Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Attorney General George Jepsen having investigated a charge made to his office by SEBAC, a coalition of unions the membership of which soon will be voting either to adopt or reject Plan A 2, that the Yankee Institute had used state the state’s e-mail system to communicate with union workers, the attorney general found that the charges against the institute were false . The comprehensive investigation by two state agencies, the attorney general’s office and the state Auditors of Public Account, Mr. Jepsen wrote in his finding, “did not show that the state e-mail system was improperly accessed or compromised in violation of state laws or policies.” “As part of our inquiry,” Mr. Jepsen wrote, “we reviewed the e-mails sent to state employees and provided by SEBAC. The first e-mail, containing the subject line 'VOTE No twice on concessions… pass it on' was sent on May 24, 2011 at 8:07 pm from 'Lawrence Jones' to a state employee. The second e-mail, containing the subject l...

  The State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition ( SEBAC ), the negotiating arm of public employee unions in Connecticut, apparently has bruised Governor Ned Lamont's finer sensibilities. A report from CTMirror quotes the governor on Dan Livingston’s refusal to adjust the terms of a contract hammered out in  2017 by former Governor Dan Malloy and SEBAC. The bargaining coalition “has rejected his [Lamont’s] call for workers to forgo raises owed them at month’s end and help the state cope with financial pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. “’I would have put it off, and I think we should put it off,’ Lamont said of the raises. ‘I think we’re in an economy where you’ve got close to 20% unemployment. I think you’re in an economy where you see a lot of people on furlough.’” The governor is referring to the results of his executive orders issued during the Coronavirus shutdowns. Apparently there has been some sort of communication between the governor and SEBAC’s le...

Attorney General George Jepsen’s statement concerning a complaint filed with his office claiming falsely that the Yankee Institute obtained improper access to the state e-mail system to disseminate false information related to the tentative SEBAC agreement is here printed in full: STATEMENT BY ATTORNEY GENERAL GEORGE JEPSEN REGARDING SEBAC COMPLAINT ABOUT E MAILS By letter dated June 17, 2011, representatives of the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) requested that my office investigate possible violations of state law by the Yankee Institute. The letter alleged that the Yankee Institute obtained improper access to the state e-mail system to disseminate false information related to the tentative SEBAC agreement. We have now, in conjunction with the Auditors of Public Accounts, concluded our inquiry of this matter. We have found no evidence that the state e-mail system was improperly accessed or hacked. As part of the inquiry, we met twice with representatives...

Lamont and unions The deal between Governor Ned Lamont and SEBAC, a union consortium representing state workers, is a tentative one, CTMirror’s tells us: “ CT state workers to get $3,500 in bonuses under tentative deal with Lamont: Deal must be ratified by unions and legislature .” The ratification of deals arranged by Democrat Connecticut governors and SEBAC have not in the past been strenuously contested by the General Assembly’s dominant Democrat Party. Surrenders on the part of Connecticut Democrats to public employee unions have been commonplace for a number of reasons, many of them political. It is not politically profitable for state Democrats to resist union demands. The state Democrat Party relies on union workers during campaign seasons for “boots on the ground support” and money contributions. So called “negotiations” between the two parties during the tenure of former Governor Dannel Malloy have tended to be Kabuki theatre performances in the course of which a Democra...

When Governor Dannel Malloy first came into office in 2011, there were boisterous rejoicings all around. Finally, after two Republican governors and an odd fish, Lowell Weicker, who won the governorship on his own party line, Democrats had a Governor they could call their own. On entering office, Mr. Malloy raised taxes, as had the odd fish before him. Mr. Weicker sired Connecticut’s income tax, after which most editorial pages in the state crowed their hearty approval. Taxes are good, and one can never have too much of a good thing. Whenever a budget deficit appeared on the horizon, Democrats raised their old tattered rhetorical flag: Connecticut does not have a spending problem; it has a revenue problem, the obvious solution to which was and is – tax increases. The Malloy tax boost was the largest in state history. During his second term in office, Mr. Malloy, in concert with dominant Democrats in the General Assembly, repeated his performance. By that time, state union advances...

In a message to all its rank and file members, SEBAC, the coalition of union leaders authorized to dicker with the Malloy administration on contractual matters, reported: “At the request of State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) union leaders, the Malloy Administration has moved to address conflicting information disseminated to some workers who recently received notice of layoff.” Some members, according to the notice, have received inaccurate information spread – not by the Yankee Institute, which SEBAC reported to the attorney general’s office for having compromised it’s e-mail system – but “by news media sources and by some agency managers.” Attorney General George Jepsen a few days ago released a report finding that the SEBAC complaint was without merit . “The directive was necessary,” SEBAC reported on its propaganda site , “because not only have some state managers disseminated inaccuracies about rescinding layoffs, many in the news media have reported myths and d...

Orwell In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act – George Orwell The state of Connecticut – read: Governor Ned Lamont, a multi-millionaire Democrat, and the state General Assembly, controlled for the past half century by a Democrat majority – have concluded a “deal” with Connecticut’s State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC), a consortium of public employee unions. “The Senate gave final approval Friday to a four-year package of raises for state employees that includes $3,500 in bonuses to help stem a surge in worker retirements,” CTMirror reported as a sodden April was giving way to May flowers. “The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 22-13 along party lines to approve the contracts, which cover about 46,000 workers — the bulk of the state’s workforce.” Speaking for Democrats in the General Assembly, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee Sen. Cathy Osten of Sprague said, intending no irony, “Today we’re living in a post-COVID...

The SEBAC-Malloy-Aresimowicz agreement passed in the state House, moved to the State Senate and was affirmed there on a party line vote, Republicans opposing the backroom deal in both chambers of the General Assembly. Hours before the Senate vote, leading Democrats, who have not  yet  submitted a budget, warned opposition party members that the earth would tumble into the sun if the SEBAC “concession” deal did not pass.

The unilateral changes in by-laws  It may be noted that what has been done unilaterally by the union leadership may be undone unilaterally by a different leadership. Despite a desperate attempt by SEBAC negotiators Dan Livingston and Matt O’Connor to pin on such convenient scapegoats as the Yankee Institute   their dramatic failure to sell plan A to union rank and file members, some unions, dissatisfied with SEBAC representation, are now shopping around for other unions with which they might affiliate. In mid-June SEBAC leaders charged the Yankee Institute had improperly used the state’s e-mail system to communicate with union members and referred their dark suspicions to Attorney General George Jepsen, Connecticut’s version, under the state’s previous Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, of poet Francis Thompson’s “ The Hound Of Heaven .” SEBAC leaders, working in tandem with Plan A salesmen in the administration of Governor Dannel Malloy, unilaterally changed union by-...

Even before the votes are cast by state union members on Governor Malloy’s slightly vevised Plan A, Lisa Herskowitz, a senior assistant state's attorney in Manchester, has issued a complait to the state Board of Labor Relations questioning the proposed agreemment, according to a story in the Connecticut Post : “Herskowitz in her complaint to the labor board alleges SEBAC violated its own bylaws by agreeing to a two-year wage freeze, arguing the coalition's negotiating authority is limited to pensions and health care. “She further argues SEBAC should not have reopened the existing pension and health-care agreement, which expires in 2017, without allowing union members to first vote to authorize SEBAC to renegotiate the deal. Rank-and-file approval should also have been sought in early July when SEBAC approached Malloy about reopening talks, Herskowitz said.” The board has agreed to address the matter on August 3.

Democratic governors, Jim O'Sullivan of National Journal writes, “argue that their approach is easier for their constituents, as both taxpayers and consumers of government services, to stomach,” largely because they are simpatico with unions. “In most cases, with cozier relationships with unions, they’ve approached the labor contract legislation as a collective-bargaining exercise, bringing union leaders into the process.” Governor Malloy figures prominently in the National Journal story. Mr. Malloy, “repulsed” by budget cutting tactics in Wisconsin and New Jersey, has charged other governors with “scorched-earth, unilateral governing,” according to the National Journal. The news story does not mention Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo as one of the scorchers, and one assumes Mr. Malloy has not identified him as such, although the New York governor managed to put his budget to bed without raising taxes, for reasons of Democratic comity.

Quite suddenly, the enabler for the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) in Connecticut’s General Assembly, Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz, has contracted a wicked case of ants in his pants. The state legislature closed for official business on June 7, nearly two months ago. But Aresimowicz, the gatekeeper in the House without whose approval no bill may reach the floor of the General Assembly, dawdled delinquently and brought no budget to the floor. In truth, the Democratic leader in the House had no budget bill in hand to present to the legislature – none. Aresimowicz was waiting for state employee rank and file union members to vote on a closed door deal being shaped by Governor Dannel Malloy and union chiefs.

According to a Hartford business reporter , the deal struck between Governor Dannel Malloy and SEBAC, state employee union representatives, is “solid” and “good for taxpayers.” According to Red Jahncke , President of The Townsend Group, a business consulting firm in Connecticut, the deal is more of the same. And the same road has led Connecticut into a dead end. Following the usual route to budget reconciliation and economic prosperity for Connecticut, the Malloy administration has plunged the state into continuing budget deficits and entrepreneurial flight, which has reduced state revenues despite two massive tax increases, giving new meaning to the expression “more is less.”

Kevin Rennie, a political columnist who writes for the Hartford Courant, very likely can expect a sling or an arrow to be coming his way sometime soon. Malloyalites do not react with equanimity to sharp criticism , and in a recent column Mr. Rennie notes that Mr. Malloy, short on cash he needs to plug a reappearing budget deficit, is “squeezing the Mohegans,” owners of one of Connecticut’s two Indian casinos, “for political contributions at the same time he is wielding the power of his office.” Mr. Rennie notes that the Clean Election Fund, which gave Mr. Malloy more than $8 million to level the playing field between candidate for governor Malloy and his Republican rival, has tapped itself on the shoulder in its annual report for having made it possible for Connecticut citizens to reclaim “their government with the already dramatically reduced role of special interest influence in Connecticut elections." But they haven’t, Rennie writes: “No, it hasn't. On Feb. 3, the he...

Governor Malloy’s “shared sacrifice” was never evenly – some might say “fairly” -- distributed. Progressive Democrats, in fact, do not believe in shared sacrifice. Their credo includes, on the tax side, a progressive income tax in which the “rich,” defined as anyone making more than $200,000 per year, pay the lion’s share of governmental “investments.” SEBAC negotiator Dan Livingston is typical of the genus. In a progressive regime, the majority of people “invest” relatively little in their government and prudently vote for Democrats, who collect little from them in tax payments (AKA “investments”) while showering them with benefits. Whatever name one chooses to put to this lopsided getting and spending process, it is not “shared sacrifice.” Nationally, the wealthiest 1 percent of the population earns 19 percent of all income and pays 37 percent of the federal income tax , a figure that excludes payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. The top ten percent pay 68 percent of ...

Governor Malloy’s man in Hartford, Mayor Luke Bronin, is close,  we are told by a Hartford paper , “to signing a deal that would require the state to assume Hartford's annual debt payments.” Malloy, who has proven himself more adept at deal making with his political cronies than balancing budgets and warding off debt, previously has made deals with state employee unions that carry debt forward much beyond his term in office. The SEBAC deal Malloy struck with lean and hungry union honchos, ratified by progressive Democrats in the General Assembly, push union favorable contracts forward to 2027 and prevent future governors from deploying layoffs to reduce debt until the contracts elapse. During his first two terms, Malloy has used the threat of layoffs to persuade hard boiled union negotiators to cough up what Malloy has been pleased to call “concessions,” an option the SEBAC-Malloy deal will not provide to Malloy’s successor. Union concessions generally have not involve...

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce” – Karl Marx  The labeling worked. Almost immediately, contract negotiations between Governor Dannel Malloy and SEBAC head honchoes were tagged “union concessions.” There were, to be sure, some concessions made by unions in the final agreement, but these concessions were offset by positive union gains. And in the end the gains considerably outweighed the concessions, mostly because the gains were permanent, while the concessions were, for the most part, temporary. Unions, for instance, agreed to forgo raises for three years; on the third year, however, 3.5 percent raises would kick in, and likely remain kicking well beyond the termination of the contracts in 2027. Most working stiffs in Connecticut, who doubtless will be tapped to pay for future union wages and almost inevitable tax increases,...

Connecticut needs a mini-revolution. A state budget, like a federal budget, is the single most important piece of legislation produced in any fiscal year.  The reason for this is obvious: A budget is an appropriation and expenditure engine for a getting and spending vehicle that drives us into the future. It also is a destiny map. Without the engine, the car does not move.  Precisely because a budget is central to the welfare of the state, all the representative organs of the state should participate in its formation.

Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy here puts his finger exactly on the right point. It should come as no surprise to anyone that union leaders – who may or may not be acting in the best interest of the rank and file – want to control the propaganda they send to union members. But the Yankee Institute is not a part of the negotiations, and it stands, in respect to those negotiations, exactly as any other news organization might. Attorney General George Jepsen, one may hope, will tell the union “leaders” to take a hike. On the other hand, Mr. Jepsen did represent unions for a stretch as a private attorney before he became attorney general. There is no doubt where editorial page editors should come down on this question. It’s still a free country – though, God knows, some people are trying to make it less so. This is the Republican Party Chairman that disgruntled elements in the Republican Party want to replace: Unions Get a Dose of Yankee Medicine By Chris Healy The truth ...

The revised agreement between the office of Governor Dannel Malloy and SEBAC, a group of union leaders commissioned by state workers to negotiate contracts with the chief executive, is studded with anti-privatization provisions. Under a section called “Savings And Transformation,” we are told that the parties to the agreement, the state of Connecticut as represented by the bargaining agents of the governor and the union leaders of SEBAC, a coalition of state unions, “have explored and will continue to explore and, where appropriate, implement strategies to: “… d. Discourage the use of outside contractors and consultants when internal capacity exists or can reasonably be developed; and “e. Make best efforts to ensure that vendors and service providers doing business with the state do so at reasonable rates of return and under terms that reflects the shared sacrifice being asked from all sectors of Connecticut society.” Both d and e are anti-privatization clauses, one calling upon...