COVID is 2021 theme in General Assembly

The coronavirus pandemic, which abruptly canceled the 2020 session of the General Assembly, will continue to cast a shadow over the legislature’s new Zoom era. And this year, dozens of bills have been filed to shape Connecticut’s reaction to the crisis.

The new measures range from economic aid to public health initiatives to the future of mail-in voting and the extension of the governor’s emergency powers, which expire on Feb. 9. It’s all happening as lawmakers and citizens try to manage public discourse from homes and offices far from the State Capitol complex in Hartford.

“There’s a litany of recommendations,” said state Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, co-chairman of the legislative Public Health Committee, stressing long-term care facilities, infection control and telemedicine as areas where the panel hopes to build consensus in the coming weeks. “As the committee of cognizance, we’re very COVID-focused.”

‘Public option’ health insurance

For Speaker of the House Matt Ritter, better insurance coverage for small businesses and non-profit agencies is going to be a major goal during the budget-making session, which ends at midnight on June 9. “We need to figure out a way to bring down the cost of health care in Connecticut,” Ritter said in a Friday interview.

While President Joe Biden has set public-health goals centered on mass vaccinations, Ritter isn’t sure the new administration in Washington will have much leeway, with only a nominal Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. Still, Ritter hopes for additional federal support for Access Health CT, the state’s exchange under the Affordable Care Act, which recently enrolled about 105,000 residents for coverage in 2021.

“If we can come up with some options for small business, it could be a success for us,” Ritter said.

He recently participated in a news conference led by Comptroller Kevin Lembo in support of a so-called public option for residents to join the state’s employee health plans. But Gov. Ned Lamont is skeptical of the potential cost to the state, putting into doubt legislation for 2021 — two years after a similar bill died under pressure to kill it by the insurance industry.

Relief for workers

State Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven and Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury, the co-chairwomen of the Labor and Public Employees Committee, support a variety of measures, including the reimbursement of expenses for first responders and frontline workers.

“We are still having to endure this pandemic,” Porter said last week during a committee meeting. “We are definitely going to make sure that the workers of the state get the relief that they deserve and that we get our small businesses back up and running, we get work back in the state and that we get our revenues flowing.”

“We know that working families in Connecticut are struggling with the effects of the pandemic and the terrible impact that has had on the economy, on jobs and - in every way - in workers’ lives,” Kushner said. “We want to get it right. We know that there are many things that got held up because of COVID last year.”

The 2020 legislature was suspended on March 12, but lawmakers returned twice in special sessions, passing 13 bills including no-excuse mail-in voting for the 2020 elections and a broad police accountability reform law.

“As we know, COVID brings a super dimension to it for us,” said Rep. Harry Arora, R-Greenwich, a labor committee member. “We need to discuss and work on what is viable and fundable, and also delivers the benefits as it’s supposed to.”

Election reforms

Picking up on the enormous public response to mail-in balloting, the Government Administration and Elections Committee, led by Rep. Dan Fox, D-Stamford and Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Killingly, is planning public hearings on a resolution for amendments to the state Constitution on both early voting and noexcuse absentee voting. The measures could go before voters in 2024 or perhaps as soon as 2022 if both the House and Senate pass them with 75 percent super-majorities.

The early-voting bill passed the 2019 General Assembly and needs only a simple majority this year to get the question on the 2022 statewide ballot. But the no-excuse absentee voting measure must receive a super-majority to get on the 2022 ballot and lawmakers may combine the two measures, which would make a 2022 ballot question less likely.

Democrats have a 97-54 majority in the House and a 24-12 margin in the Senate.

“I think this session is a new reality for all of us,” Fox said in response to criticism from conservative GOP lawmakers including Rep. Craig Fishbein of Middletown and ranking committee members Sen. Rob Sampson and Rep. Gale Mastrofrancesco, both of Wolcott.

“This particular language is extremely vague,” Sampson said, calling for a rewritten version. “It basically says that early voting has no limitations. It means that early voting could begin the day after the completion of the previous election.”

The committee approved the calls for hearings, which were introduced by the secretary of the state, the attorney general and the Office of State Ethics; Fishbein, Sampson and Mastrofrancesco voted against holding hearings.

Executive powers at issue

Legislative hearings by the General Assembly’s 26 committees will be open to the public to speak via Zoom, over the phone or through written testimony. Most hearings will be available to view on CT-N or YouTube.

On Friday, the Office of Legislative Management, which runs the 14-acre complex, announced someone who worked on the campus on Jan. 15 had contracted the virus, bringing another dose of pandemic reality to the business of the legislature, even as committees were continuing business remotely. In previous weeks, staff members in the offices of Lamont and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz have contracted the virus, resulting in quarantines for both the state’s top executives.

Lamont’s Chief of Staff Paul Mounds said last week that “informal conversations” have been taking place with leaders of the House and Senate over possible extensions of his emergency powers for at least several more months. “We haven’t had any official conversations with the legislature,” Mounds said, during a news conference last week.

In September, legislative leaders extended Lamont’s powers until February.

“What you don’t want is for all your executive orders just stop on Feb. 9,” Lamont said. “That’s not very good. Whether we extend the orders for two months or four months, you know, Paul and the leadership can figure that out. And in the meantime, you know, the legislature is back in session.”

Lamont then advised legislators to tell him if there are orders they don’t like.

“Or if you want to, cast a vote in the legislature to open the bars or whatever your priority might be, because you have a chance to exercise that privilege if you want to.”