Note: Jason Bartlett (pictured) is challenging incumbent State Sen. Gary Winfield for the Democratic nomination this year.
As a former state legislator, it pains me to say this, but Connecticut’s General Assembly during the COVID-19 pandemic has abdicated its responsibilities, and should forego all salaries from the day they shut their doors to the opening of the next session. If you work hard you should get paid, but if you close your doors and decide you are not essential, why should you be paid? Maybe a better course would be to donate your salaries to the front-line workers.
The public has an expectation that our government should work for us. The CT General Assembly is telegraphing that they are more than comfortable with Governor Lamont doing all the work and making all the decisions.
In fact, by closing down, they have told him to grab more authority and have dangerously empowered the Executive Branch.
Look to the Reopened CT Advisory Group, who will meet and work in secret, who will have no elected officials or legislators on their committee, and will make all the public policy decisions for the rest of the state.
Talk about being treated as a feckless body. This smacks of disrespect.
As a society, we have asked our teachers to keep working, and to instruct online distance learning and execute curriculum plans on a moment’s notice. Our Alders and municipal government officials have learned to use Zoom and Web Ex meetings and conference calls to conduct official business. Hardship pay should be put in place for all our first responders, hospital workers, grocery and pharmacy workers and mass transit workers. They are doing yeoman’s work and America applauds them. But what of our legislators?
Yes, I have seen the newsletters with the latest COVID-19 death statistics and hospitalizations sent by email from each legislator. But I know how this works. A legislative staffer is writing everything we see. How about the drag and click they have perfected on Facebook to show and host Gov. Lamont’s daily COVID press briefing? Better yet, they’ve all learned to also broadcast Gov. Cuomo’s’ pressers.
What I have not seen is public meetings on Zoom, or other video conference calls where legislators call into question some of the commissioners and governor’s staff about important decisions they are making or not making.
For example, if I were a legislator, I would question in every forum possible Department of Labor’s decisions on how to handle the 402,000 new unemployment claims. As of April 23rd, DOL only had 25 people answering their phones, and gave themselves 5 days to get back to you on your questions (of the calls they picked up). This management benchmark is from the DOL commissioner. How shameful.
I would take the opportunity in these hearings to talk about New York, how they hired 4,000 people to deal with their influx of filings, and how they gave the $600 from the Feds 3 weeks before Connecticut did to their unemployed citizens. These kinds of questions by the people’s elected officials will get results.
State Sen. Gary Winfield’s ineffectiveness has been on display in his attempt to get CT prisoners released from prison because of COVID-19. At one point, he wrote a letter to the Commissioner with some questions. What’s happened since? As chair of the Judiciary Committee, he could have easily had a meeting with his committee on Zoom and demanded answers regarding their protocols.
If I was a member of that committee, I would have asked why we aren’t spending money to use the four correctional facilities Malloy closed during his administration and reopening them for a short period I would have demanded testing of both corrections workers and prisoners. I would get assurances that criminals with despicable crimes be housed in those facilities so their attorneys couldn’t come up with new motions to get them out due to COVID-19. The myriad of questions and answers would have been broadcast on CT Network and the nightly news and I’m sure a better outcome could have come about than what’s transpired.
No one in the New Haven community is particularly happy that the only known person to be released thus far is a rabbi convicted of sexually assaulting a teen and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Connecticut should join Oregon, Washington, Pennsylvania, and a myriad of other states and municipalities in terms of adapting to our new reality of teleconferencing and working remotely. Better yet, Connecticut should lead the way. Our governor made his living in the digital industry. Let’s use that to our advantage.
We have one of the most archaic voting processes in the country, and we all worry that it will continue to not be easy to vote by mail. But again, we await an executive order by Gov. Lamont to deal with this issue, and the legislature will not have its imprimatur on this issue during this crisis either.
In the meantime, there are 185 legislators whose salaries over the next days could really help our frontline workers get through these struggling times. I hope they will consider making that sacrifice.
Step aside Ella Fitzgerald and Justin Timberlake. It’s our legislators’ time to sing “Cry Me A River.”