasion, I’m reposting a little musical ditty I wrote about the FOIA a few years back.  Enjoy!

New Threat To Public Sector Labor Unions

Over the past week the public’s attention has been focused on several major decisions the U.S. Supreme Court released, involving issues such as same-sex marriage, the Affordable Care Act and drugs used for lethal injections in death penalty cases. In the midst of the release of these major decisions, the Supreme Court has also issued some routine orders concerning cases it has decided to hear next year.

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U.S. Supreme Court Recognizes Same-Sex Marriage

A closely divided Supreme Court ruled today that the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.  As expected, Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion.  Chief Justice Roberts and justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito each wrote their own dissents.

More to follow later!

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State Democratic Party Is Entitled To Jurisdiction Ruling Before Responding To Subpoena

As most readers are probably aware, the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) is investigating whether the Connecticut Democratic State Central Committee (DSCC) violated state campaign finance laws when it sent out certain get-out-the-vote (GOTV) mailers that featured Governor Malloy.  The SEEC recently served the DSCC with an investigatory subpoena, calling upon the DSCC to produce a vast array of documents.  The DSCC’s attorney, David Golub, responded with a letter informing the SEEC that his client had no intention of responding to the subpoena.  Golub argues that the SEEC lacks jurisdiction on the theory that federal election law preempts state law with respect to GOTV activity.

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The King v. Burwell Sham Ctd.

Following up on my post last week concerning the pending U.S. Supreme Court decision in King v. Burwell, The Economist has this article making the same point I discussed: No one in Congress or the Obama administration believed that subsidies would be available to folks who bought insurance on state-created exchanges, but not on the federal exchange.  Yet the folks challenging the subsidy provisions of the Affordable Care Act continue to argue to the contrary.

The King v. Burwell Sham

It is June folks!  That means the U.S. Supreme Court will soon issue decisions in some of the most consequential, and controversial, cases of the term.  I’m especially antsy as I await the decision in King v. Burwell, about which I have written before.  This otherwise run-of-the-mill statutory construction case has the potential to destroy the Affordable Care Act by depriving millions of people who purchase insurance through Healthcare.gov–the federally operated exchange–of access to the same subsidies available to people who purchase insurance through state-operated exchanges.

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