With a seemingly innocuous temporary postponement of action, the House of Representatives abruptly dealt a potentially fatal blow this afternoon to a bill that would have made it illegal for anyone to have an open container of an alcoholic beverage in a vehicle on Connecticut roads.
The bill had won approval last week in the Senate, and proponents in the House thought this morning that they had the votes to pass it and send it to Gov. M. Jodi Rell for her signature.
But as the House's debate entered its third hour at about 2:30 this afternoon, some legislators began hammering on the fact that the bill would make only drivers -- not passengers who are drinking -- subject to tickets beginning at $90 for the first offense and rising to $500 for the third.
That penalizes the "Good Samaritan" designated driver who volunteers to stay sober so he or she can drive his beer-drinking friends and keep them safe, said opponents including Rep. Peter Tercyak, D-New Britain. "We have a bill here whose stated purpose is to punish sober drivers," Tercyak said.
As the debate picked up, others agreed -- including Deputy Speaker Robert Godfrey, D-Danbury, who said the bill was so badly drafted, with so many compromises and exclusions, that it made a "better press release" than legitimate legislation.
"The driver, through no fault of his own, who is designated to protect his friends... and to keep them safe, is now going to get a ticket," said Rep. Mary Fritz, D-Wallingford. Fritz apologized to the main House proponent of the bill, Rep. Tom Reynolds, D-Ledyard, saying "I know the bill is well-intentioned," and "I know how hard people worked on it," but "I have to say, this does not do it."
Not long afterwards, when it was apparent support was eroding and the deliberations threatened to eat up a big chunk of the second-to-last day of the 2009 regular legislative session, House Majority Leader Denise Merrill, D-Mansfield, arose to request that debate on the bill be postponed temporarily.
Amid immediate consternation following that indefinite postponement, there was talk of fixing the offending provision.
But while legislative leaders talked about quick-fix remedies, Reynolds was talking to reporters outside the House chamber. He said simply: "the bill's dead."
Reynolds said no language could be drafted at this late stage in the legislative session -- with adjournment scheduled at midnight Wednesday -- to address the "philosophical differences" of opponents, who he said appeared willing to "filibuster" and eat up much of the 33 or so remaining hours in the House.
Asked if he planned to bring the bill up again next year, he did not answer and said he had other bills to attend to before midnight Wednesday. He said he felt badly for families of victims of drunken drivers who were sitting in the House gallery above -- "people who lost children to drunk drivers."
So far this afternoon, no one in the House has come out with any information to contradict Reynolds' pronouncement of the bill's death.
For about 90 minutes -- until after 2 p.m. -- the bill seemed to be doing all right in the debate -- with proponents saying it would be a big step forward despite a number of compromises that were believed necessary to win its passage this year.
Last year, the open-container bill failed after black and Latino legislators voiced fears that it would inordinately hit racial minorities.
A major concern was that if an open-container violation were a "primary" cause for a police officer to pull over a car, it could bring an increase in "racial profiling" -- that is, stopping drivers at least partly on the basis of their race, not the merits of the situation.
A compromise was reached to meet that objection: Under the law, an open-container violation is only a "secondary" cause for an officer to stop a vehicle and cannot be the only, or "primary," trigger for the stop of the vehicle. There would have had to be some other violation as the cause of the traffic stop, such as speeding or some other moving violation, or defective equipment such as a broken taillight.
Some lawmakers complained that this provision would lead to sham stops by police -- who might look for a defective marker light, or note that a car was driving 2 mph over the speed limit, as an excuse to stop the vehicle because he saw someone drinking a beer in the back seat.
It was partly in response to the black and Latino lawmakers' concerns that the bill was changed so that none of the passengers could get a ticket, and only the driver could be found responsible, Reynolds said.
Supporters said despite the bill's flaws, it was important for Connecticut to finally get an open container law on the books, because it is lagging behind most of the country on the important safety issue of reducing drinking and driving. About 40 other states already have open-container bans.
"We do things incrementally sometimes," said Rep. Themis Klarides, R-Derby, adding that in coming years the measure can be strengthened. "As I said, nothing is perfect, but we work on it year after year."
As of now -- and contrary to most citizens' assumptions about what existing laws prohibit -- any Connecticut driver can have an open container of beer or other alcoholic beverage in his car as long as he is not drinking it while driving. Also, it is now legal for every passenger in a car to be drinking alcoholic beverages, even while the car is moving.
That would have changed under the bill. With a few exceptions, the bill would have made it an infraction, enforceable against the driver of the car, if the driver or any passenger had an open container of alcohol while the vehicle was moving on a highway or local road. The bill would have exempted cars that were parked along local city and town roads -- but still would have applied to cars parked on interstate and state highways, as well as the shoulders of such highways.
A fine of $90 for the first violation, $200 for a second and $500 for any subsequent violation would have been levied against the driver of a car. Exempted would have been limousines, taxis, motor homes and tailgate parties in parked cars.
Open bottles would have been allowed in a trunk -- or if there were no trunk, in a locked glove compartment or the storage "area behind the last upright seat."
The open-container law would have been enforced independently from DUI laws: A driver whose blood-alcohol level exceeds the legal limit could always be arrested for DUI, even if there were no open container in the vehicle; and a driver could have gotten a ticket for an open-container violation even if he and all his or her passengers weren't not legally drunk.
An open-container infraction would not have put points against a driver's license with the Department of Motor Vehicles, as tickets for moving violations such as speeding do.
The city-streets exclusion in the law -- which would have exempted open containers in vehicles parked on city or town street --- had come in response to worries by some urban lawmakers. They said that people in their districts, where there is less wealth and property, often socialize and drink in cars parked in front of someone's home.