Vote Puts Urban Liberal To The Test

Ditch his party leader who fought so hard for the best possible budget compromise? Or vote against constituents getting thrown off Medicaid?

Democratic New Haven State Rep. Roland Lemar faced that dilemma three weeks ago when the legislature voted on a bipartisan two-year state budget. The budget passed, more than three months after the legal deadline.

Lemar felt the tug of loyalty for State Senate President Martin Looney of New Haven, who he believed negotiated the best possible compromise after the defections of several suburban Democrats made it impossible to pass a budget crafted by their party.

And, Lemar said, he was prepared to vote for a budget that included some big-ticket losses to New Haven, such as a cut in PILOT funding (payments in lieu of tax revenue on tax-exempt properties) and in education funding. He knew Democrats couldn’t win the perfect budget for New Haven. He also knew that the city would have ways to make up some of that funding.

But then, he said, the final version of the budget included such painful hits to the poor, the working poor, and the environment — while leaving wealthy taxpayers untouched — that he concluded that in good conscience he couldn’t vote for it.

“There were things that we didn’t like, like ultimately cutting the car tax reimbursement rate to urban areas hurts my residents. It’s fundamentally unfair. Like cutting PILOT hurts New Haven residents here. Underfunding education … Greenwich is getting an $865,000 bonus this year while New Haven is probably going to see a multi-million dollar cut. These are things that frustrate me. Ultimately I understood where the formula was going and why it was being developed in such a way that I probably could have lived with a little of that,” said Lemar, who has represented the 96th General Assembly District (which included East Rock, Fair Haven, Downtown, and now a slice of East Haven) since 2010. ​“But on top of all of these other yanks and pulls and movements that just ended up balancing our budget on the backs of poor folks, I just couldn’t vote yes. I couldn’t in my conscience vote yes.”

The deal-killers for Lemar included:

• A reduction in the state earned-income tax credit — for low-income working families — from covering 27 to 22.5 percent (of what those families claim in the federal version of the credit).
• The removal of 7,700 people from Medicaid rolls, on top of 22,000 removed several years ago, meaning that people at 128 percent of the federal poverty level will no longer receive the health insurance.
• The raiding of money from an energy efficiency fund — which is supposed to direct fees from electricity bills to invest in renewable energy — and a similar state Green Bank to help balance the budget.

“Pushing people off of Medicaid hurts in a way that an individual can not recover from. Taking the earned income tax credit, reducing the number of dollars in their pocket hurts them in a way that they cannot recover from,” Lemar said.

The budget vote is possibly the most important one state legislators cast every two years, and for an urban liberal like Lemar, watching his party’s power wane by the day at the Capitol, it was a particularly difficult one this year. Lemar discussed that vote during an appearance of WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program. That led to a conversation about how Democrats should position themselves on the cusp of an election year that right now appears like it could end with the Capitol turning from blue or purple to red. Excerpts of the conversation follow.

Follow The Money

Roland Lemar: I entered that budget vote not sure which way I was going to go, knowing that I was going to be disappointed in myself regardless of if I voted yes or no. Ultimately, I determined to vote no. … The final product was not something I felt like I could condone or endorse.

WNHH: So you voted no?

Lemar: I voted no.

You turned your back on your party leaders like Marty Looney who were trying to get the work done …

I would have felt bad endorsing those things had I voted yes. I would have felt like I was selling out core liberal priorities and accomplishments. I still to this day feel bad voting no because I know that Sen. Looney, someone whom I’ve looked up to and has delivered every major piece of progressive legislation through that Senate in the last 20 years, everything has gone through him. I have complete faith in him that that was the best budget that he could have gotten out.

Every budget is a stew. It always includes some compromise even when it’s your own party that passes it. Last year it was Democratic suburbanites who passed such an unjust education allocation that a judge called it unconstitutional. You were giving money from poor districts to rich districts — and that was you guys without the Republicans. So, if you’re going to be a legislator, if you’re going to make laws, if you’re going to have some influence, you’re going to have to compromise and decide when its something you just can’t vote for and when you gotta take what you can. What were the parts of the budget that made it impossible for you to vote for it?

To start with one of the major victories that I claim in my tenure serving on the finance committee was the earned income tax credit. It is the very definition of the working poor. That’s who is eligible for the this because you have to have a job and you have to earn income to be eligible for it. …
The number of individuals we pushed off of Medicaid — this is the poorest of the poor.

What would you have done instead to make up that money? We had a $1.5 billion projected deficit for a two-year $40 billion or so budget at one point. That had to be made up. That’s a lot of money. Stuff was going to have to get cut. What would you have done to avoid the cuts you hated in this budget?

And this is where I have to give incredible credit to Sen. Looney and the negotiators in the room. They do not have enough votes to do what I’m about to say, and I have to realize that and all of our listeners need to realize that. My answer to this is increasing the income tax limit on high-income individuals. We need to consider tolls. We’re the only state on the eastern seaboard that does not collect tolls in one form or another. And we need to consider giving municipalities additional revenue-raising tools instead of them being solely reliant on the state of Connecticut.

Such as local income taxes?

Local option taxes of some kind. Whether it’s on bars and restaurants downtown.

Are you still talking about raising from 6.9 percent to 7.5 percent taxes [on income] over a half million or a million?

Family incomes over half a million. I think there are growing numbers the higher you go. If you were to say, ​“We’ll only raise income taxes over a million,” you’ll get a few more votes but ultimately to reach the revenue we’re talking about you need to structure income tax rates — two additional income tax rates, one for incomes over half a million and those over a million.

And what would that go? From what to what?

Right now they’re all at 6.99, I would move them to 7.5 percent [on income over $500,000 a year] to 7.75 [on income over $1 million]. …

We had super majorities in the House and the Senate that we have lost cycle after cycle. The remaining Democrats feel like this narrative is what’s holding us back and holding Democratic policies in other areas back. One guy, two guys might move, but we have the highest number of millionaires and billionaires per capita in that state and the number has grown.

The narrative is that they’re all leaving. Aetna left. GE left. Alexion left. A few hedge fund people leave Greenwich and other parts of lower Fairfield County and all of a sudden our revenue projections were down quarter after quarter after quarter because of high-income earners paying less than we thought.

Yes because high-income earners earned less than we thought but not because they’re moving. One guy moves, an older gentleman in his mid-70s who was moving anyway moved, and people want to point to that guy and essentially say he left. We’ve seen the Brennan Institute and a series of other economic institutes do an evaluation of this and essentially say we’ve had two income tax raises in Connecticut over the last eight years and after both of them, our percentage of millionaires and billionaires actually increased in Connecticut.

But the narrative is that we have seen a loss in revenue, a loss in major employers while raising taxes a lot … 

Yeah, and part of that is changes in the economy that have nothing to do with our tax rate. That is the replacement. A global financial crisis hit that hurt Connecticut more than any other state in which we displaced RBS [Royal Bank of Scotland] and UBS — two large trading floors in Stamford with hundreds to thousands of employees all making substantial amounts of money, those jobs are replaced with middle-income to lower-income retail jobs. That’s where our economy has shifted.

Courage, Or Conviction

Roland, let me put you in the position of responsible lawmaker. What was the final score on this budget? 

The final budget was [126] to 23 [in the House].

So basically you could take a stand and not be hurt with your urban constituency, but you’re still not hurting your party’s leaders because you were a safe no. Does that take away from some of the courage of what you did? Could it look like posturing by a politician who’s in fact very involved in getting his party elected, does care about his issues very much. but in the end you had the freedom to do this without really bothering your party leaders because this thing was going to pass anyway?

Yeah.

In other words, there’s no Profile in Courage award for this one?

I think that’s exactly right. And if it seems like I’m trying to claim one, I want to disabuse people of that notion. This wasn’t a profile in courage. I wasn’t a swing vote on this issue. Ultimately this was passing whether I voted yes or no.

What if it had been close? What if your vote was going to determine it and Martin Looney said, ​“Roland. we got the best of what we fought for. I need your vote.” What would you have done?

I think I still would have voted a no. I would have voted no.

Even if Marty would have said, ​“Hey Roland. You know as well as I do that we’re going to get something worse if you vote no now. Because if it goes into another crisis, the governor is either going to have to make more cuts, because his purview of what he can cut is limited under the rules of the state budget. You’re really going to hurt your people more if you vote no on this and it doesn’t pass.”

The Sen. Looney angle for me is very difficult because I respect him so much. He’s dealing with a circumstance that even that we got a final product is remarkable. But I will tell you why I still would have voted no. Because at some point — and again I self-confess to being a very liberal person and my worldview is shaped by trying to ensure that we help and not hurt as many people as possible in vulnerable situations — at some point we were no longer listened to.

What if they had said, and they might have had reason for saying this: ​“If you kill this budget with your vote, the Democrats will definitely not have a majority in the legislature next year. And all these things you care about are going to get decimated. And you’re no longer going to be the [co-] chair of the Planning and Development committee.”

I would disagree with that construct. I feel like half the reason we’re suffering electorally is because we’re not embracing true progressive policies that will put the state first. You and I and I think most of our listeners know that if you invest in places like New Haven, Hartford, Stamford and Middletown and a whole bunch of urban core cities in the state, that is how we make ourselves attractive to the Aetnas and the GEs and all those businesses that you listed a few minutes ago. …

Look, there was a time when Connecticut was at the top of its peer group amongst all states in attracting people who wanted to live in robust, vibrant beautiful suburbs. And when that was all the rage Connecticut excelled because we had the best version of that. That is not what people are looking for right now. If you look at demographics, folks over the age of 55 are returning back to urban areas and people under the age of the 30 want to live in vibrant urban areas.

Click on or download the above audio file or click on the Facebook Live video below to hear the full interview with State Rep. Roland Lemar on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.