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Martin Looney campaigning the weekend before this November’s election: Dem supermajority is crafting agenda.
New Haven State Sen. Martin Looney plans to try again to help cities get more of that reimbursement the state promised for tax-exempt property — and he plans to keep a promise to a colleague in New Jersey.
Looney outlined those and other plans in an occasional ritual: Laying out in an interview his goals for an upcoming session. So we can check back at session’s end to see how he, and we, fared. (Click here for a sample.)
Looney’s plans matter: As president pro tempore, he sets the agenda for the State Senate. And in 2021 he’ll have a super-majority of Democrats to help him turn plans into reality: Thanks to successful November elections, Democrats will outnumber Republicans in the chamber 24 – 12.
He was first elected to the state legislature in 1980.
Here are the top priorities Looney listed in the interview, beginning with the one that includes his promise:
• Legalize sports betting. “We have to move toward legalization of sports betting and internet gaming,” Looney said, noting that other states have found that to be a source of needed revenue. He didn’t have an estimate for how much revenue the plan would bring to Connecticut: That depends on the version of the plan that would pass, and on the outcome of negotiations with Native American tribes to modify existing compacts related to casinos.
Asked about concerns over addiction, Looney said he envisions setting “some revenue” raised into treatment for problem gamblers.
Looney said when legislators began considering legalization in recent years, leaders received visits from major league sports teams. “They said we had to build a fee for them into the [revenue] stream. Because they were going to need to spend more money on monitoring the integrity of the game. This seemed to me the height of hypocrisy: Ignoring the fact their sports have been the subject of illegal gaming all these years. They’re only worried when governments make it legal!” Looney compared the sports reps to Capt. Renault in Casasblanca professing to be “shocked, shocked” to discover gambling going on in his establishment.
Looney said his New Jersey counterpart, State Senate President Pro Tem Stephen Sweeney, had the same experience when New Jersey took up a similar bill. “Don’t give those guys a penny! For years they tried to stop sports betting,” then came with their hands out, Looney recalled Sweeney telling him. Looney promised to follow the advice.
• Restructure PILOT. New Haven has for years sought greater payments from the state Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program. The city cannot collect taxes on more than half its property, because the state exempts nonprofits from paying taxes. And it is limited in pursuing other revenues because of a state-mandated reliance on the property tax. But the state usually reimburses communities for less than 30 percent of the lost revenue — a sore point for strapped cities like New Haven. But because suburbs dominate the legislature, even Democratic legislators haven’t been able to move the needle much.
Looney has been promoting a plan to broaden the constituency for increased reimbursements by creating a new three-tiered structure that offers greater payments to communities that need it more. And include many more communities than just big cities in that category.
Under the current system, wealthy Greenwich gets the same percentage reimbursement for lost hospital taxes, for instance, as does New Haven.
Under Looney’s proposal, communities with the greatest percentage of tax-exempt property, such as the big cities and Mansfield and New London, would get 50 percent PILOT reimbursements. But the tier would also include communities, like smaller lower-income Eastern Connecticut communities, that have a low net per capita grand list. The top tier would include between 40 and 50 communities where the net grand list per capita falls below $100,000. For comparison, Greenwich’s net grand list per capita is $734,000. New Britain’s is $50,000.
The second tier, which meets a somewhat higher threshold, would receive 40 percent reimbursement. The wealthiest communities would continue receiving the current rate.
• Pass a mental health initiative. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought into relief deep-seated weakness in the state’s mental health system, Looney argued. He’s hoping to craft along with the Democratic caucus a package of changes that would give more therapists incentives to accept insurance, to support coverage of talk therapy instead of cheaper medication, increase access to and monitoring of medications, expand telehealth coverage, and steer more people away from the criminal justice system and into needed treatment.
• Legalize marijuana. “We’re surrounded by states that have already made that move,” Looney noted. He’d like to see a legalization law enable local entrepreneurs to “get a foothold in the business” by preventing “large corporations from coming in and swooping up the licenses.”
Looney added that he will seek a “labor peace” provision that requires business formed as a result of this bill to be open to unionization.
• Require state certification for hospital or equity firm takeovers of private medical practices. A certificate of need already is required if the practice has eight or more physicians, thanks to a previous law Looney sponsored. He’d like to see the number made “as small as possible,” ideally zero. He’d also like to see the presumption for approval changed to a presumption of neutrality when the state considers certificate of needs for such takeovers.
• Prevent insurers from dropping children from parents’ medical coverage the moment they turn 26. Rather, the state should require that insurers wait until the current year’s plan runs out, Looney argued.
• Exempt masks from the sales tax. Looney would like to see that measure pass early in the session, while the Covid-19 pandemic is still raging.
• Increase funding for programs to help prisoners reenter society without lapsing back into crime and returning behind bars.
• Pass a “captive audience” bill. Looney proposes barring employers “from coercing employees to attend mandatory workplace meetings to coerce them against voting for a union.”
“They already can put flyers in work stations. They can call [employees] at home,” text them, email them, buttonhole them on their way in or out of work, Looney said. “Coercing them to go into a meeting is beyond the pale.” He noted that state Attorney General William Tong has issued an opinion stating that a “captive audience” prohibition would not violate federal labor laws.
• Allow employees who suffer psychological or emotional trauma on the job, without physical injury, to claim workers compensation. State law used to allow for that. It should be restored, Looney said. His example case: “Someone is working in a factory and the person next to them is sucked into a machine and horribly maimed and killed.” That someone deserves at least a year’s worth of therapy and mental-health treatment.
• Raising taxes on the wealthy. Looney called for enacting a separate tax on capital gains and dividend income above a certain floor —say $500,000 for a single filer and $1 million for a household. He was asked about concerns about such a move causing wealthy taxpayers to relocate to Florida. He responded: “We are not competing with Florida. Our relevant market is states in our own region” —like New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island —where some taxes on the wealthy currently exceed Connecticut’s.
• Protect people laid off during the pandemic. Looney said he hopes to see a statewide version of a just-passed New Haven law requiring employers who laid off workers during the pandemic to hire those workers back first before. He said the bill would target employers like hotels and restaurants.
The session begins Jan. 6, probably with an outdoor administration of the oath of office, Looney said. Because of the pandemic, he expects public hearings and committee meetings to take place online, at least early in the session.