Summary of the State of the State Address

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell called for “fiscal caution, fiscal restraint” in her Feb. 6 address, even though Connecticut was enjoying a modest budget surplus as other states were awash in red ink.

“We cannot spend what we do not have — and we cannot enact something that will result in budget holes and tax increases next year or in the following years,” she told the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

Rell also renewed her call for a property-tax cap on cities and towns, an idea that lawmakers rejected last year.

In response to a brutal murder last summer in Cheshire in which a woman and her two daughters were killed by two parolees, Rell proposed imposing a "three strikes" law for those convicted of three violent felony offenses. Rell also called for removing the possibility of a case review after 30 years. “Now it’s three strikes for violent felony convictions and you’re truly out.”

The Cheshire murder prompted the Legislature to convene a special session last month on criminal justice issues that led to new penalties for home invasions.

Rell also called for splitting the scandal-plagued Department of Transportation into two agencies, one focusing on highways, the other mass transit.