Facts and falsehoods about state legislators drinking

We’ve seen a wave of events around drinking in and around the state Capitol lately and much of it has created false impressions.

There is not a culture of heavy imbibing under the gold dome as there was in the past. Events featuring wine, beer and whiskey, such as the St. Patrick’s Day Irish coffee reception that took place last week at the Officers Club in the state Armory, don’t prove otherwise.

In the Capitol itself and the adjacent Legislative Office Building, the flow of adult beverages isn’t banned outright but has slowed to barely a trickle at public events, the result of both tighter rules and reformed habits. That’s in contrast to the old days when liquid lubricant magically appeared whenever more than two lawmakers gathered, sometim es in a fourth floor Capitol haunt dubbed the Hawaiian Room.

The near-tragic crash of a car by a legislator on the night of March 16 — she suffered a concussion, but thankfully, neither she nor anyone else was injured otherwise — wrongly dredged up those images for some people. It did involve alcohol but it appears to signify both of these points — the spreading of false information and the absence of a culture of heavy drinking. The facts and the finger-pointing don’t line up.

After a long day of hearings on that Thursday, Rep. Robin Comey, D-Branford, and three House Democrat colleagues met for a drink at a nearby bar. All four, elected in 2018, still mourned the death of their friend and fellow 2018-er, Rep. Quentin Williams, of Middletown, in a wrongway car crash after the Jan. 4 inauguration. They had not had a chance to catch up since Q’s funeral.

Shortly after 7 p.m., after leaving the bar, Comey crashed her Honda Civic on Capitol Avenue a few feet from the establishment. It flipped upside-down. She failed a sobriety test and was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence with a blood alcohol level of 0.145, a police report shows — nearly twice the legal limit of 0.08.

Comey took responsibility for her actions, apologizing and announcing in a release that she would seek treatment. House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, suspended her from committees.

Comey expects to recover fully from the concussion, her lawyer, Charles Tiernan III, told me. She has begun treatment, is doing well and hopes to be back at the Capitol long before the June 7 end of the session, Tiernan said.

The apparently false information concerns the other three legislators, Reps. Anne Hughes, of Easton; Lucy Dathan, of New Canaan, and Kerry Wood, of Rocky Hill. In conversations with other state officials that I have heard first-hand, and in a blog that political insiders read, they stand accused of allowing their inebriated friend to take the wheel.

“Especially puzzling is how Comey’s three colleagues could have been in the company of Comey and not have noticed or acted upon her intoxicated state,” the well sourced but underinformed blogger wrote earlier this week, after which the blogger righteously criticized Hughes for co-hosting a “Pints & Policy” event in a Newtown bar Tuesday night.

No sign of inebriation

My understanding from sources is this: Hughes, Dathan and Wood all reported to House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, that there was no sign of intoxication by Comey in the time they were together — starting between 5:15 and 5:30. They each had one drink in each others’ company, either wine or a cocktail; Comey ordered a second drink and did not finish it in the company of her friends.

How is this possible? Lots of ways, including this: Comey’s crash happened about a half-hour after the last of the three colleagues, Dathan, departed, according to multiple sources. Hughes was the first to leave, not long after 6 p.m.; Wood left sometime between Hughes and Dathan.

I don’t know what happened in that half-hour and that’s the point. Four lawmakers gathering for an after-work drink at a bar, followed the next day by a once-a-year St. Patty’s reception, peppered by occasional reports of drinking at the Capitol including on the roof of the parking garage amid COVID two years ago, do not add up to a pandemic of alcohol use, or abuse, in the General Assembly.

And yet, that’s the chatter we’re hearing and it might be a conclusion a reader would reach based on the news reports.

Full disclosure here, I was a panelist in Hearst CT’s “Politics and Pints” discussion series in 2018 and 2019 at local bars, though I’m not much of a drinker.

“Do I think there is a systemic problem? No I don’t,” Ritter said. “We’re like any other workplace, with staff and legislators all together.”

That said, Ritter and other leaders at the Capitol have brought some tightening of the rules, largely since the return from the pandemic in 2022. Near the end of the 2021 session, in which lawmakers listened to debates and voted remotely, Ritter admonished some for drinking in the parking garage while awaiting votes. That was viewed as a pandemic phenomenon.

“We have eliminated a lot of the more egregious, inyour-face behavior,” Ritter told me, a statement that rings true in m yti me in the buildings. “If there’s an alcohol request it has to be signed off on.”

A changed culture

I’m not naïve and neither is Ritter. From tim etoti me we see a legislator with a drinking problem, perhaps addiction, as happens in most any workplace or family or group of friends. That is very serious, not to be taken lightly.

“The culture of the institution is that there is not a casual acceptance of excessive drinking,” Senate President Pro-Tem Martin Looney, D-New Haven, told me. “There’s also a recognition now, more so than there was before, that alcoholism is a treatable disease.”

And legislators offer support to each other in that struggle, as is happening now for Comey — by all accounts a conscientious and effective lawmaker especially on matters of early childhood and other social issues, who is well in touch with her shoreline district.

Looney, tied with Rep. Mary Mushinsky, D-Wallingford, as the longest serving legislator with 42 years in office, recalls that the fabled Hawaiian Room was already not serving drinks by the time he arrived. Hooch was no rarity out in the open, certainly on special occasions but that, too, has faded — in part due to fewer fundraisers as a result of campaign finance reform.

I’m in the camp that believes lawmaking was better when the combatants dropped their battles to raise a toast and break bread. In fact, it’s a triumph that Hughes, perhaps the furthest left-wing House member, was out for drinks with notably moderate Democrats. They are friends who disagree on some issues.

Rep. Vin Candelora, RNorth Branford, the House GOP leader and conscience of the Capitol when it comes to drugs and excessive alcohol use, remains concerned.

“While I think fewer people are drinking than were drinking in the past, I am concerned about the ones that are drinking,” said Candelora, who believes there should be no alcohol, period, at public events in the Capitol or Legislative Office Building during business hours. “We need to be setting a better example… We have a higher responsibility.”

Amid all this, two related bills are under consideration this session. One would lower the allowable threshold of blood alcohol to 0.05 for drivers; the other, a perennial proposal, would ban open alcohol containers in cars. Neither is likely to win adoption.

Candelora, a staunch opponent of legalized cannabis, said, “Collectively as a society we’ve become more casual… driving faster, weaving in and out of traffic, drinking and driving home….and in Connecticut we don’t have the police force that we’ve had in the past.”

Capitol rules don’t apply, of course, outside the complex. “I can’t stop what happens at restaurants and bars,” Ritter said. “I’m the speaker, I’m not the father of the caucus.”