Connecticut, The State Of Indecision

Bysiewicz and Lamont

Governor Ned Lamont does not hear the screams, possibly because his ears are cocked in the wrong direction.

Within the space of a couple of weeks, Lamont decided to open hair salons, to order hair salon owners not to use blow dryers, to reverse his order concerning blow dryers in the case of African American women, because the hair of African Americans is different than that of white women and requires blow drying before satisfied clients leave the salon, and finally to delay the heralded opening of hair salons because, we are told by Ken Dixon of the Hearst papers, “The plan to have them open on Wednesday with other retail businesses was abandoned over the weekend, after Lamont conferred with Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, who is keeping close-contact businesses closed for the time being.”

 Very patient hair salon owners may wonder -- when will hair salons be permitted to resume business? Will the happy day arrive before or after many of owners have decided, for reasons apparent to everyone, to fold up their tents and move to, say, Georgia, a state with which Lamont has no prior political arrangement requiring both states to co-ordinate their destructive business policies?

Here is Lamont’s answer, at least as inscrutable as the Oracle at Delphi, to hair salon owners as reported by Dixon: “An exact date hasn’t been specified, but Lamont said the alignment with Rhode Island was part of a regional effort to coordinate.” Lamont is quoted in the Dixon piece: “We’ve been hearing a lot of feedback from many owners and employees, and at this time I think the best approach is that we hit pause on the reopening of hair salons and barbershops, take a step back, and allow some more time as preparations continue to be made.”

What Lamont means by "we" is a legitimate question. Members of the General Assembly have not had an opportunity to question formally any of the governor's dictates. 

Lamont seems to be unaware that no one in Connecticut voted for Raimondo as Governor of Rhode Island. Similarly, no one in Rhode Island voted for Lamont as Governor of Connecticut.

So long as Coronavirus continues to prowl like a tiger though nursing homes largely neglected by the governors of New York and Connecticut, Lamont will continue to be invested with extraordinary life and death powers that, unfortunately, will adversely affect Connecticut businesses which, for reasons apparent even to the lowliest journalist in the state, are dying the death of a thousand cuts.

Connecticut has been closed for business for two long wearisome months. Restaurateurs, including UConn women’s basketball coach Gino Auriemma, are wondering when they will be permitted to re-open. Auriemma is not alone. The Day reports A summer not like the rest: Local hotel, inn owners await reopening directions; The Hour reports Oyster farmers: Coronavirus put CT shellfish industry ‘out of business overnight.’

Nearly everyone in Connecticut is wondering when political business as usual in the state will resume. When will the General Assembly – the second branch of republican government, operating for months in a state of suspended animation -- resume its constitutional obligation of serving as a check and balance upon unconstitutional executive presumptions? Even during Connecticut’s colonial period, the parliament in England served as a check upon the presumption of the king. Following the Glorious Revolution of 1685, parliament limited kingly powers and England became a constitutional monarchy. The American Revolution eliminated monarchical government and established both a constitutional order and a separation of powers that prevented the resumption of tyrannical autocratic rule – until now. The political response to Coronavius has returned us to pre-Magna Carta days. Quite suddenly, the three branches of government, once constitutionally separated, have collapsed and been subsumed by chief executives unchallenged by legislatures or quiescent courts.

“As co-equal partners in state government,” Republican leader in the House Themis Klarides wrote in a recent Hartford Courant Op-Ed, “we did not pull up our stake in that partnership when business in Hartford was put on pause March 12. We need greater public scrutiny, not less, when it comes to formulating policies as we move forward. Connecticut will be better served in the long run by greater collaboration among its equal partners.”

Klarides and Republican leader in the Senate Len Fasano both recently announced they would not stand for re-election when their terms expire.

New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart was more than frustrated at the governor’s abrupt reversals, a pattern of governance Lamont seems comfortable with. Lamont also reversed himself numerous times on the issue of tolls before all his contradictory proposals were buried in an avalanche of opposition. The Courant reported that New Britain “employs three inspectors for 43 barbershops and beauty parlors, she [Stewart] said. The officials must now contact business owners, advise them of the new state guidelines and determine what the businesses must do to reopen.” Stewart usually may be found bubbling over with cross-party comity. Not this time: “We’re sitting here and the governor announces that everything will reopen May 20. We’re busting our behinds to get everything open. Now we have to go back and say, ‘Just kidding.'”

Everywhere both patience and trust are growing thin. The primary question facing us at this point is not so much what shall be done as who shall decide what shall be done, a question at the center of republican, constitutional governance. When the administrative state decides every question – shall hair dryers be allowed in hair salons? -- we know in advance that most questions will be decided ineptly.