Connecticut’s faction of Republican lawmakers is shaping their priority legislation for this session as President Donald Trump lays out his plans at the national level. How will they align?
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas to discuss his article, “In CT, Republicans seek a closer alignment with Trump,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. Read his story here.
WSHU: Hello, Mark. Connecticut Republican lawmakers have had a change in leadership since Trump first entered the White House. Is that why they seem to seek to align themselves more with Trump this time?
MP: I think it's less the change in leadership than it is the change in the environment that President Trump, in his second stay in the White House, is squarely in the mainstream of public opinion on some, but not all, of his many executive orders. And then there's another dynamic at work. There is a palpable resentment on the part of the leaders of the Republican minorities in the General Assembly, calling them out and insisting they engage in a debate over President Trump's executive orders, as opposed to focusing on the issues that are squarely before the General Assembly. Obviously, there's some overlap, and one of the things that I noted is that there are bills that squarely align with President Trump on immigration, the rights of transgender individuals in general, and more specifically, having to do with the rights of transgender athletes to compete in girls and women's sports, if that is how they so self identify.
WSHU: But we already have laws in Connecticut dealing with these issues. So what, do the Republicans want to change those laws?
MP: Yes, the Republicans have bills that would specifically ban trans athletes from participating in women's and girls' sports, that they would have to participate in sports according to their gender and how it was recorded at birth, and that is in line with the executive order the President signed last week. This uses the club of federal spending because colleges and primary education systems rely fairly significantly on federal funding. So we saw the NCAA quickly take note of the president's order, and in fact, they have banned trans athletes from women's sports in higher ed. In Connecticut, the sanctioning body that oversees interscholastic sports is still weighing its response. They are sort of caught between the president's order and a Connecticut law, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identification, and that has generally been interpreted to mean if you identify as a girl, regardless of your gender at birth, you can participate in girls' sports. And of course, that has raised a conflict between the rights of transgender kids versus the right of cisgender girls to have fair competitions.
WSHU: Now, in the past, Democrats have pretty much dismissed these complaints. Are they taking it more seriously this time that it's not just a few Republicans in Connecticut, but it aligns with the national push by the Republican Party?
MP: The Democrats have done what they can to ignore the transgender athlete issue, because it does put into conflict again, two groups, each of whom I think have a degree of sympathy in the American public. The governor has reacted primarily to the tone of the President's rhetoric, as well as the tone of some of the National Republican rhetoric, which has been very mocking of transgender kids and young adults. And that, you know, that puts the Democrats in a position of, who are you siding with on this? Now, when it comes to the question, baseline question of whether it is an issue of unfairness to allow trans athletes in sports, there's certainly a scientific basis to say yes, there is a disadvantage to cisgender girls. The politics have been interesting. You have very liberal women, feminist athletes, Martina Navratilova, for example, who was a strong supporter of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump for president, but on the other hand, says, Look, allowing trans athletes to compete in women's sports undermines a half-century of gains of equal opportunity for women in sports under the federal Title IX Act.
WSHU: Now, Connecticut has been very active in opposing President Trump's use of the federal purse to try and get states to adopt his agenda. What has been the reaction of Republicans to this?
MP: It runs the gamut. You have a relatively small group of very conservative Republicans who have been at the forefront, but it spills over. It affects spending in Connecticut. For example, Connecticut has a law that allows immigrants, particularly children, regardless of their legal status, to qualify for health care under Medicaid, which adds expenses to the state budget. One of the things the Republicans are seeking is a better accounting of the costs of this policy to Connecticut. Beyond that, something that was more favored by a small minority of Republican legislators is now becoming part of the House Republican leadership package, which is a bill that would punish municipalities and strip municipalities of discretionary noneducation funding from the state if they are deemed not to be fully cooperative with federal immigration agents. You know, there's a lot of misinformation about this area.
Some people say Connecticut is defying federal law and Connecticut is violating federal law. And that's not precisely true. There is something in constitutional law called the anti-commandeering doctrine, which basically means that the federal government cannot compel the states to act as agents of the federal government, and that is the line that Connecticut has drawn with the Trust Act, which was originally passed in 2013 in a bipartisan, unanimous vote, and then revised in 2019 after Trump took office the first time, which sets limits on how state and local court and police officials can cooperate with federal immigration authorities. It requires a judicial warrant, a judge to sign a warrant for the court system, and the prison system in Connecticut to hand over somebody who immigration is seeking.
Now, there are exemptions and exceptions. If somebody is being held on certain felonies or convicted of a felony, they can be handed over automatically for deportation proceedings. So Governor Ned Lamont has staked out a middle ground here, one, quite frankly, that is consistent with most of the public polling I have seen, and that is a position that says we are not going to shelter violent criminals who do not have legal status, that if ICE wants to detain and deport them, Connecticut will cooperate. But the governor is very concerned about the impact on the Dreamers, the immigrants who were brought to Connecticut, brought to the United States as babies or toddlers, and are basically American. They know no other land, and there's a lot of sympathy, for people like that who now have reached adolescence or college age or even beyond. And in fact, the last Gallup poll I saw said that 81% of Americans favor a path to citizenship for these kids and young people. On that issue, the Democrats seem to be in the mainstream of political opinion in the United States -- when it comes to transgender athletes, less so.
WSHU: Okay, but in the meantime, Connecticut used to pride itself on having a much more convivial relationship between the Democrats and Republicans in the legislature than in Washington. Is that changing?
MP: Well, you're absolutely right. That is the tradition here. It is a tradition that people in both parties value. You know, we saw the House Republican leader, for example, deliver the nominating speech for the Democratic Speaker of the House in Connecticut because they work constructively. They can disagree on issues, but they work constructively otherwise. So that's an open question as to whether or not this is a harbinger of a change in that regard, I will say Vinnie Candelora, in particular, the House Republican leader, even when he reacted with some anger towards the governor's budget address, which did have several references to Trump policies, he cast his dismay bores a question of, let's focus on things that are relevant to the Connecticut General Assembly, and don't put me in particular or Republicans in general in the position of being called out and asked to defend a president when they don't necessarily agree with everything this president does.
Candelora has been consistent from the first Trump administration through this one, in that he has not really embraced President Trump. He, for example, was one of the early people in 2020 who just flat-out said the election was over. Joe Biden won. Let's move on. And he was not one of the folks who suggested that the President was right in dragging things out and continuing to argue that he was the victim of massive, unprecedented voter fraud in 2020. So, there's a little bit of nuance here. Candelora certainly used some language pushing back at Democrats that people took note of; by the same token, some of the Democratic rhetoric, particularly from Attorney General William Tong, has been fairly heated, as well. Governor Lamont, as his habit and his personality, has been more restrained, as has House Speaker Ritter. But yes, this is definitely a concern at the capitol as to whether or not we're going to see an unraveling of what has been a habit of rational debate on issues that could divide people philosophically but perhaps keep the temperature to a reasonable level.
