From the New Britain (CT) Herald : 
 
 Legislature sidesteps Rell, votes to reconvene special session Tuesday 
By GREGORY B. HLADKY, Journal Register News Service 
10/12/2005 
 
 HARTFORD -- Connecticut’s General Assembly convened a special session on campaign finance reform Tuesday, but its only real action was to postpone any vote on that and other issues for at least a week. 
 
 The Democratically controlled legislature set Oct. 18 as the new target date for the start of a special session that will include campaign finance reform and state contract reform, truck insurance, eminent domain, home heating aid and revisions to the state bond package. 
 
GOP lawmakers, although they agreed with the need to address most of those issues this fall, sharply criticized Democrats for delaying consideration of Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s campaign finance reform plan. 
 
"This is a day marked by shilly-shallying, political maneuvering, one-upsmanship, blame-laying and no substance," fumed state Sen. William H. Nickerson, R-Greenwich. 
 
But state Senate Majority Leader Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, and other Democratic leaders insisted the delay is necessary to prepare legislation on the newly extended list of issues. 
 
The toughest challenge facing the legislature this autumn is campaign finance reform. There is bipartisan agreement about instituting public campaign financing beginning in 2008 for legislative races and in 2010 for statewide offices. But Democrats and Republicans are at odds over when to cut off special interest contributions from lobbyists and corporate sources. 
 
Rell called Tuesday’s session specifically to break that deadlock and force a vote. But the legislature’s Democratic majority voted over GOP opposition to adjourn Rell’s session and call another of their own to begin no earlier than Oct. 18. 
 
State House Minority Leader Robert M. Ward, R-North Branford, said one result of that delay would be another week to allow legislative campaigns to accept contributions from lobbyists -- something that is banned while the General Assembly is in session. 
 
A group of Yale University students rallied at the State Capital Tuesday in support of campaign finance reform. Members of Students for Clean Elections showed up wearing yellow tee shirts spelling out "Public Financing" and carrying brooms to symbolically sweep out corruption in state government. 
 
State House Majority Leader Christopher G. Donovan, D-Meriden, said the plan is to "deal with some pressing issues" that everyone agrees need to be addressed before the General Assembly’s regular session begins in February. 
 
Lawmakers in both parties said there is broad bipartisan support for swift action on such issues as providing more state assistance to low- and moderate-income families facing a hard winter and soaring heating costs. 
 
Another topic that Democrats and Republicans agree upon is the need to close a loophole in state law concerning trucking insurance. 
 
 Although insurance companies are required to notify the state when coverage for a private motor vehicle is cancelled or lapses, there is no similar requirement for commercial trucks. 
 
The problem was highlighted by a fatal crash in Avon in which a dump truck careened down a steep road and smashed into a line of cars and a bus waiting at a major intersection, killing four people. The owner of the truck, American Crushing and Recycling of Bloomfield, cancelled its trucking insurance months before the accident.