Harpootlian attack on Legislature was actually understatement

After Dick Harpootlian called the Legislature incompetent, as evidenced by its failure to complete the annual state budget before it adjourned in May, former Senate Clerk Frank Caggiano rushed to lawmakers’ defense (“Candidate Harpootlian already taking cheap shots”).

He wrote that “A great many people, including legislators, work odd and long hours to perform all the tasks necessary to complete this monumental effort.”

Of course, it takes a bad skier longer to go down a slope than an Olympic gold medalist.

Given the fact that 22 legislators have been found guilty of public corruption in the past 40 years and given the chronic failure of the Legislature to fund our struggling public schools and fix our deathtrap roads, plus the Legislature’s $9 billion nuclear disaster, Mr. Harpootlian’s uncharacteristically restrained remark that the Legislature is incompetent was like saying that Bonnie and Clyde were guilty of reckless driving.

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