Where It All Started

Goofing around at the Lobby Day

Change of plans...
One of the side effects of getting old is your sleep patterns are all off. I've been up since 3 AM and I fell back to sleep around 5:00 - 5:30 and slept about 2 more hours. So I'm bailing out of going in person. I have already submitted my testimony yesterday.

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Today I am sitting in the Judiciary Committee room waiting to testify but it is also the same room where it all started.

Back in 2007 I gave my first testimony here for the gender inclusive non-discrimination bill.

I remember one year I was sitting reading my homework while I was waiting to hear my name called to testify… what I was reading was an article on Saul Alinsky from his book “Rules for Radicals” and on its cover was the Communist flag crossed with the American flag.

At the lobby day

After reading for a while I looked up and around me, I was surrounded be state police. In front of me, on both sides of me, and in back of me; I admit I was a little intimidated.

Another time I was interning with CT Women’s Education and Legal Fund and I was helping out at the Lobby Day. My job was to look up people’s legislators s they could go and talk to them.

Testifying before Judiciary Committee for the first time wasn’t so bad because I had two allies on the committee… the co-chairs.

Two Weeks Ago

Back in December 2005 I went down to Stamford for a fundraiser for GenderPAC and at the fundraiser was then Senator Andrew McDonald (now Supreme Court Justice), Representative Michael Lawlor (now professor), and then Mayor Dannel Malloy of Stamford (now former governor). I met them a couple of times again at fundraisers. The last time that I met the governor was he signed the birth certificate law and he gave me the signed bill (which now resides in the Elihu Burritt Library in my collection there).

So anyhow back to the committee hearing…

When I sat down to testify for the first time knowing the co-chairs helped immensely.

Sitting here in the hearing room is both exciting and boring at the same time. It is exciting because of all the power in the building you can actually feel it and boring because it is mostly sitting around doing nothing.