This Week's News:

Recount Overturns Defeat of 18-Term Incumbent in Bridgeport

‘Deluge’ of Funding Requested to Combat Spread of Monkeypox

“Back to School”(a.k.a. campaign time) and report cards for the 2022 session have been issued!  

Right after the primaries, as candidates prep for campaign door knocking and phone banking activity after the Labor Day holiday, there’s also a rush to seek candidates' opinions on a variety of topics that are on clients' minds for the upcoming session on January 4th. It is common to see a variety of advocacy organizations publish the annual “report card” for current legislators who are seeking reelection, and I've always wondered if the adage – if you can't say anything nice – why say anything at all isn’t the best path to take? 

We all know how it works in Hartford and even Washington DC. The very controversial and HOT topics seem to come down to party-line votes, and even the topics that are not so HOT have back stories on why certain electeds voted a certain way.

How they voted on previous legislation might reflect that there might be in their district a very large and active advocacy group. Or, it might be important to their business community or organizations that decided how they would cast their vote. Each legislator might not be 100% opposed or supportive of the specific language of the bill, but  may believe the problem needs to be fixed, just not in that way. It might be that a particular person is a leader of a community organization that finds the proposed bill to be unworkable or goes too far too quickly but the legislator gets tarred and feathered as if they opposed the actual solution and therefore are against the group publishing the scorecard.

Many other times especially freshmen or even seasoned legislators are looking to have leadership bless a special request for their district. They are put in an awkward position of having to support or oppose an issue where their actual district (the voters that sent them to Hartford to represent the district interests) isn’t either for or against the bill. They end up leaning toward working with their leaders to pass or kill a major caucus initiative, only to be dinged by a special interest group.

Doesn’t it seem a little unfair in this day and age of increased collaboration and negotiation and compromise that all things might not be as they appear? It seems a little unfair for a long-term legislator to have their voting record “simplified” as a yes or no and then have a candidate who has yet to feel the heat in Hartford get a free ride by saying they would look at all sides and see what's best for the district.

One of the most recent voter scorecards created quite the storm from both sides of the Capitol in that some legislators felt it skewed the actual votes, and that it didn’t take into consideration the vast amount of funding it would take to enact such a proposal. In another circumstance, a different legislator was quoted as saying “ I don’t look at the R or D side of the issue, I see the actual impact it will or will not have on solving the problem and that guides my decision making. Too many times the legislature passes things that are feel good but don’t actually fix a problem”.

Ummm. So how can organizations let their members, employees, and others know what the position of the candidate is before they cast their ballots in November? They might consider educating and encouraging their members, employees, and other interested parties to either cosponsor debates of candidates, promote already scheduled debates sponsored by CT Public and the CT League of Women Voters, or the local media outlets, or even switch gears and survey all the candidates rather than look at those who have toiled in Hartford to do the right thing for their districts.

Given the fact that so many sitting legislators didn’t seek reelection this time around and that 30+ seats are being unopposed, should organizations look for more reflective ways to judge someone’s future actions? We're big fans of candidate surveys where clients frame an issue from their perspective. They provide some education and specifics of the what, why, how, and who it would impact for the candidates to understand the issue better and then ask how they would react to such an initiative.

We've learned that we get a great deal of feedback that can help us in the upcoming session to work out the “details” of drafting a bill and actually move a solution forward. It also provides the client a pre-session insight into the temperament of the “legislature in waiting” once the election is over.

One thing is for certain, as fast as our world is changing due to the global issues impacting our lives, we can always look for better ways to learn about candidates' positions, how they think, and what's important to them as they prepare for the 2023 session. Sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks!  

Mechanical Mishaps

After last week’s primaries held some results that were expected and unexpected, additional information being collected this week shows that there were some issues with the voting tabulator machines. Because of the hot weather last week Norwich, Stonington and others experienced malfunctions in those counting machines. The result was to rely on counting those results by hand. The Secretary of State suggested that there were about 50 machines that overheated due to the higher than expected temperatures. Head moderators in those cases acted quickly to determine that they would need to be collected, held and counted separately. The primary went well from a process standpoint and no major incidences occurred as a result of the hand counts. The issue now is repairing and preparing these same machines for the November election which will yield significantly more voters for the general election. 

That task falls on LHS Associates, who has been tasked to repair these machines. It appears to be a daunting task to repair and test these machines in time for the November election. Secretary of State Kohler suggested that a full replacement of the machines would come at $40 million cost to the state. He added, “we do think that towns will need to consider heat-related issues (due to global warming) in the future and may need to reconsider polling locations that may have air conditioning regardless of the machine. All voting machines are now computers and none of them are designed to endure extreme heat.”

Relief for CT Student Loan Borrowers

Connecticut announced this week the cancellation of student loan debt for former students who attended a now shuttered for-profit college, a decision that will provide 300 people in Connecticut with a total of $5 million in relief.

The announcement, made by Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, on Monday as millions of borrowers across the U.S. await President Joe Biden’s imminent and wide-ranging decision on possibly forgiving tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt and whether those loan repayments will resume on Sept. 1.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said he was one of 25 attorneys general who filed a borrower defense application urging the Education Department to forgive the debt of those who attended ITT Tech, citing “deceptive tactics” used by the school to recruit students.

The federal decision covers borrowers who attended ITT Tech from Jan. 1, 2005 until the school shut down in September 2016. It also includes those who were enrolled in the school but haven’t submitted a borrower defense, which allows them to ask for a loan discharge if they’ve been defrauded. The Education Department had previously discharged loans for 130,000 ITT Tech borrowers.

“Today’s action will provide billions of dollars in relief — including $5 million to 300 borrowers in Connecticut,” Tong said in a statement. “Secretary Cardona has been an aggressive leader in providing relief to students and holding predatory institutions accountable.”

House Tour- OOPS... Lost Ballot Edition

Last week, our primary focus was…the State House and Senate primaries! In previous years, the primary season was interesting, but most of the time, the expected outcomes prevailed. This year’s primary elections were defined by low turnout and a few surprises. For many inside the building, they know places like Bridgeport always have their fireworks in the summer. Of course, we are used to primaries in that area.

This year Senator Bradley lost to Rev. Herron Gaston for the 23rd Senate District seat. But there was a race in the city much more interesting with an outcome that shocked just about everyone watching. Let’s just say if you weren’t paying attention to this race, you are now.

Heading into primary Tuesday, Representative Jack Hennessy (D -127) was running against the Democratic endorsed candidate in Councilman Marcus Brown. The new candidate was popular and had the endorsement and support of the party leadership – Democratic Town Committee Chair and party insider, Mario Testa! If you know anything about Bridgeport, you know that former State Representative Testa has his finger in the happenings of local politics and commands an organization that doesn’t like to lose!

All the folks paying attention expected Rep. Hennessy to lose given the endorsement of the new candidate. Before all the absentee ballots were counted Brown was in the lead and everyone went to bed feeling as if the “democratic machine” would certainly deliver the absentee ballots for Brown.

When CT woke up Wednesday morning after primary day, Brown was still ahead by a handful of votes (literally a handful, five). But a mandatory recount was in order and let’s just say, it did not disappoint those who follow Bridgeport politics! The election surprise once again appears in the great city of Bridgeport! 

The recount results came out on August 16th and showed that Hennessy received 567 votes while City Councilman Marcus Brown received 566. The head moderator of the recount declared Hennessy the winner after nine ballots were mysteriously misplaced and thus, uncounted. 20 members of the public were allowed to watch the recount performed by 15 election workers as well as two attorneys.

Councilman Brown’s statement after the recount says it all, “I am very disappointed to hear about the major recount issues and irregularities today with respect to the primary for State Representative for the 127th District. Today, the Head Moderator certified a result that was a shocking 20 vote difference from what was reported on Primary Day.”

So what happens next? Brown has asked for a judge to throw out the results citing unreliability thus calling for another election - or as you may hear on the playground or golf course – a do-over!! Off to the courthouse - More to come - we will keep you posted!

August 19th: Back-to-Back Hurricanes Cause Catastrophic Statewide Flooding

Today in 1955, torrential rains from Hurricane Diane — the second hurricane to hit Connecticut in five days — wreaked flood-borne death and devastation across the state. After Hurricane Connie dumped six inches of water on Connecticut earlier in the week, the 14 – 20 additional inches of rain from Diane proved too much for the state’s rivers and streams to bear. In the dark, early morning hours of August 19, floodwaters roared through dozens of neighborhoods as major rivers like the Farmington, Quinebaug, and Naugatuck crested their banks. Entire homes were carried downstream, massive iron bridges were washed away, and main streets in towns like Putnam, Torrington, and Waterbury became raging torrents in one of the most catastrophic floods in Connecticut history. Nearly a hundred people died because the worst of the floodwaters struck before sunrise, when most residents were asleep. Thousands of homes experienced flood damage or were completely lost. An estimated 86,000 people lost their jobs as dozens of major factory buildings — strategically located along major rivers — were destroyed in the deluge.

The following day, President Eisenhower declared Connecticut a major disaster area as both state and federal cleanup efforts began in earnest. Hundreds of stranded Connecticans were rescued by boat and helicopter through the joint efforts of the National Guard and Coast Guard. Within days, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers imported and installed several portable, temporary bridges — originally designed to be used in European war zones in World War II — to alleviate the transportation gridlock caused by so many of the state’s bridges being washed away. During the flood and its aftermath, Putnam Mayor John Dempsey rose to statewide political prominence through his skillful and tireless crisis-management of the disaster. He would go on six years later to become one of Connecticut’s most popular and effective governors, serving nearly a decade in office.

While the catastrophic Flood of 1955 did prompt major upgrades to Connecticut’s river monitoring practices and dam systems, the cost was steep, both in lives and property. A state commission reported three months after the flood that Connecticut sustained over $170 million in cumulative damages — an amount equal to over $1.5 billion in today’s dollars.

To view the full story on the CT Historian's website, click here.