Ritter Shakes Up Committee Leadership Assignments
The leadership of the state legislature’s joint committees for next year’s session began to fall into place this week as House Speaker Matt Ritter announced new chairmanship assignments for committees like Finance, Public Health, and Energy and Technology.
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How State Taxes Make Inequality Worse
As she opened her $1,600 property tax bill in February, Edith Baltazar suddenly lost her appetite for the eggs she’d prepared for lunch with her daughter. Her thoughts raced: Would their home be taken away if she couldn’t pay it? Baltazar’s daughter wept. The family would have to make a difficult decision: the property tax or $2,000 for diabetes medication. The taxes won.
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Connecticut On Track To Pay Down Pension Debt Next Year
Connecticut is on track to make next year the sixth consecutive year that it will reduce its pension debt because of rules put in place that require it to use any additional surplus to pay down that debt. State Comptroller Natalie Braswell said Thursday that the state is on track to use about $2.8 billion…
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4‑Year Terms Back Up For Debate
Four-year terms for local elected officials are back on the table, according to a new memo describing the mayor’s and the Board of Alders president’s priorities for debate in a once-in-a-decade charter revision process. Read more from the New Haven Independent.
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Magic In The Air
This spectacular sunset in Storrs, Connecticut was captured Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022, by Matt Engelhardt.
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OP-ED | Confusion In ‘Washington’ – Free Speech Or Law Breaking?
As anyone who has built a new home or started a business will tell you, most towns have strict zoning codes and they don’t generally hesitate to enforce them. Sometimes there are gray areas in the law, the parties cannot agree and the matter winds up in court. On rare occasions, national politics intrudes. Welcome to Washington – not the District of Columbia, but the…
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Stakeholders: Health Care Is Expensive And Outcomes Aren’t Better Than In Most Comparable Nations
Health care industry stakeholders began a Thursday morning hearing in Hartford with a sobering assessment of the state’s health metrics: Connecticut is among the most expensive states to receive health care in the United States, a country that pays more for worse health outcomes than most comparable nations.
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5 Cops Arrested In Cox Case
Five city cops have been arrested on two misdemeanor charges apiece for their roles in the June 19 incident that left 36-year-old New Havener Richard “Randy” Cox injured and paralyzed while in police custody. • Read more from the New Haven Independent
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Union Calls On Lamont To Make Good On Its Contract
Thousands of home care workers who risked their lives during the pandemic are pleading with Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration to make good on its promise to help them pay for their health insurance.
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Here’s The Skinny On Monday’s Special Session
The Connecticut General Assembly will convene today for a special session for a limited list of action items: extending the tax break on gasoline, boosting funds for an energy assistance program and essential worker bonuses, and to delay changes to the state’s bottle bill.
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CTNewsJunkie Is Free To Read, But It’s Not Free For Us To Produce
We believe everyone should have access to the steady stream of vital information and pubic service journalism that we provide, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need your support to make it happen.
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OP-ED | The Love-Hate Relationship Between News And Social Media
Since the launch of CTNewsJunkie in 2005, the premise has been consistent. We have attempted to provide timely, accurate, and fair news reporting from the state legislature as well as analysis of what’s really happening behind the scenes, behind the spin, and behind the data. All on a shoestring.
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Eric Coleman Announces Bid For Hartford Mayor
Citing recent gun violence in Hartford, retired judge and former state Senator Eric D. Coleman announced a bid for the Hartford mayor’s office Wednesday. Coleman, who said he resigned his position as a trial judge referee and recently moved to Hartford, said he had planned to run for mayor next year regardless of Hartford Mayor…
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ANALYSIS | GDI Signals That Connecticut Is On An Economic Plateau
Signaling a stall in Connecticut’s aggregate economic activity, the General Drift Indicator (GDI), slipped 0.1% between 2022-Q2 and 2022-Q3, from 96.3 to 96.2. The nonfarm job count, which increased by 0.9%, provided the sole positive contribution to the index.
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After Stillbirth, Undocumented Woman Organizes Partnership To Help Others Find Better Care
When Laura Garcia was pregnant with her third child, a boy she named Matias, she had symptoms that made her uneasy. However, she said her community clinic told her it was normal. But after delivering a stillborn child, she was determined to act so that other women in her situation might not suffer the same…
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OP-ED | It Could Have Been A Higher Percentage, But Young Voters Did Show Up to Vote This Year
November’s elections demonstrated some interest in younger voters engaging in the midterm races. But as a national 27% average, shouldn’t those under age 30 have a higher voter turnout rate?
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Connecticut Officials Balk At Ford’s New Electric Vehicle Requirements For Dealers
A bipartisan group of Connecticut officials called Wednesday for Ford Motor Company to pump the brakes on a Friday deadline for dealers across the nation to opt into costly new requirements for selling the company’s electric vehicle models.
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OP-ED | The Nuclear Threat Got Too Real
NATO held its breath on November 15th, when two missiles fired in Ukraine struck a Polish town and killed two people. There had long been a fear that Russia might attack Poland because weapons and supplies from NATO were being held there before being given to the Ukranians to use in their war. The phrase “World War III” began trending on Twitter, and it looked…
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Summit Focuses On Finding Workers
Job creation? Or filling jobs already created? Economic development gatherings have tended to focus on the first question. A statewide confab held in New Haven Tuesday afternoon pivoted to the latter. The standing-room-only “Connecticut Economic Development Summit” took place at the airport terminal Yale School of Management on Whitney Avenue. Hundreds of business leaders and policymakers attended the series of speeches and…
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Progressive Party Flexes ’Fusion’ Muscles
Sarah Ganong — whose third party helped labor-friendly Democrats win elections all over the state last week — doesn’t buy the theory that voters delivered a Republican-lite strategy on taxes. Read more from the New Haven Independent.
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ConnectiCare to Stop Selling Fully Insured Small Group Plans
Health insurance provider ConnectiCare will stop selling new fully insured small group plans later this week as it begins to depart from a market in which it currently insures just over 20,000 Connecticut residents.
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OP-ED | Apropos of Nothing: Of Voting, Bob’s Union Support, and the Gas Tax Reprieve
We’re glad the 2022 election is over, but there are still ramifications, implications, and consequences to sort out. To wit, largely lost in the Bob vs. Ned duel and the Logan-Hayes dust-up was the important but unsexy subject of early voting.
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Lamont Signs Special Session Bill
Gov. Ned Lamont signed the sweeping 28-page bill that extends a suspension of Connecticut’s gas tax, supplements funding for energy assistance and sets aside more money for an essential workers’ bonus pay program. Upon signing the bill Tuesday, Lamont said it will make Connecticut “a little bit more affordable.” The bill extends the 25-cent gas…
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Homeless Hotel Plan Scrapped. What’s Next?
A year after a tentative plan to convert a Long Wharf hotel into housing for the homeless fell apart, the city is considering a second attempt to invest federal pandemic-relief dollars towards stable long-term shelter for the unhoused. Read more from the New Haven Independent.
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Lawmakers Extend Gas Tax Suspension, Offer More Energy Assistance And Hero Pay
Lawmakers extended a suspension of Connecticut’s gas tax, supplemented funding for energy assistance and set aside more money for an essential workers’ bonus pay program during a special legislative session on Monday. Both chambers of the state legislature passed a single, 28-page bill in bipartisan votes in back-to-back sessions. The House approved the legislation 134…
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OP-ED | Will the 2022 Election Bring Common Sense Back to the GOP?
Not too long after the Republican party fell under the influence of Donald Trump, I’ve been hearing a voice in my head. It sounds a lot like Joseph Welch, the lawyer who confronted anti-communist Joseph McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
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Utilities Agree To Some Relief To Off-Set Increase In Electric Rates
With Connecticut households bracing for steep electricity rate hikes, Gov. Ned Lamont announced a plan Monday to offset Eversource bills by $10 and supplement an energy assistance program by a total of $13 million in utility company shareholder profits.
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ANALYSIS | Jahana Hayes Nearly Lost The 5th. Why?
In what turned out to be a better election night than most Democrats had dared dream, why was Jahana Hayes so nearly defeated by Republican George Logan in the 5th congressional district?
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