General Assembly opens with outdoor session
HARTFORD — State lawmakers stood in the winter chill around the state Capitol on Wednesday and took their oaths of office while 500 peaceful protesters took places behind metal barricades 100 yards away, many shouting for their rights to refuse vaccines and dispute the outcome of the presidential election.
While House and Senate members were collegial in a first-dayback-at-school atmosphere, pandemic precautions continued the closure of the Capitol complex to the public, and the cold expedited the perfunctory oaths of office, then forced lawmakers back to their individual offices.
They voted remotely on rules for the 22-week session, then watched Gov. Ned Lamont’s prerecorded afternoon State of the State Address.
“In this coming year, we will be expanding our commitment to affordable housing, access to broadband, transit-oriented development, open choice school incentives, as well as an expansion of our workforce development and small business growth fund,” Lamont said. “That’s how we get Connecticut growing again, and working for all of our families, with liberty and justice for all.”
During the 15-minute address, Lamont praised the state for refusing to be defined by the public health crisis.
“Instead, it’s a state which responded to its generational calling with thousands of volunteers providing food, support, and encouragement to hundreds of cars filled with hungry families at the Rentschler Field Food Distribution Center, nurses coming out of retirement to help at
COVID-19 clinics, college students stepping up to serve as apprentice teachers, business leaders leveraging their contacts to provide the state with masks and gowns, and countless other examples of Connecticut meeting its generational challenge,” said Lamont.
Lamont said that like many state families, his has been brought closer together by the pandemic. Lamont reiterated previous support of adult-use marijuana and sports gambling, neither of which has not made much progress in recent years, but Democratic leaders and the governor have those goals again on this year’s agenda.
On the shady north steps of the ornate, 1878 monument to the Civil War, with its gold-flaked
257-foot dome, Speaker of the House Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, accepted the nomination to head the House chamber for the next two years. He took the oath from his father, Thomas D. Ritter, a Hartford lawyer who was speaker of the House from 1993 until
1998. Most of the House members in attendance — at least two were missing in COVID protocols — stood in overcoats and other winter wear, with almost all wearing face masks, as protesters lined the metal barricades in nearby Bushnell Park.
Capitol Police said the demonstrators totaled about 500, far short of the anticipated 2,000 who organizers had predicted. At about 10:30, around the time senators were finishing their swearing-in ceremony in the winter sunshine, State Capitol Police arrested Yuliya Gilshteyn,
46, of New Fairfield, on a breach-of-peace charge after she allegedly spat on another person during an outdoor confrontation. The state Department of Consumer Protection reported that Gilshteyn is a former pharmacist whose license expired in 2008.
As senators took their oaths, several protesters unsuccessfully tried to shout down the proceedings. “Freedom Trumps Fear,” “Support parental rights,” “Keep religious freedom,” and “Trump won” were among the handmade signs, along with red, white and blue Trump 2020 flags and the colonial-era segmented snake of the yellow “Don’t tread on me” Gadsden flag.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, led the Senate in confirming Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney of New Haven for another term as the most-powerful senator, in his 41st year in the legislature.
“He’s someone who has spent his life dedicated to public service and for the betterment of the people of the state of Connecticut,” Duff said. Senate Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford, seconded Duff’s motion, stressed that the session will be very-challenging, but he looks forward to working with Looney. “He is somebody who believes very very dearly that this is a very collegial and collaborate institution and that we are all honored and privileged to serve not only in that institution, but under his leadership.”
Back inside, in the historic hall of the House, Ritter, along with new Majority Leader Jason Rojas of East Hartford and new Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, set the tone for the next two years, encouraging collaboration across party lines and the need to cooperate in a pandemic that Ritter hopes can be overcome by the Memorial Day weekend at the end of May. Although it is close to the June 9 adjournment date and lawmakers traditionally work during that late-session weekend, Ritter promised House members a four-day holiday weekend.
“We need to bring stability back to the economy,” said Candelora, who will lead the 54member House minority, while Ritter and Rojas’s caucus holds a commanding 97 seats. Democrats hold a 24-12 margin in the Senate, pending a special election for the vacancy left by the departure of Sen. Carlo Leone for a job in the Lamont administration.
Three dozen chairs were set up on the sunny south side of the Capitol for senators. Few demonstrators were on that side of the Capitol until those massed on the north side realized both chambers were not accepting their oaths at the same time, and midway through the Senate event, hundreds walked around the perimeter of metal barriers from the north side to the south.
Then, a half hour later, the incoming House members walked to the area in front of the north steps, and the demonstrators returned.
Karen Zoccoli of Cromwell and her sister-in-law Maria Buchta of Trumbull, said they were trying to make a statement on the need for school kids to be able to attend public school without mandatory vaccinations, a new law that lawmakers had proposed last year before the March shutdown of the legislative session that would end the so-called religious exemption.
“The law states that it’s not just your organized religion, it’s your creed, whatever your belief is” said Buchta, who has two children at Trumbull High School. “I believe that God gave me my body and I have the right to keep it healthy in the way I deem.”
In a statement after Lamont’s address, Ritter said the governor has proven his skill in crisis management. “Gov. Lamont talked about some very important issues today — economic opportunity, racism, helping local businesses, health care and many more,” Ritter said.
Duff and Looney, in a statement on the governor’s speech, said they looked forward to another two years working with Lamont. “The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone in our state, caused untold loss, and fundamentally changed daily life,” they said. “The 2021 legislative session will be like no other and our focus will be to protect the public’s health and help people recover economically, physically, and mentally.”
Candelora, during a news conference in the Capitol’s west atrium after Lamont’s speech, criticized the governor for promoting cannabis and sports wagering at a time when state families are still suffering in the pandemic.
“We all share in the governor’s message of trying to get out of this COVID and see a recovery for the state of Connecticut,” he said. “I don’t see how legalizing marijuana or sports betting helps people that are suffering from COVID, so while I think some of those issues will be taken up this session, I want to hear more about how we are going to get children back into schools,” he said.