The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Lamont threatens veto of striking worker fund bill
‘It’s so damn vague that I don’t really know what’s in it.’
HARTFORD — Hours after Democrats celebrated a late-evening vote to create a $3 million fund for striking workers, Gov. Ned Lamont on Thursday said he opposes the bill and is likely to veto it.
It was an anti-climax after a night of drama in which threats of a Republican filibuster in the Senate on the controversial labor bill were overshadowed by the possibility of a historic Democrat rejection of the tradition of “unlimited debate.” The bill, widely seen as an unemployment insurance for striking workers, won approval minutes before the General Assembly’s 12:01 a.m. Thursday deadline.
But by Thursday morning, Lamont said he opposes it.
“I don’t support it,” Lamont told reporters in his Capitol office. “I just think it was too cute by half. If you want to have public dollars to support striking workers, have a vote, up or down. Let’s just say I’m very skeptical.” When asked directly if he would veto it, the governor reiterated “I’m not going to support it. It’s so damn vague that I don’t really know what’s in it. If you want to do this, have a real vote next year so people know what they’re voting on. Not at 11:45.”
Lamont called himself as “one of the six prounion guys” in his hometown of Greenwich, and stressed that with the decline of organized labor over the last 30 years, the middle class “has been hollowed-out.” While selfdescribed as pro-union, Lamont said he doesn’t think taxpayer money should be used to subsidize striking workers.
The legislation was the final item in the state Senate, passing along party lines, 23-12 with one absent, at about 11:50 p.m. Wednesday after a quick 45-minute debate. If Republicans had continued talking, the bill would have died at the witching hour, but a deal was struck earlier between
Senate leaders.
It was a victory for labor and leading Democrats including Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney of New Haven and Sen. Julie Kushner of Danbury, the co-chairwoman of the legislative Labor & Public Employees Committee.
“Clearly, low-income working people would include, potentially, striking workers,” Looney said summing up the relatively brief debate that led to the last Senate vote of the 2024 legislative session. “That is certainly a possible use of part of the fund. And I think that would be entirely appropriate if that were in fact the use, because those workers, we know, struggle. No one undertakes a strike likely. It is good, it is humane, it is something that recognizes that workers who are undertaking a strike because negotiations have failed, often because stonewalling has occurred by employers, this now provides at least some partial safety net in those circumstances.”
Looney noted that a related bill, specifically targeting striking workers, was sidelined in favor of the bill that emerged during
during the later days of the 13-week legislative session. Multi-hour Republican filibuster killed a variety of bills in recent days, when Democratic leaders withdrew bills such as a proposal to give more power to state librarians in the purchase of e-books and audio books; and a bill on banning Chinese and Russian drones, both of which died in the middle of discussions on the House floor.
Earlier in the day, the threat of a long debate in the Senate resulted in the preemptive death of a House bill on climate change, setting the scene for a possible “call the question” if Republican opposed the workers’ bill to the point where the session would end without its passage.
But Looney, during a cryptic afternoon interview outside the Senate, said that the workers fund was a major priority for his caucus, which has a 24-12 majority. So advocates, lobbyists and observers were kept in suspense, especially during a multi-hour Senate debate on the funding of capital projects, when on Tuesday night, the same bill
passed in 45 minutes in the House. There is a long, unwritten tradition in the legislature of allowing debate and discussion of legislation to take as long as lawmakers want.
During the waning days of the legislature, time becomes a weapon for minority lawmakers. Longtime Capitol observers could remember only isolated instances of lawmakers forcing a vote, briefly, before leaders persuaded them to withdraw their motions. So for most of the day, the chance that Looney and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff would use the “nuclear option,” escalated in drama as bills came to votes, including a 44-item list of bills that were unanimously approved behind closed doors and were voted on by mutual consent of Republicans and Democrats without even announcing the names of the acts.
In the end, Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, said that the decision to back down was the result of negotiations with Democrats that took place throughout the day, ensuring that other items such as housing and climate bills never made it to
the floor.
“It was the right decision, in that good bills that were passed and ultimately a lot of bad bills that were killed,” Harding said. “In addition to that, there was always that threat of calling the question, I think once you set that precedent, it’s a very dangerous precedent for the state Senate and the state government as a whole. That was certainly offered as a potential option that they may use.”
Within minutes of the bill’s passage, it was hailed by state labor leaders, although during a question session between Kushner and Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, who claimed that Republicans were ambushed by the bill, Kushner, a former regional union leader, continued to say the fund would only benefit “low income workers” and it would be up to Comptroller Sean Scanlon to decide on the fund’s use. Scanlon did not return a late-Wednesday request for comment.
“This bill is intended for who it says it’s intended for and that is to assist low-income workers,” Kushner said in several different ways during a back-and-forth with Sampson. But within an hour of the bill’s passage, Senate Democrats issued a statement from Kushner saying that the new $3 million “Connecticut Families and Workers Account” for low-income workers could also be used by striking union workers.
“We’re not in the business of awarding millions and millions of dollars to various elected officials in the state with basically no instructions on how to spend that money,” Sampson said. “And I suspect that no matter how the comptroller would disperse this money, there is a very good chance that it will end up being disputed by someone. If it is used for striking workers, I think the employer might have a case that the state of Connecticut is interfering in a labor dispute.”
After the governor’s announcement, Scanlon, whose job includes administrating state employee benefits, said he has to wait for Lamont’s final decision on the legislation in coming weeks. “He made it clear that he doesn’t like the bill and thinks the legislature should do it next year. We’ll await the final action.” Scanlon said he understood that the intention of the bill was to potentially provide gap income for striking workers. “I think that was clearly the intent but I think the limited legislative intent plus the language is something is that we are trying to interpret right now pending the governor’s final decision.”
Meanwhile, around the time of Lamont’s remarks to reporters, Harding and Sen. Eric Berthel of Watertown, a ranking Republican member of the budget-writing Appropriations Committee, were optimistic a veto is coming.
“We appreciate that the governor took Senate Republicans’ advice and is preparing his veto pen,” Harding and Berthel said in a statement. “The governor recognizes the absolute absurdity of the brazen bill that all of his fellow Democrats voted for. To be clear: Legislative Democrats signed off on a bill that was cloaked in ambiguity and non-specifics. They voted yes to create a slush fund for the state comptroller. Democrats voted yes on a bill based on trickery which made a mockery of the legislative process.”