Mike Lawlor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Rep. Mike Lawlor | |
 Rep. Lawlor being sworn into office at the start of the 2007 Legislative Session |
|
|
Member of the Connecticut House of Representatives
from the 99th district |
|
| In office 1986 – present |
|
|
|
|
| Born | December 30, 1956 New Haven, Conn. |
|---|---|
| Political party | Democratic |
| Residence | East Haven, Conn. |
| Website | Homepage |
Michael P. Lawlor is an American politician, criminal justice professor, and lawyer from Connecticut. A Democrat, he is a member of the Connecticut State House of Representatives representing the General Assembly's 99th district, covering East Haven.
Contents |
[edit] Education
Lawlor attended public schools in East Haven and graduated from East Haven High School. He was co-captain of the EHHS football team and was Vice-President of the Senior Class.
He graduated as an Honors Scholar in Slavic and Eastern European Studies from the University of Connecticut in 1979. He earned a Master's Degree in Soviet Area Studies from the University of London in 1981 and he graduated from the George Washington University School of Law in 1983. He has also participated in language studies in Russia in 1977 and received a Fulbright-Hays Scholarship to study economic reform in Hungary in 1982.
[edit] Career
Following law school, Lawlor was appointed as a prosecutor for the State's Attorney Office in New Haven, where he served until his election to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1986.
He is currently a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven's Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, and is also a Visiting Lecturer in Law at the Yale Law School.
[edit] Politics
Lawlor has been co-chairman of the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee since 1995. Prior to that, he was co-chairman of the Labor and Public Employees Committee where he played a major role in the reform of Connecticut's workers compensation program.
Lawlor, along with his Senate co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Andrew J. McDonald (D-Stamford) are both openly gay.[1] He is one of six openly gay members of the Connecticut General Assembly, serving alongside Sens. McDonald and Andrew M. Maynard (D-Stonington), as well as Reps. Art Feltman (D-Hartford), Jason Bartlett (D-Bethel) and Beth Bye (D-West Hartford). His campaigns have won the backing of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund although Lawlor has said "Being gay or straight is not a big deal today in Connecticut."
He was one of ten members of the legislature's Select Committee of Inquiry, which considered the possible impeachment of former Governor John G. Rowland. Rowland resigned on June 30, 2004 following the committee's hearings.
As co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Lawlor played a key role in two amendments to the State of Connecticut constitution. The first established rights for victims of crime, the second eliminated the patronage-ridden county sheriff system.
He has also been a leader in efforts to enact workable gun control laws, to address racial disparities in the state's criminal justice system, to pass laws ending discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, to rewrite Connecticut's domestic violence laws, to reform the juvenile justice system, and to address prison overcrowding.
During the 2005 session of the legislature, Lawlor was one of the leaders in enacting Connecticut's civil unions law, which provided full state legal recognition to same sex couples who wish to be treated as married couples under the state's law. Connecticut was the first state to enact a civil union or same sex marriage law without a court order to do so.
Lawlor has become the state's leading advocate of moving beyond the civil union statutes for gay couples and enacting a gay marriage bill. While he called enactment of such a bill "inevitable" [1] such a bill was not presented to Governor M. Jodi Rell in 2007, perhaps as Rell has said she would veto such a bill.
Lawlor is a chair of the Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project [2], an associate with the State Sentencing and Corrections Program at the Vera Institute of Justice [3] in New York City, and a member of the National Resource Committee for the Center for Sex Offender Management [4] within the United States Department of Justice. He is a member of the American Bar Association's Coalition for Justice [5], a national effort to build trust and confidence in the justice system.
In the late 1990's Connecticut addressed its prison overcrowding issues by transferring inmates to prisons in Virginia. Rep. Lawlor strongly opposed this effort. In 2000 he told CNN "this policy is more trouble than it's worth," and that he wanted to "bring them back as soon as possible."[6] In 2003 the New York Times reported Lawlor favored replacing the Virginia facilities with "alternative ways of combating overcrowding, like making it harder to put people back in prison for technical violations of their parole, and argued that transfers should be a last resort"[7]
Lawlor has long advocated what was called in 2004 a "controversial bill"[8] which focused on the increased release of prisoners instead of expanding correctional facilities to handle the increased number of offenders entering the system. Thanks to Lawlor's vocal advocacy the bill was co-sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats, passed unanimously in the State Senate [9], and only 9 out of 151 representatives in the House voted against it [10]. The bill was then signed into law by Gov. John Rowland, who was under federal investigation at the time. Lawlor's rationale was "The key is to resist doing the simple thing - dumping a bunch of money into a new prison," [11]. The response, to expand the number of inmates paroled, became controversial following the July 2007 home invasion murders of the Petit family in Cheshire, Connecticut by two paroled convicts. [12][13] On August 26, 2007 he defended the state's policy on paroles in a Hartford Courant article "Some people say let's put them all in jail. OK, fine, but that means dramatically increasing taxes or shutting down a bunch of colleges." [14] Due to the public outcry since the Petit murders, Lawlor agreed to hold hearings[15] on Connecticut's parole system and called on state officials to investigate sites to build new prisons. "We are expected to receive information about the costs of these models and possible sites for new prison facilities," he said. State officials and national criminal justice experts testified at the September 11 hearing, with Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane labeling the existing data system for criminal justice "nonexistent." Lawlor criticized the agencies for not having a system of communications among each other [16]. A hearing open to the public was held on November 27, 2007.
Governor M. Jodi Rell announced on September 21, 2007 that there would be a moratorium on further parole of violent offenders. This occurred after a parolee with two prior kidnapping convictions carjacked a vehicle in Hartford and was later shot in a confrontation with New York City police. Lawlor supported her decision for a moratorium on parole and acknowledged this would require prompt efforts to expand prison space [17]. He urged Governor Rell to explore the state's options for either expanding existing prisons, building new prisons, or sending prisoners out of state. The governor in response refused to do so, saying that new additional prison space is not necessary and reiterated her opposition to sending prisoners out of state [18] [19]. Ironically, this placed Rell in the same position Lawlor had long held, as he had opposed sending Connecticut prisoners to Virginia prisons to ease overcrowding [20].
In testimony before the Judiciary Committee at an emergency meeting convened by Lawlor in October, Department of Corrections Commissioner Teresa Lantz concurred with Governor Rell, testifying that her department does not need nor is requesting additional staff or new prisons [21]. Lawlor announced that he disagrees with Rell and Lantz, saying that the state should look into building a new prison, adding beds to existing facilities, or hiring more staff [22]. Nonetheless, on December 12, 2007 he was quoted by the Associated Press as stating "Connecticut has a criminal justice system that already works pretty well,” [23]
A special session to enact tougher laws against home invasion and tighten the parole process was held January 22, 2008. A new law making home invasion a class A felony was passed, as well as reforming the parole board. Lawlor opposed efforts to pass a Three Strikes law in Connecticut, which was not passed.
Governor Rell reiterated her call for a Three Strikes bill on March 31, 2008, following the kidnapping murder of an elderly New Britain woman committed by a career criminal recently released from Connecticut prison [24]
He has served on the national drafting team for the Interstate Compact for Adult Offender Supervision and the Interstate Compact for Juvenile Probation and Parole. Recently, he served as a consultant for the United States Department of Justice assisting in the establishment of an adult probation system in Bulgaria.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ “County Fair: The Queering of Connecticut”, Fairfield County Weekly, 28 February 2008, <http://www.fairfieldweekly.com/article.cfm?aid=6143>. Retrieved on 28 February 2008
