John McKinney

by Mark Silva Republicans got "a thumpin''' in the last midterm elections, George W. Bush once famously said. Now Republicans are plotting "a thumpin''' of their own in the next midterms - and they're drawing on the game-plan of the......

You pay attention to the wrong things. That's what three politicians claimed when caught in betrayals of the public interest in the past two weeks. With no credible explanation for their bad acts, each branded their controversy a "distraction" as they...

Abraham Lincoln's birthday last Tuesday marked the start of months of local Republican organization dinners and fundraising events. The annual ritual of honoring Lincoln provides an informal start to the party's 2014 race for governor. Four candidates...

Reviewing a couple thousand pages of documents exchanged among the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority, Democratic former Speaker of the House Thomas D. Ritter and House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk, provides a look at the lucrative and...

The louder the public pledges of bipartisan cooperation and resolve, the deeper the undercurrents of private distrust and resentment — or at least, that often seems to be the rule in legislative politics. And it seems to be taking hold as the...

Salary increases for state judges might well be among the casualties of the state's deepening budget crisis if comments by top state legislative leaders are any indication. "Any expenditure of this kind will be difficult, if not impossible, given the...

With Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy's approval rating steadily below 50 percent in polls, he and his lieutenants have embarked on an unusual media-management effort — directing dozens of officials to produce "communications plans" to put out a steady...

Thursday's seven new arrests in the ongoing federal probe of Christopher Donovan's congressional campaign highlighted a widespread but oft-overlooked practice: elected officials transferring taxpayer-funded staff employees to campaign committees as they...

In a startlingly honest e-mail to supporters this week, Rob Simmons described U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter's jump to the Democrats as "devastating news" that "deeply injures our ability to be an effective minority." It's that and more. Benedict Specter's...

With the state's economy struggling and jobs still hard to find, voters have become increasingly dissatisfied with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's job performance, a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday shows. The governor's overall disapproval...

Connecticut feels today like a fun house where small looks big and short looks tall, fat is slim and upside down is right side up. Where but a fun house could we see gems like a 4 percent spending increase in the state budget called a cut, the end of a...

Legislators scrambled Wednesday to finish their work on the final day of the 2013 session – granting final approval for more than $2 billion in bond projects, allowing police to withhold crime-scene photographs of murder victims, and legalizing...