New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
State Senate declares racism a ‘public health crisis’ in CT
HARTFORD — A year after the Black Lives Matter movement changed the national conversation on racial equity, and disparities in health, money and justice, the state Senate on Tuesday approved legislation that would declare racism a public health crisis.
The bill passed 30-5 after a more than 31⁄2hour debate and next heads to the state House of Representatives. Two Republican amendments were rejected, mostly along party lines, before most of the 12-member GOP caucus went along with Democrats.
If signed into law, the legislation would include a new gun violence intervention and prevention commission, with the goal of reducing shootings that in recent weeks have led to dozens of deaths among young people. Cities, counties and states throughout the national have also passed similar laws declaring the public health crisis,
including Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada.
Republican objections, led by Sen. Tony Hwang, of Fairfield, and Sen. Heather Somers, of Groton, included procedural complaints charging that majority Democrats avoided the traditional public hearing process for several sections of the legislation.
“This is a crisis and it is important but it does not come up to the magnitude of legislative fiat, or giving some power beyond the legislative processes we do deem an emergency,” said Hwang, who spent a half-hour criticizing the legislation, but voted for it.
Bias training, reducing maternity mortality and gun violence and understanding the COVID-19 response are among the chief goals, with better reporting on racial bias and health outcomes, said Sen. Mary Daugherty Abrams, D-Meriden, cochairwoman of the legislative Public Health Committee.
Daugherty Abrams recaled that last year, on June 19 — the Juneteenth holiday commemorating the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — Democrats stood outside the State Capitol and pledged to make Connecticut more equitable. The legislation would establish a commission on equality.
“Throughout the past year, as we’ve met the challenges of the pandemic, we’ve identified areas in physical, mental and behavioral health that need to be addressed,” Daugherty Abrams said.
“I think this is an amazing bill,” said Sen. Saud Awar, DSouth Windsor, a physician. “If you do not diagnose a problem, you cannot solve a problem. This bill does a lot of good for our communities; for our state; for our people.” He noted that Black children are 5.5 times more likely to suffer from asthma than white kids, and Latinx children are 4.5 times more susceptible than whites.
“In the health care systems we are managing or taking care of diseases after they have occurred. This bill for minority communities, for the racial impacted communities is addressing and beginning to identify a framework to start to look at what needs to be done,” Anwar said.
“This is the kind of legislation that creates good health policy,” said Sen. Marilyn Moore, DBridgeport. “This past year illuminated the inequities within our health systems. Perhaps they existed because they were acceptable practices. The COVID-19 was the equalizer and when we address these inequities, we make the system better for all.”
She said the gun-violence and prevention commission would be particularly important at a moment when shootings have spiked. “It is not about gun safety. It is not about taking guns away. It is about dealing with this problem in urban centers that is growing and growing into many cities,” Moore said, noting the shootout at a Bridgeport baseball field over the weekend.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, noted that the bill, which was designated as S.B. 1 this year, was the Democratic caucus’s most important goal for this legislative session. “Giving respect gives us respect,” Duff said. “We need to bring attention to racism. We need to be sure we are talking about racism in our communities and our state, and we’re not hiding from that fact. A lot of the solutions come from the bottom up and not the top down.”
“Why is it in cities that our educational systems are failing our students?” said Senate Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, RStratford, stressing the need to create jobs to give families more money so they can afford better housing. “We have a very poor economy, and that is a fact. America is a bold experiment that recognizes that every person was created equal.”
“Why are we seeing so much gun violence in our cities,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven. “Why are these young people so despairing? Why is human life so cheap in those communities?” He noted the recent shooting death of a three-year-old in Hartford.
“Despite having some of the best gun-control laws in the country after the gun violence prevention act we passed in 2013, there are still far too many guns in our streets,” Looney said, stressing that many of the underlying issues would become the focus of examination if the legislation becomes law.
Those lawmakers who voted against the bill included conservatives Sen. Eric Berthel, R-Watertown; Sen. John Kissel, REnfield, Sen. Dan Champagne, R-Vernon, Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott and Sen. Paul Cicarella, R-North Haven.
Champagne supported failed GOP amendments that would have provided more oversight into the deaths in state nursinghome facilities.
“I think an independent review is something that needs to happen,” Champagne said. “We need solid facts. Whoever gave that word out to put sick people into our nursing homes, we need to evaluate that so that it never happens again. And the only way to do that is with an independent investigation. And the only reason I can think that somebody wouldn’t want that is because they want a certain outcome.”