Lamont: No more trashing Conn.

HARTFORD — Gov. Ned Lamont has been called a lot of things in his first year in office. Negative has never been one of them.

His effort to re-brand Connecticut and usher in a new era of positive self-talk for the state he loves started well before his election. And despite a year of policy miscues and disputes including his inability to prod a vote on tolls in the General Assembly, his upbeat march continued Wednesday in a 43-minute, 3,700-word State of the State speech that highlighted the work of the legislature as well as his cabinet and drew more than one bipartisan standing ovation.

“I want to tackle one more thing head on,” Lamont said as he headed into the home stretch of his speech, which was already brimming with his signature infectious hopefulness.

“No more badmouthing the great state of Connecticut.”

The house chamber erupted into the loudest and longest applause of the afternoon, bringing members of both parties to their feet, as he continued to speak over them before drawing on the energy to shout thrice into the microphone, “Optimism is contagious!”

The quote was later shared to his Twitter account with a photo of himself dancing in a tie-dyed T-shirt at the Woodstock Festival tribute concert he personally

funded over the summer. No doubt one of his favorite things about the state from the past year.

“Governor Malloy’s last speech and this one were the two best speeches I’ve ever heard during my time in politics,” said House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford.

Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz, one of the first to leap to his feet as Lamont launched into his final words of encouragement, said he loved the governor’s direction to be the “champions of Connecticut.”

“Three years ago, credit rating agencies downgraded our state with headlines like the Wall Street Journal that asked ‘What’s the matter with Connecticut?’” Lamont said. “Today, the Wall Street Journal has changed its tone. “The state has dug a deep hole — maybe it has now stopped digging. Rating agencies and investors have upgraded their outlook for Connecticut for the first time in 18 years, from neutral to positive – saving the state and its taxpayers tens of millions in borrowing costs. Economic growth picked up last year. That means businesses and young families are now giving Connecticut a second look. They’re talking about Connecticut—and we’re responding.”

Optimism, in politics, is never without controversy.

Though she joined her colleagues in the standing ovation — and smiled when the governor opened his speech by publicly congratulating her recent engagement — House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, who has gone toe-to-toe with the governor over disparaging comments in the past, said she felt her party was targeted by the line.

“That point of ‘stop beating up on Connecticut,’ that was clearly directed at us because he thinks we’re negative,” Klarides said, following the speech.

“If we weren’t positive about Connecticut we wouldn’t run for office. We run because we love our districts and we love our state, but this notion that you can never say anything besides this flowery, positive thing or you’re negative on the state, it’s not true,” she said. “I don’t think Connecticut has an optimism problem. I think Connecticut has problems. And if you talk about them, that doesn’t make you negative, that just makes you honest.”

That became a theme of the day — the fine line between optimism and quelling opposing statements.

“Not only does he have rose colored glasses on, he doesn’t want anybody to be critical of the bad policies that they put forward,” said Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, who sat next to Klarides in the House chamber during the governor’s speech.

“That’s like telling a patient to go see a doctor and say, ‘But don’t tell them what hurts.’ It just doesn’t work. We’re legislators. We’re supposed to point out things that are not going in the right direction.”

Lamont has certainly asked legislators to disagree respectfully. As recently as September, the governor said he still had work to do on changing the tone under the gold dome to one of civil discourse after Klarides, in remarks at the annual Republican fundraising dinner in Stamford, called him incompetent.

“I never try and personalize these things,” Lamont told reporters at the time. “We can disagree on policy, but we disagree respectfully.”

Lamont called for people to focus on the state’s better qualities and some recent accomplishments — signs of economic growth, stoplights that turn green when they’re supposed to, shorter lines at the motor vehicles office, a bipartisan compromise with the

“For a while in Connecticut, it wasn’t just Democrats and Republicans who were not talking to each other, it was state government that was not connecting with business leaders, labor leaders, educators and the hospitals — we had a failure to communicate.”

Gov. Ned Lamont

state’s hospitals, and mostly, a progressive spirit of inclusion. Without that last one, he said, other gains have less meaning.

He also called on lawmakers and businesses to communicate better, not just with the public, but with each other.

“For a while in Connecticut, it wasn’t just Democrats and Republicans who were not talking to each other, it was state government that was not connecting with business leaders, labor leaders, educators and the hospitals — we had a failure to communicate,” he said.

If he was calling for less debate over policies, he never said it explicitly.

“We have a way to go, but we are making significant progress on your behalf every day,” he told the lawmakers.

The heart of the debate is how that progress is coming along. Job creation and overall economic growth, for example, is positive but at less than one-half of 1 percent per year, it’s among the lower-tier states. Connecticut has failed to move forward on longterm transportation funding, gambling expansion including sports and online wagering and other topics but has led states in reducing violent crime and advancing energy policy.

Lamont’s lines about record purchases of wind power received a standing ovation including Republicans, as did his line about the state pushing corporations to reach full gender parity in their top ranks.

Everyone agrees that what matters is life for typical residents.

“It’s not important how he thinks the state is doing, it’s how the 3.5 million people who live here think it’s doing,” she said. “And I don’t think those two things align. That’s not to say we don’t need optimism. We clearly do.”

Democrats also acknowledged optimism must be met and earned through positive policy actions.

“This governor has always been aspirational and that’s what his speech reflected today,” said Brendan Sharkey, a former Democratic speaker of the House, a lawyer and lobbyist, listened from the dais, an opportunity only afforded those who previously held the top seat in the House.

“An aspiration has to be met with action. That’s the big challenge for the governor in his second year. To make sure the aspiration actually matches the action.”

Lamont concluded his speech by referring to Connecticut as a family. The implication, of course, is that families often disagree, but at the end of the day, they call the same place home.

“As your governor for a little over a year, I celebrate so much good in our state which can serve as a shining example,” Lamont said. “We are proud that you call Connecticut home and every day we will work to earn your faith in our great state. We are just getting started and we are much better off when we work together.”