Paul Bass Photo
Lemar, Dillon at WNHH.
Two of New Haven’s representatives will work to fend off what they see as threats to the Elm City while also pushing new initiatives in the state legislative session beginning Wednesday.
The two lawmakers, State Reps. Pat Dillon and Roland Lemar, vowed to fight rollbacks to financial regulation and affordable housing protections, cuts to social services, and reimbursements to Yale-New Haven Hospital. They made the vow during an interview Tuesday on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
The two also have policy bills they plan to introduce the session. Lemar plans to reintroduce a bill to legalize recreational marijuana, which he estimated could bring in $50 million a year to the state’s deficit-wracked coffers. Dillon said she’s looking at any proactive steps Connecticut can take to limit the spread of “dark money” contributions to electoral campaigns. Lemar said he plans to reintroduce a measure to have Connecticut join a compact with other states representing a total of at least 370 electoral votes to promise to support the winner of the popular vote in presidential elections. “This isn’t Clinton versus Trump. The person who wins the popular vote” should become president, he argued.
But the legislators spokes at least as much about threats to the city from two sources: an estimated $1 billion budget deficit that threatens to lead to deep new cuts; and Donald Trump’s election as president.
Dillon, for instance, spoke of plans under consideration by the incoming Trump administration to privatize the veterans administration, which she said would hurt health care for veterans. She and Lemar blasted plans under consideration to privatize Medicare and give states Medicaid “block grants,” which they argued would lead to less coverage for the poor.
They also both criticized Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration for measures taken during last session against Yale-New Haven Hospital. They called for restoring the old formula for reimbursing hospitals from proceeds of the provider tax, which they said was changed last year to carry out what Lemar called a “cash grab” from Yale-New Haven. They called for raising reimbursement rates as well for Medicaid and Medicare.
“Malloy’s health policy is basically killing people by zip code,” Dillon argued. “They invested hundreds of millions in a hospital in Farmington [UConn]. They have a 13 percent [profit] margin [and] minimal uninsurable immigrants or gunshot wounds because of the location. No inner-city hospital is going to survive on in-patient [care]; they have to expand. Those people are going to show up at the door, and the provider has to eat it.”
Malloy criticized the hospital last year for high executive salaries and profits (operating surpluses). Yale-New Haven, Dillon said, “happens to be one of the two biggest employers in New Haven” with most recently a 4 percent rate of return.
Lemar, meanwhile, took aim at efforts to repeal or amend section 8 – 30 g of the general statutes, which enables developers to appeal local town zoning decisions that prevent them from building affordable housing. “They don’t want to live up to their history” of using two and three-acre zoning to keep out poor people, he said. He spoke of how some of his constituents spend hours a day on buses to low-paying service jobs in Milford or North Haven because those towns keep out affordable housing. With the State Senate now evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, Lemar said, “much of this session is going to be determined by conservative Democratic interests” and “we’re going to be under attack.”
Like other New Haven legislators, Lemar and Dillon also spoke of not just cutting the budget to close the deficit, but raising new revenues. They heartily endorsed returning tolls to interstate highways that run through the state, the way Connecticut’s neighbors have. Eventually that could bring in close to $1 billion a year in new revenue to the state, which in part could help boost mass transit, Lemar argued. “Legislators form other states think we’re suckers for not having tolls” when neighboring states collect that money from our drivers, he said.
Click on or download the above audio file to hear the full interview with State Reps. Dillon and Lemar on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven.”