Protesters gear up for swearing-in event
Critics of virus restrictions plan demonstrations
HARTFORD — Lawmakers sworn in outdoors at the state Capitol on Wednesday to start the 2021 legislative session can expect to be greeted by protesters who for months have criticized what they believe are stronghanded measures put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The grassroots organization CT Liberty Rally sent out notices to its members to “storm the Capitol” and urged followers to “take the day off and show up!’’
The group, which throughout 2020 protested Gov. NedLamont’s orders that kept businesses shut during the pandemic, also opposes mandatory vaccines and supports keeping the religious exemption so that children do not need to be vaccinated in order to attend public school. Lawmakers are expected to revisit the issue this year after a bill to eliminate the exemption died last year when the coronavirus abruptly ended
the legislative session.
“We need you,” the group said on social media regarding opening day attendance. “This is a big opportunity to make a statement.”
State officials said they are not sure how many protestors might gather on a cold day in early January when many people go to work or school. But the swearing-in will occur on the same politically charged day that Congress will officially count the votes in the Electoral College and national Republicans are saying they will offer a challenge to the votes in various states in an attempt to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Some supporters of President Donald Trump say they still believe that Trump won the election and there needs to be further vote-counting.
In another coronavirus-related break from tradition, Lamont will deliver his State of the State address virtually instead of making the traditional speech in the Hall of the House with all 187 legislators, plus their staff and families, crowded into a packed roomfromwall to wall.
In a pre-recorded address that lasts about 15 minutes, Lamont will talk about the past year as he looks ahead to 2021.
“In a lot of ways, this is telling the story of Connecticut in 2020,” said MaxReiss, Lamont’s chief spokesman. Reiss described the speech as “a COVID-safe State of the State Address.”
Lamont is expected to join forces this year with Democrats in the legislature in a push to legalize recreational marijuana and sports betting — two issues that Lamont publicly predicted in April 2019 would pass but have never come to fruition. Details about the governor’s fiscal priorities will be released during his annual budget address in February.
Both chambers of the state legislature will be sworn in Wednesday morning outside the state Capitol in Hartford.
The state Senate will gather on the south side of the Capitol, while the 151- member House of Representatives will be sworn in on the north side facing Bushnell Park. Temperatures are expected to reach 34 degrees at the time of the swearing-in, and top legislators said they planned to have the ceremony outdoors for the first time in memory unless there was a snowstorm — but that is not in the forecast.
Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney of New Haven, whohasserved in the legislature for the past 40 years, said the cold temperatures will bring one advantage for the bundled-up lawmakers.
“It will keep the speeches short,” he said.
Wednesday will be historic because it includes the official election of Hartford Democrat Matt Ritter as the new House speaker, marking the first time in more than 125 years that a father and son have both served as the top House leader. Ritter’s father, Thomas, was speaker for six years under Govs. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. and John G. Rowland during the 1990s. Ritter is expected to be sworn in outdoors by his father.
Governors have marched in inaugural parades every four years in cold temperatures, but the legislature traditionally conducts its opening day activities inside the warm Capitol. Opening day is a time of optimism and back-slapping as lawmakers celebrate their victories from the November election and look forward to better days ahead — like opening day at Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium.
Only 35 of the 36 state senators will be sworn in because Sen. Carlo Leone of Stamford resigned this week in order to take a position in the Lamont administration as senior adviser to state transportation Commissioner Joe Giulietti. Leone is expected to attend in order to greet his former colleagues.
After the pomp and picture-taking Wednesday, legislators will start moving forward in the coming days onawide-ranging agenda for the 2021 session. Looneysaid he expects that all committee hearings and votes will be conducted virtually — covering legislative activities between now and April. If vaccines become widespread and hospitalizations decrease, lawmakers are hoping for a possible return to some level of normalcy by the time the session ends in early June.
The biggest issue the legislature will tackle will be balancing the two-year state budget that has been negatively impacted by high unemployment related to the pandemic. Theprojected deficit for the current fiscal year is $640 million, and the latest estimates said the deficits would be $2 billion in each of the next two years. But those numbers are expected to drop under revised estimates that will be released on Jan. 15 as more money has come into state coffers than expected after the dire predictions in April when the state was facing the peak number of hospitalizations related to the virus. Thelatest numbers Tuesday showed 1,149 hospitalized in Connecticut, down from nearly 2,000 in April.
Wall Street continued to set records through the end of 2020, and the state collects millions from capital gains taxes that are paid through the state income tax by millionaires and billionaires.