Vaccine timeline clearer; DeLauro gets nod
Coronavirus cases are continuing to mount in Connecticut as the state moves into its second wave of infections. The state’s rate of positive coronavirus tests reached 7.1% Thursday, the highest daily rate since the end of May. “It’s a big number,” Gov. Ned Lamont said. Hospitalizations have also climbed back to a point where they were in the late spring as the state was declining from its first peak.
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The big story
First coronavirus vaccines arriving this month: Connecticut will begin receiving its first shipment of a coronavirus vaccine later this month with health care workers, first responders and nursing home residents among the first to receive doses. A second phase of vaccination will begin in late January for residents who are over the age of 65, are at high-risk if they contract COVID-19 due to underlying conditions, critical workforce employees, including teachers, and people who live in congregate settings, including incarcerated people. The final phase of vaccinations will begin in June for anyone else who has yet to be inoculated. The goal is to vaccinate the entire state by the start of next fall. “We are hopeful that by the early fall, we will have everybody who wants to be vaccinated to have received the vaccine, both doses,” acting Public Health Commissioner Dr. Deidre Gifford said Thursday. The state expects to receive a total of 100,000 doses of vaccine by the end of this year, a spokesman for the governor said. While the vaccine will be provided to states at no charge, it’s expected that Connecticut will bear some of the cost for distributing immunizations. Lamont has said he hopes the federal government will provide additional aid to states to help with that cost, but absent that, he’s prepared to dip into the state’s $3.1 billion rainy day fund to make
sure the distribution and rollout of the vaccine goes as planned.
Five things you may have missed
DeLauro named House Appropriations chair: Rep. Rosa DeLauro of New Haven, the dean of Connecticut’s congressional delegation, was selected Thursday by House Democrats to be the next chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee. DeLauro will be a key player in federal spending bills when the new Congress convenes next year, and her position is expected to benefit Connecticut in the way of additional federal dollars that she’ll steer back to the state. “Serving in this role will be one of the greatest honors of my life, and I am eager to get to work and responsibly fund our government in a way that meets the needs of this moment,” DeLauro said. The 77-year-old Democratic congresswoman won the gavel by a 148-79 vote over Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida. Rep. John Larson of East Hartford said Connecticut has not had a member of Congress hold such an important position since Jonathan Trumbull was elected House speaker in 1739.
Republicans push Lamont on aid to businesses: House Republicans on Thursday called on Lamont to use his emergency powers to delay upcoming taxes to help individuals and businesses continuing to struggle due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The request to postpone a new 0.5% payroll tax to fund a paid family and medical leave program and to push back personal property taxes that are due in January to April was quickly rebuffed by Lamont. “I think we have learned during this COVID crisis that we need paid medical leave more than ever,” he said. “This is the exact wrong time to stop what’s going to be a very important change for Connecticut families.” On personal property taxes, Lamont noted that cities and towns are counting on that revenue “to maintain cash flow.” Paul Mounds, Lamont’s chief of staff, said cities and towns would have to be consulted before tax deadlines could be shifted as was done this past year.
Tax records show more smoking and drinking in pandemic:
A review of state tax records provides a window into life in Connecticut during the pandemic: residents are driving and eating out less but drinking and smoking just as much as ever. Alcohol taxes are projected to increase to $73.2 million in the current fiscal year, up from $64 million in 2019. While the increased consumption of alcohol has helped the state’s bottom line, incoming House Republican leader Vincent Candelora said that increased drinking “has a societal impact that the government needs to pay for on the other end.” Another trend during the pandemic that’s reflected in tax records is Connecticut’s continuing real estate boom. An explosion in home sales has led to a 105.8% increase in conveyance taxes collected from July through October compared with the same period last year. But Connecticut still faces a projected $854 million deficit in the current fiscal year.
Absentee ballot record shattered in November election:
A record 665,597 Connecticut voters cast absentee ballots in the Nov. 3 election and fewer than 1% of those were rejected, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill reported Thursday. While some, including the Connecticut Town Clerks Association, had predicted as many as two-thirds of voters would cast absentee ballots after access was expanded due to the pandemic, about 35% of voters ended up doing so. Merrill’s office said the rejection rate of 0.94% was less than half of the 1.94% of absentee ballots that were turned away in 2018. The most likely reasons ballots were rejected were that voters did not sign the inner envelope containing their ballot, returned their ballot without the inner envelope or enclosed more than one ballot in the envelope that was returned. Merrill and others have pointed to the success of expanded absentee ballot access this year as a reason legislators should permanently loosen Connecticut’s restrictive laws when it comes to absentee voting.
Lamont approves unemployment boost for low-wage workers:
An executive order issued by Lamont Friday directs the state to tap $7.7 million from its unemployment trust fund to provide additional unemployment funds to low-wage workers who lost their jobs in the pandemic but are ineligible for federal money. The Lost Wages Assistance program was intended to replace the $600a-week federal unemployment supplement that expired July 31. But to qualify for the $300 in extra weekly payments from the federal government, claimants need to be collecting at least $100 a week in state unemployment. Labor officials said Friday that cutoff froze out about 38,000 workers in Connecticut who were collecting smaller unemployment checks from receiving the additional federal aid. Workers will receive retroactive payments for the weeks of federal aid they missed. “This is a $7.5 million investment by the state of Connecticut and it’s going to return $55 million to working moms, dads around the state of Connecticut,” Lamont said.
Odds and ends
Margaret Streicker,
the Republican who challenged DeLauro in Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District, spent $1.79 million on her failed campaign to unseat the 15-term incumbent, according to new campaign finance filings. That’s the most spent by a Republican congressional candidate in Connecticut in recent memory. Streicker, who ran a flurry of hard-hitting ads targeting DeLauro throughout the campaign, ultimately lost by about 18 percentage points. … President Donald Trump has threatened to veto a defense spending bill with billions for military projects in Connecticut if lawmakers don’t amend the bill to include a repeal of legal protection for tech companies that Trump believes are biased against him. The threat drew a sharp rebuke from Connecticut’s Democratic federal lawmakers, who said the fight over what’s called Section 230 has nothing to do with defense funding. … The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority will change the way it periodically adjusts electricity rates, hoping to avoid a repeat of dramatic price spikes that took effect this summer leading to immediate backlash from lawmakers and consumers. Rates will be more closely tied to utilities’ recent revenue and expenses rather than forecasts that have been “dramatically off-base” regulators said. The rate hikes that took effect July 1 were quickly ordered rolled back. … Mark Davis, WTNH-TV’s chief political correspondent, is retiring from the station after more than 50 years in radio and television journalism. Davis took an extended leave of absence from work since mid-March and “because I can see no safe path back to work for a man of my age and risk factors I have decided to retire” he said. Davis began his career at WTNH in the late 1980s after a stint at WTIC-AM. … The City of Waterbury has replaced the head of a Columbus statute in front of city hall five months after it was decapitated in an act of vandalism. Cities and towns across the country have grappled with what to do with Columbus statues on public land as debate rages over tributes to the Italian explorer who critics say is also guilty of genocide, racism and slave trading. Waterbury left a decision about its statue to voters, who in a referendum on Election Day decided to keep it in place.