House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, far right, speaks while colleagues play solitaire on their computers as the House convenes to vote on a new budget for the fiscal year in the Capitol on Monday [AP Photo/Jessica Hill]
Posted on 09/02/2009 12:50:40 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
A photo of two Democratic legislators playing solitaire has ignited controversy at the state Capitol and in the blogosphere.
The Associated Press picture has appeared in any number of venues, and it shows two lawmakers sitting in the back row of the historic Hall of the House in Hartford during the lengthy debate over the two-year, $37 billion state budget.
On the left is Rep. Barbara Lambert, a freshman Democrat from Milford who won her first legislative election in November 2008. She replaced longtime Milford Democrat James Amann, who ended his legislative career as the House Speaker and is now running for governor against Republican M. Jodi Rell.
Lambert is playing spider solitaire in the photo, while Rep. Jack F. Hennessy, a Bridgeport Democrat who has served in Hartford since 2005, is playing regular solitaire. They both voted in favor of the Democratic-written budget, while Cafero voted against it.
During the long debates at the state Capitol, legislators often work on their laptop computers - as seen in the photograph. Sometimes they are answering e-mails from constituents, while other times they are researching important information on pending bills. Other times, they are playing solitaire.
When asked Tuesday about the photo by Capitol Watch, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell laughed and said, "I think if they'd spend less time playing computer games and more time looking for spending cuts, then we would have been out of here a lot sooner.''
Republican Tom Foley, who is running for U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Christopher J. Dodd, said, "I was disheartened to see a Hartford Courant front page photo showing members of our Democratically-controlled legislature playing solitaire on their computers while debate was occurring on a new state budget that raises taxes and contains no net reduction in spending. This is not a time for the Democrats who control our legislature to be playing games with Connecticut's future. Our elected officials need to put away their computer toys and help working people by lowering taxes and keeping government spending down."
The photo by Jessica Hill is gaining national attention through an item posted to the front of the Drudge Report and a blog post by conservative blogger Michelle Malkin.
Somebody has a baseball game on too.
They’re toast.
If these were Republicans it’d be all over the nightly national news.
Your tax dollars at work.
Awww. They're screwing up our game of guess the party.
Nah. They’re Democrats. Their poop doesn’t stink.
I can see the cloud of smug forming. Beware before it combines with the massive cloud of smug over Washington DC. :-)
One of George Allen’s first acts when he became Governor in 1994 was to issue an Executive Order saying that all games must be removed from any state owned computers. The order still stands.
As an aside, it was referenced briefly as a news article in “You’ve Got Mail.”
Not a baseball game - just ESPN homepage to check the scores.
Working hard for you & me!!!
No wonder they don’t have time to read the bills.
Send it to Drudge, I just did, would love to see this on his page!!
e-mail addresses:
Jack.Hennessy@cga.ct.gov
Barbara.Lambert@cga.ct.gov
I wrote Mr Hennessy:
= = =
In case, you’re “checking e-mail”
Red 7 on the black 8
Good Luck!
This is no worse than Congressmen who vote for bills they haven’t read. When’s the MSM going to pick up on that scandal?
It would be pretty cool if they were checking out FR!
Good one!!!
IT’S ON DRUDGE!!!!! CHECK IT OUT, PICTURE & ALL!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.