As a young reporter working at the Capitol in Hartford, back in the 1980s, I was surprised the first time I interviewed a legislative leader in the hallway outside the Senate chamber and could clearly smell that he had been drinking.
I thought to myself, “If I were Jeff Cole(former WFSB investigative reporter) I’d do a story about this.” But I wasn’t, so I didn’t. And neither did Jeff that I can remember. And for decades I watched as the drinking went on, particularly on the last night of legislative sessions when the Capitol turned into what my parish priest would have called a “den of iniquity.” And the press has mostly always looked the other way.
Well, it appears transparency has finally caught up with accepted norms and Speaker of the House Matt Ritter has decided that perhaps drinking and lawmaking are not a good mix. They say it takes at least two sessions for a good idea to become a law. How many decades does it take to ban drinking at the Capitol?
