House Republican Press Release

August 14, 2007

Press Office: 860-240-8700

Ranking on Banking?? , Part 1

By State Representative John J. Ryan

OK, for those of you out there in Reader Land who for some strange reason are actually in Darien/Rowayton (as opposed to The Vineyard, Maine, the south of France.....) this week (but please remember that you can read your friendly local paper on the 'net when you are away!), it's back to our review of legislative committees this week, since I now have too much information on the problems of various varieties of tomato blight!

As an experienced reader, you are well aware that the General Assembly has over two dozen legislative committees, that we are on a bicameral committee system, and that the Chairs of each committee are of course from the majority party. The two committee leaders [again, one each from House and Senate] from the minority caucus on the committee are referred to as the 'Ranking Member', and if you are a truly dedicated long-term reader, you might actually recall that I served as Ranking Member of the General Law Committee a number of years ago before I was subsequently appointed to my present post of Assistant Minority Leader. (And what does 'leadership' entail? Another potential column topic someday)  It is rare that a member serves as a Committee Chair/Ranking Member as the same time that the member is serving in a leadership position for some obvious reasons, one being that the specific committee responsibilities and duties would then be added on those of leadership post, and one still has their individual and district duties/concerns to keep track of!

So I admit I was a little surprised when our House Republican Leader Larry Cafero came to me late last year as we were organizing for this year's session to ask if I would consider adding the responsibilities of Ranking Member of the Banks Committee to my present continuing leadership assignment. Since there were now only 44 of us Republicans in the House, our caucus was spread a little thin. You may recall from previous columns that hopefully your legislative committee assignment could relate to your 'real world' experience (which is a contributory reason why I am a long-time member of the P & D Committee - having been the Corporation Counsel in Norwalk, and as an attorney with considerable experience in land use, zoning and related issues, I was familiar with the background of many P&D topics ) and as Larry noted in our discussion, "Atty. Ryan" has done umpteen mortgage closings, is familiar with foreclosure litigation, so it seemed like a good fit.  Therefore, for this year's session, I had one more "hat" to add... to be Ranking on Banking.

By way of further background, I should add that every committee is different; obviously because of content and issues to be grappled with, but I am disappointed to tell you that some committees are highly political, meaning run by the partisan  leadership in a partisan manner, which in my humble opinion, serves no one well.  I was pleased to find that such is not (and apparently never has been the case)  with the Banks Committee, much like the practice of the General Law Committee which I have served on for most of my legislative career. So the committee process begins with setting up a schedule of meetings or the year according to the committee guidelines, looking at the list of bills that have been referred to the committee, deciding which to “raise” and when to schedule them for public hearing, which proposed bills can be eliminated because they are duplicative, finding out if there are bills and issues important to the relevant agency (obviously in this case the Banking Department), and setting up the organizational first meeting of the committee, etc.

I would like to get into relating who is on this committee, and other details, but you can probably guess that one of our goals is to teach you how to follow the process yourself, so please go to www.cga.ct.gov   the General Assembly website, go to 'committees' and then to 'Banks' and note the extensive variety of information that is readily available to you.

Next time, a look at what issues and legislation this committee grappled with this year.

As always please feel free to contact me with your concerns and issues. As your state representative, it is my job, and my priority to represent you and to make sure that your needs and concerns are addressed at the capitol.  You can write to me at Room 4200, Legislative Office Building, and Hartford, CT 06106-1591, send me e-mail at John.Ryan@housegop.ct.gov or call my office toll-free at 1-800-842-1423.