The Chris Powell Column

Employees of Connecticut’s largest newspaper, the Hartford Courant, cleaned out their desks recently as the newspaper left the building at 285 Broad St. where it had operated for 70 years.

Sailing against a heavy political wind, Republican candidates for the General Assembly were heartened by the vigorous endorsements they received from police unions, which this year broke away from the government employee union apparatus in the Democratic Party.

While Connecticut’s new police legislation is questionable in one respect — its vague reduction of the “qualified immunity” officers have against lawsuits — its broad objective is plainly in the public interest: to improve the work of the police and increase their accountability to their departments and the public.

Having itself failed to perform for most of this year, abdicating amid the virus epidemic, the General Assembly is gearing up to punish Connecticut’s two leading electric companies, Eversource Energy and United Illuminating, for supposedly failing to restore power fast enough after the recent tropical storm.

As a student of history, Governor Lamont probably knows that emperors in ancient Rome didn’t have to be very good to stay in power as long as they amply compensated their legions.

How laughable that state legislators from both parties are starting to express annoyance with Governor Lamont — some about the pace of reopening commerce amid the virus epidemic, others about financial issues.

When, in March, the leaders of the General Assembly suspended its regular session and then, last month, canceled it entirely, they were frightened of the virus epidemic. But now, after weeks of doing nothing except watching impotently, legislators are starting to seem more frightened of their own responsibilities.