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Connecticut Capitol Report 
Tip Sheet 
2/10/2025
Written by: Mike Cerulli

Good morning and welcome back to the Tip Sheet, a weekly newsletter from Tom Dudchik’s Capitol Reporter written by Mike Cerulli.

Congrats to all the Philly fans!

This week, we’re taking a look at the range of responses to Gov. Ned Lamont’s 2025 budget address and recapping some drama that went down during a hearing held by the Energy and Technology Committee. Plus, state officials trekked down to New Haven for some ‘za on Friday. Will they show the state’s hospitality industry some more love in the budget?

Let’s dive in…

Stuck in the middle with Ned

In crafting a budget proposal for the last two years of his second term, Gov. Ned Lamont faced a task that no one envied. How could he simultaneously satisfy the fiscal moderates in his own party, the fiscal hawks across the aisle, and the chorus of community groups calling for a loosening of the budgetary controls he has so strongly defended?

In hindsight, there was probably no scenario in which Lamont’s proposal didn’t draw fire from many of the folks gathered in and around the state House chamber last Wednesday.

Within minutes of concluding his 2025 budget address, Lamont was met with a flurry of criticism from the left and the right – an outline of the challenges the governor will face as he sets out to navigate an already unpredictable year.

The criticism was focused largely on the centerpiece of Lamont biennial budget proposal: a new endowment funded using surplus cash that the governor said is intended to provide no-cost preschool for all families earning up to $100,000.

For Republicans, the proposed fund is nothing more than an end run around the one element of the fiscal guardrails.

“This is not the fiscally moderate governor that got re-elected just two years ago,” State Sen. Steve Harding said. “The fiscally moderate Ned Lamont has officially left the building, folks.”

Some Democrats and left-leaning organizations also critiqued the proposal, arguing it didn’t go far enough.

“We applaud Governor Lamont’s plan for expanding universal preschool as an important step forward on early education and kindergarten readiness for children across our state,” Eva Bermúdez Zimmerman, the director of Child Care for CT, said. “But what families and businesses need is a bold solution to the child care affordability crisis that starts at birth.”

“We appreciate the steps taken to improve education and the recognition that more investment is needed in our schools,” Kate Dias, the president of the Connecticut Education Association, said. “However, the governor’s budget proposal falls short of the bold, immediate action needed to address the urgent crises of special education funding and the teacher shortage facing our state.”

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) also piled on.

“This budget fails to meet the fundamental needs of our cities and towns and severely jeopardizes local community’s long-term sustainability,” CCM executive director Joe Delong said, according to reporting by Westfair. 

Taking fire from the left and right, Lamont finds himself in a familiar position: the middle.

He now faces the task of reclaiming the narrative and refocusing discussion not just on the attributes of his education plans, but also on a host of other proposals that were drowned out by the debate over the fiscal guardrails.

Fireworks at E&T hearing raises temperature of electricity debate

In a rare moment of coarseness in a legislature that prides itself on cordiality, a lobbyist for the energy giant Avangrid locked horns with two Democratic lawmakers over a proposed change to Connecticut’s public utility regulator.

The venue for the rhetorical jousting was a routine hearing of the Energy and Technology Committee last Tuesday. At issue was legislation that would, as the Mirror’s John Moritz described, have the effect of consolidating power at the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA).

The legislation drew strong opposition and testimony from Eversource and Avangrid, which owns United Illuminating.

As the public hearing crawled into the late afternoon hours, Avangrid’s senior vice president for public and regulatory affairs, Kim Harriman, stepped up to the microphone.

Harriman fielded questions from several members of the committee. At one point, Harriman and State Sen. Norm Needleman, the committee’s co-chair, entered into an exchange about the internal functions of utility regulators. Their exchange quickly turned from bureaucratic to belligerent when Harriman took a not-so-veiled shot directly at PURA chair Marissa Gillett.

“A judge is an impartial arbiter of the facts – of the record,” Harriman said. “So, when I see a judge at PURA, I’ll let you know.”

“Wow, nice shot,” Needleman sarcastically replied.

State Rep. Jaime Foster jumped into the fray.

“That last comment, I’ll just say, I can’t believe you just came before this committee and would make a comment like that denigrating a human being who is regulating the industry you’re standing here to represent,” Foster said.

There was a palpable tension in the room following the exchange between Needleman, Harriman, and Foster.

Hannah Lemek, the former Senate Republicans staffer who is now in-house at CCM, was the next up to testify on an unrelated bill. She took a stab at humor.

“Tough act to follow,” Lemek said.

Tough act, indeed.

On National Pizza Day, lots of pie but no extra dough

Like moths to a flame, Connecticut politicians flocked to New Haven on Friday for an early celebration of National Pizza Day. The event was held at Bar on Crown Street in the Elm City. Bar is a newer entrant to the city’s century-old pizza scene, but one that has quickly gained a reputation as a lively late-night spot with great pie.

In Connecticut, politicians expressing their love for New Haven apizza is nothing new (ex: a young former state representative named Tom Dudchik told the New York Times in 1989, “There are only two things in life you stand in line for: communion and Sally’s pizza”). But in recent years, that loyalty to apizza has gone to a new level as New Haven-style pies have gained even more national recognition.

On Friday, the politicians could barely contain themselves. Pizza, they proclaimed, was a critical part of the Connecticut tourism industry, an industry which is intertwined with the state’s burgeoning culinary scene.

“Eat your hearts out New Jersey and New York,” Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said with a wry smile in a TV interview.

A tricked-out “pizza throne” was dedicated to the “pizza queen” Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro as a thanks for her advocacy on the national level. The throne was designed by Michael Pollack, a local artist who also crafted a gigantic pizza statue and founded the New Haven Pizza Club. The throne featured the design of the new “Welcome to Connecticut” signs that taunt visitors arriving from New York with the proclamation that the Nutmeg State is the “Pizza Capital of the World.”

To prove Connecticut’s status as the pizza capital, Comptroller Sean Scanlon went so far as to issue a six-page report on the number of pizzerias in the whole state. He touted a separate Statista report showing Connecticut has the highest number of pizza establishments per capita of any state in the country.

But even as officials were ecstatic about the impact of Connecticut’s most famous culinary export, a dissonant fact hung over the pizza-scented air on Friday: Gov. Lamont’s budget proposal did include key requests of the restaurant industry or the state’s tourism officials.

Officials in charge of Connecticut’s marketing efforts had advocated for the governor to include an increase in state tourism budget, while the Connecticut Restaurant Association has revived efforts to use a portion of the state’s meal and beverage tax to fund workforce development and tourism efforts.

Will lawmakers ultimately back the hospitality industry’s push for more dough? Or will the efforts fall flat as a slice of bar-style pizza?

We’ll be back next week with more.


 
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