Connecticut
Sen. Kevin Kelly: CT Republicans sought to prevent voter suppression. Democrats declined.
We have all seen the news reports.
In 2021, the New York Times concluded that “on average, voters in poorer neighborhoods were more likely to experience long waits at the polls compared with voters in higher-income neighborhoods.”
“Long waits at polling places are disruptive, disenfranchising, and all too common. Black and Latino voters are especially likely to endure them.” So noted the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law in a 2020 analysis.
“Voting wait times have increased, especially in minority communities” blared a United Press International 2020 headline.
The stories abound. They re-emerge in every major election. The issue of long voting lines in minority and low-income communities — and the frustrations those lines produce — has been well-documented here in Connecticut and by news outlets across the nation.
So? What are we doing about it? In the wake of the people’s constitutional amendment for early voting, we can either read these headlines year after year and stick our heads in the sand, or we can show leadership by, passing reasonable policy solutions that improve our electoral process.
Connecticut Senate Republicans chose the latter this year. It happened during the debate on early voting. Under the legislation that passed, Connecticut voters will have 14 days to cast their general election ballots early and in person.
Prior to the final vote on the bill, Senate Republicans offered multiple amendments aimed at improving access to voting, inspiring confidence in Connecticut elections, and preventing the cost burdens of early voting from being foisted upon towns and local taxpayers. Each amendment failed along partisan lines, and that is very disappointing.
What ideas were rejected? We have all seen long lines at polling places, particularly in our cities. Those long lines can deter people from casting their vote. This is a glaring voting access problem, so Republicans proposed a solution in the form of an amendment to ensure people don’t wait longer than a half-hour to vote. A 30-minute rule is a reasonable proposal, but it amazingly didn’t garner a single Democratic vote.
The law that passed requires every municipality to establish at least one early voting location, and they may establish more if they choose. That “may” is a key word. What if a municipality — for example, a large population city, cannot afford to open more than one polling location?
Callie Gale Heilmann, president of Bridgeport Generation Now, made that very point early this year. “The city of Bridgeport and cities like Hartford and New Haven, they must have multiple (early voting) sites,” she said. “It’s not a ‘may.’ They must. And we also know that, without a mandate, cities may not.”
Other advocates worried that without an adequate number of polling locations, voters may encounter crowds at the early polls. John Erlingheuser, advocacy director of the Connecticut AARP, said lines posed problems for seniors. “Many older voters with physical limitation, they lack access to transportation to be able to get to a voting location, they can’t stand in long lines and that puts participation in the electoral process at risk,” Erlingheuser said.
Republicans heard the concerns raised by Bridgeport Generation Now and Connecticut AARP. In addition to our 30-minute wait amendment, we put forward an amendment to require cities to open up more polling centers. We owe municipal election professionals a workable state policy which would enable them to properly staff polling sites. Our reasonable ideas were voted down by the majority.
In addition to Senate Republicans’ attempts to expand access to voting, we wanted to prevent the costs to implement early voting from burdening local taxpayers. A fiscal note for the bill warned that it would mean “significant ongoing labor costs to the state and municipalities.” It noted that since the bill doesn’t say anything about labor costs, those costs would fall to the municipality. Republican amendments to undo those burdens on municipalities by having the state of Connecticut cover the substantial new costs were also rejected by majority Democrats.
The result of these failed attempts to improve the early voting bill will end up harming our most struggling, vulnerable and fiscally challenged communities and individuals the most. That truly is shameful. A financially distressed municipality with a limited grand list, for example, now must deal with added burdens thanks to the Democratic majority’s decisions. Meanwhile, a town with healthy finances will have an easier time of addressing the mandates. Through their votes, Democrats tipped the balance and have given an electoral advantage to communities of means. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer in one-party rule Connecticut.
In the end, the bill’s many shortcomings were not addressed. Because Democrats insisted on a partisan, political approach to early voting rather than a people-centered, principled approach, cities and towns with large populations were not given an incentive to expand access to voting. The resulting expenses to municipalities will rise without compensation for the new costs.
Rule-making with regard to something as important as our elections must not be decided by party line votes. The people of Connecticut deserve better. Republicans’ ideas sought to find common ground by confronting the bill’s lack of voting access and high price tag. We sought to respect the sacrifices of taxpayers by proposing fixes to address voter suppression and unfunded mandates. Our ideas were dismissed out of hand by the majority.
Those who accuse Republicans of attempting to “suppress the vote” need only look at our experience here in Connecticut to see that those accusations are absurd. I wish we could have had a unanimous early voting product, one which honors the vote of every voter. Republicans are not standing in the way of voting access. To the contrary, majority Democrats are, and they now have a voting record to prove it.
Connecticut’s early voting amendments story demonstrates that Republicans are standing up for good policy by implementing early voting in a better way. We had an opportunity to roll out early voting in a responsible, respectful and thoughtful manner. Once again, Republicans’ solutions, which would have been beneficial to all citizens of Connecticut, were disregarded.
So don’t be surprised, Connecticut voters, if you continue to see the “disruptive, disenfranchising, long voting lines” headlines describing these fixable situations here in our state. Republicans are actively endeavoring to solve this problem, and we will continue to put forth solutions which seek to create voting equity. The voters in Connecticut’s most vulnerable communities must be heard, not ignored.
Kevin Kelly is the Connecticut State Senate’s Minority Leader.
A backdoor cold front is set to move across Connecticut today from northeast to southwest.
Temperatures should be able to warm well into the 70s in Fairfield County, but the Northeast Hills will only top out in the lower 50s.
We’ll cool through the afternoon from northeast to southwest, but we’ll all be in the 40s this evening as rain chances return.
Temperatures will drop into the 30s and lower 40s overnight with scattered rain showers and the chance for fog to develop into Sunday morning.
Sunday will be cooler and cloudier for all of the state with highs near 50 degrees.
Monday should warm back into the 60s with more rain chances to end March.
Gov. Ned Lamont and the General Assembly’s highest-ranking leaders drew a political line in the sand late Friday.
If President Donald Trump continues to withhold huge blocks of federal aid for health care, education or other core programs, Connecticut’s done waiting to see if Congress or the courts will reverse the damage, leaders here wrote in a joint statement.
Connecticut’s piggy banks are large, and officials won’t hesitate to crack them immediately if vital programs are damaged, they indicated.
“Sound fiscal practices have positioned us better than most states in the nation,” Lamont wrote late Friday afternoon in a joint statement with House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, and Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven. “If this pattern of devastating cuts continues, we will be prepared to exercise emergency powers. Although we hope that Washington reverses course, we must plan for the inevitable or unpredictable.”
Officials here also had expected to see deep cuts in aid from Washington, but not until late summer or fall with the congressional adoption of the next federal budget. Since taking office in January, though, Trump has used executive orders on several occasions to suspend grants, reclaim unspent dollars from states, or attach controversial new conditions to federal assistance.
The comments came hours after state Senate Democrats completed a closed-door caucus during which members vented frustrations about Trump’s latest unilateral move, the cancellation of $12 billion in public health grants to states this week, including $155 million for infectious disease management, genetic screening of newborns and substance abuse prevention in Connecticut.
“What no one could anticipate was how severe these cuts would be and how quickly they would occur to vital programs, sometimes without warning,” Lamont and legislative leaders wrote, adding decisions on when to restore funding would be made in the coming weeks on a case-by-case basis.
Their statement didn’t say, though, whether the fiscally moderate-to-conservative governor and his fellow Democrats in legislative leadership see eye-to-eye on which piggy banks are OK to shatter, and which can’t be touched.
Connecticut holds a record-setting $4.1 billion budget reserve, commonly known as its rainy day fund, an amount equal to 18% of annual operating costs.
But an aggressive series of budget caps, labeled “fiscal guardrails” by Lamont and other supporters, have generated roughly triple that $4.1 billion mark since their enactment in 2017. And what wasn’t deposited into the reserve, another $8.5 billion, was used to whittle down the state’s massive pension debt.
One “guardrail” alone, a provision that restricts lawmakers’ ability to spend certain income and business tax receipts, has forced them to save an average of $1.4 billion annually since 2017. Analysts say it will capture another $1.4 billion before this fiscal year ends on June 30, and closer to $1.3 billion in each of the next three years.
Though the governor and legislative leaders all have cited the rainy day fund as one coffer Connecticut may need to tap to mitigate impending cuts in federal aid, scaling back the budget caps that helped fill this reserve is another matter.
Lamont has been reluctant to tamper with this system, though he did express a willingness in February to scale back this savings mandate modestly by about $300 million per year.
Ritter and Looney, though, have been more direct about the need to reform this “guardrails” system, save less, and pour more dollars into core programs like health care, education and social services.
And the House speaker said Friday he believes these saved income and business tax receipts should be the first line of defense against Trump cuts.
It’s been 14 years since Connecticut has failed to make the full contributions recommended by pension analysts for its retirement benefits for state employees and municipal teachers, and Ritter noted the full $3.2 billion owed this fiscal year already has been budgeted.
And any “guardrails” savings Connecticut doesn’t need to reverse cuts in federal funding still could be sent into the pensions as well, Ritter added.
But cracking this piggy bank first would leave the larger, $4.1 billion rainy day fund available for later this summer or fall, when potentially more damage could occur.
With Congress aiming to find more than $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid — a cooperative health care program that sends $6.1 billion to Connecticut this year alone — officials here fear revenues that support nursing homes, federally qualified health clinics, hospitals and insurance programs for poor adults and children, could be in grave jeopardy.
And with recent tariffs ordered by the president increasing many economists’ fears of a looming recession, Connecticut may need its rainy day fund later this year or next to mitigate the big drops in tax receipts that often accompany a sharp national economic downturn, legislative leaders say.
Looney echoed Ritter’s comments, calling the president’s latest health care funding cuts “irresponsible, reckless and possibly disastrous” and showing Connecticut must have all resources ready to offset damage to its most vital programs.
“We can’t draw a line anywhere,” Looney added.
The Lamont administration opted not to elaborate on Friday’s statement after its release.
But the governor has warned on several occasions that Connecticut must understand it ultimately can’t offset all losses in federal funding if the cuts go as deep as some fear they will.
Connecticut will receive more than $10 billion in federal funding this fiscal year, a total that equals roughly 40% of the entire state budget.
“No state can restore every cut that comes from Washington,” the joint statement from Connecticut leaders adds.
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