♪ > > And the Wheelhouse.

> > The lawmakers with lawmaking done for now.

And how's everyone feeling about Connecticut's future?

♪ > > For > > Connecticut Public on Frankie Graziano.

This is the Wheelhouse.

It's a show that connects politics.

The people we got your weekly dose of politics in Connecticut and beyond right here.

Last week on the Wheelhouse.

We talk to you on the last day of the 2025 legislative session, Connecticut.

We told you about a 55.0 8 billion dollar budget deal priorities laid out in it including increased dollars for early childhood care this week.

We're going to hear from lawmakers on wear the state stands going into summer.

25.

And lets welcome some of the lead dogs at the state capital into Ali.

The octopuses Larry, here on Asylum Avenue in Hartford.

A few box away.

Joining me first, Jason Rojas, a Democrat, Democrat, is the majority leader of the Connecticut House of Representatives.

Good morning, Representative.

Good morning, Anand, Good.

Thanks for having me.

I appreciate having you folks.

If you want to ask us a question, you want to get on really quick, give us a call.

8, 8, 7 to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 7 to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, I'd like to ask the first question here.

Leaders from your chamber and the state Senate ultimately agreed on a 55.0 8 budge and up budget deal with the governor wants some top top line items we've heard about.

Obviously you found some money from Medicaid earlier in the year.

You you sort of.

Tried to fix the under funded Medicaid issues, rent and we also talked about a path to save some families.

Money, childcare, can you take us into the negotiating room help us understand what some non starters were for you or at least something that you and Matt Ritter, the speaker of the House, really wanted to get done.

Yeah, it really it was really a question of how we're going to fund an understanding that we have these fiscal guardrails in place.

> > Which really set some strict parameters about how we budget, how much revenue allow we allow ourselves to use and the governor has been very strong and consistent in terms of his perspective on maintaining those guardrails.

Certainly a Republican colleagues to and quite frankly, Democrats have to write.

We have all abided by the fiscal guardrails that were adopted on a bipartisan basis in 2017.

What we've seen over the last 5 years is exponential growth in certain types of revenues of the volatile revenue.

That was actually what caused this to actually put these fiscal guardrails in place.

We realized there are years because of our proximity to Wall Street.

We get a lot of extra money in one year when water is not doing well, we lose that money and we're budgeting in that way.

So we ended up with deficits.

What we're trying to do is avoid those types of things.

So we limited ourselves in terms of what revenue we can use, decided to use some of that excess revenue to make a significant investment in early childhood.

What we're doing is creating an endowment and putting up to 300 million dollars and that endowment.

We expected to grow every year.

And what we're going to do is use those proceeds to really invest in our child care providers, invest in families and ensure that children have a safe and high-quality early childhood experience because we know that is the beginning of their educational career.

And if we want to see a good outcome at 18 in 1921 years old, we really have to invest in kids when they're 2, 3, 4, 5, the fiscal guardrails were talking about the future.

We're talking about long-term debt obligations.

> > And its really work for Connecticut in the regard that you all have a much better credit rating.

Yeah.

And in recent years of the credit rating has been upgraded and and many people are happy with the finances and getting in although surplus dollars.

So there's been arguments last few years between lawmakers in the government and the governor over how to break through the fiscal guardrail.

So how do you make that breakthrough?

What what what do you think was the tipping point?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a recognition is as much as people really want to see Connecticut be financially stable.

We all want that too.

> > There's also we hear from constituents that they like to see us make investments and they keep hearing about the significant surplus is 1 billion dollars.

2 billion dollars.

Right now we have a 4 billion dollar rainy day fund even after the budget we just adopted.

We're going to see a 1.9 billion dollar surplus that's going to go towards paying down those long-term debts.

But there's also other long-term debts that we have bright as an obligation that we have to families, an obligation that we have the children.

And when you talk about those 2 things are really talking about the future of the state of Connecticut.

So we need to be more balanced in terms of making investments to pay down those long-term liabilities that we did accrue over a period of 100 years.

But for the next 100 years, we also have to make a significant investment in families and kids.

> > Other costs that are hurting Connecticut residents and you hear this a lot housing and energy of that kind of focusing first on affordable housing initiatives getting criticized for overstepping local control.

That's the complaint that that that people are lobbying against shooter.

So how would you respond to that?

Yeah, I understand it from great housing policy and decisions around local control.

> > You know, it's Connecticut, right?

Those are things we really value.

I value them too.

But I would question people and say to what end right?

Because we do have some of the most expensive housing and in Connecticut we have one of the most constrained marketplace is you can't find a house to buy.

You can't find an apartment to rent.

I mean, we no from an economics perspective when you have less of something and there's more demand for at the cost of it is going to go up.

So what I'm trying to do is strike a balance between the state's obligation in the state's responsibility to set the parameters around zoning, which is authority.

We have that authority now.

And in 8 dash, 2, 1, to get too technical.

But that is the area of statute that actually allows towns and cities to do planning and zoning.

But obviously the decision should be made at the local primarily be made at the local level.

So what we're doing is setting the parameters for how zoning should look, but we're relying on our partners in towns and cities to make those decisions and yes, we're making some changes around that.

Yes, that's a difficult thing for people to want to accept.

But the status quo right now is local control.

And the status quo right now is really expensive.

Housing.

And you're talking about a status quo.

You want to talk about a breakthrough as well.

This is something you've > > struggled mightily in recent years of trying I've seen you at the end of the sessions have to do not being able to get housing legislation.

I didn't use that.

I didn't use painful incremental this used for the last 4 years when they asked this year, I did a so one could one side might complain that you're overstepping local control.

Another side might say that you all are doing enough.

It's right.

And how can you tell us this might bring about meaningful change for the people that are thinking that you're not doing enough?

Absolutely right.

And I appreciate that.

I think people want us to be far more aggressive right?

There were people were suggesting there should be rent camps, read camps, rent caps.

That was the just cause eviction bill that didn't pass again this year.

There are a lot of people who felt that that was really important for them.

And what we're trying to do like we always have to do is kind of find a middle ground writing, obviously, the housing bill that we have out there I think is more aggressive than we've had in past years, really going to result in structural change in terms of decision-making in how we think about certain things that we take for granted like parking, like utilization of commercial spaces.

And we know that the commercial marketplace is sort of collapsing in those properties are dropping in value.

And, you know, we know what happens when it happens.

You're going to be more near residential property taxes, right?

So how do we put that land back into best productive use and how do we address the housing shortage?

Well, you're not commercial zones to be used for housing for small-scale housing, massive apartment buildings, right?

But up to 9 units of housing on a piece of property.

That's a better use of that property that's going to jump to still go there again, because I'm I'm I'm asking you to quantify that in an effort not to not to kind of mess around with you here, but we want to hold you accountable to our future on the so help us understand how many units this could bring about.

You have that understanding yet or what they what a goal or a might be?

No.

I mean, we had a needed needs assessment that was done that arrived at this 100,000 unit.

Number, right?

That 100,000 new number, believe it or not, is just for individuals who are making 0 to 30% of area median income or is there a 50% folks at the lowest end of the income spectrum for whom the private market housing market place is not going to develop housing for them.

What do we do for those people?

So that was the goal and number that was set out to that we're asking comes to plan for.

We're not asking them.

We're not requiring them to build anything.

Towns can't control all those things right?

But they should set the environment for housing to be developed in.

They already have to do affordable housing plans.

We're asking them to use the data that was produced out of this assessment to inform their thinking about how they produce housing and how we produce housing across the state of Connecticut in how we produce affordable housing in towns and cities across the state of Connecticut.

Because right now it's really hyper concentrated in your large urban areas.

And that has the effect of concentrating poverty.

And it has all sorts of ramifications not only for the people who live for everybody else because when you concentrate property like that, all of us have to pay a whole lot more money to remediate what comes out of concentrated poverty.

And if you're talking about incremental change, it might not necessarily be a bad thing in the regard that you've had those surveys out and you've been trying to hold municipalities to them for years.

Right?

And or at least in the recent you're sorry, that was kind of like what you did get through in the last few years.

And now you're starting to see the wreath, the fruits of that.

It sounds like, yeah, in terms of trying to turn some of that into legislation as you try to do this year, I want to go to energy really quickly.

This bipartisan push that ended up in the House.

But I believe it started in the Senate and there's a bunch state reps on it as well.

Tell us about this effort to I guess, try to make those energy bills go down a bit.

Yeah.

One of the hardest may be harder than housing his energy policy, right?

Because again, there are only so many things that we can control unless Connecticut is going to get back into the business of actually producing more energy, more power plants right?

You know, every every time I'm in a public setting, I asked the room, would anybody like a power plant in their community?

Raise your hand.

Nobody raises their hand right.

More natural gas supplies, right?

We have in the environmental community that doesn't want to see that because they want to just move to more clean energy.

So we have to import all of our of the primary source to generate energy.

And we're at the end of the pipeline in that regard.

So it makes it really expensive to produce energy.

And, you know, a lot of attention was paid to the public benefits charge that supports a lot of our clean energy initiatives.

It supports are low income.

People are struggling with paying their bills that pays for those things.

lot of attention was paid to that last year when something spiked primarily do the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant deal from 2017, but also is a really hot July.

People crank their air conditioners and wonder why the power bill went up so high.

Well, when Hughes Energy and wearing a place where it's expensive, too, provide energy, you result what people are really unhappy with their power bill.

We talked about this being a bipartisan bill.

Let's hear from a person on the other side of the aisle is Senator State Senator Ryan Fazio to Greenwich?

> > Its an issue that has been a top priority for me and other Republicans.

The past 2 and a half years we've been shouting from the rooftops that electric rates are too high and the public benefits costs need to be caught.

> > Essentially what you all are doing here is trying to I think it's finding state bonding money and try to help people pay for the public benefit.

All right.

So at the end of the day, the taxpayers going to pay the bill you to pay through your electric bill.

Are you gonna pay through a tax bill?

Because what we did do is we did out authorized bonding to help cover some of those other programs that are right now funded by the public benefits charge.

So you'll see a reduction on your electric bill in that regard.

And that's a good thing.

And then we know it.

It is smarter policy for the state of Connecticut to borrow money to pay for things as opposed to having eversource borrow money because they're gonna have to go up a 9 or 10% interest where the Connecticut's going to pay 3%.

So from a fiscal perspective, it is certainly makes a lot more sense for us to do that and what that's what we did.

We authorized bonding to pay for some of programs that are really important to They may not realize that they may not understand the benefits that they derive from that.

But as policy makers, we have a responsibility to respond to concerns about higher energy costs.

But we also have a responsibility to maintain a lot of programs that a lot of people rely on even if they don't realize they really benefit from it.

We only have about a few minutes left with Jason Rojas here who is a leader in the state House.

88 7 to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, > > 7 to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, If you'd like to join us on the Wheelhouse this morning.

I want to talk about what you didn't get done or at least that I guess there's 2 things.

Maybe there's something that you're going to bring back next year in the next session or something that you have to do either later in the summer or early in the fall, it sounds like that both you and Speaker Ritter have said that there will have to be a special session.

It's something.

Yeah, its outright.

You know what happens in Washington and they're going through their budget deliberations and, you know, I don't know if it's as bad as we thought it was going to be in February, but it's still not going to be good.

And there's still a lot of uncertainty.

Obviously, the house in Washington has passed a budget.

The Senate is responding pretty coolly to that.

Given how much is going to drive up deficits, given that it's going to make reductions to Medicaid, which is really going to impact people and also people, everyone who's listening to your shell probably know somebody who's on Medicaid.

I mean, if they lose that Medicaid coverage, right there and I can be able to get access to health care and if they do, they're going to end up in an emergency room.

If they do uni through our health care, premiums are going to pick up that cost anyway.

So it's much better to be proactive in provide people access to health care as opposed to not win again, end up in emergency rule.

And we on the pain for done anyway.

I kind of love this question.

A similar kind of question that popped up.

Who is the Senate majority leader is in the other chamber.

Let's hear what the Democrat had to say.

> > And he's making great investment right now in education, health care, really, and so many different areas we're doing the exact opposite of what is happening right now in Washington, D.C., We have a balanced budget.

They're racking up debt.

So I think our budget is responsible budget compared to what's happening watching to see which is an absolute train wreck.

We talked about Washington, D.C., and having to sort of read and react mostly about the football analogies.

> > And we also talked about you said earlier that things may not have been as bad as you thought they might have been earlier in the year.

But the point is you've had to come up with a lot of Medicaid dollars that you probably didn't plan for.

You have the shortfall.

But then there's the ultimate reduction that's coming.

So give us a give us sort of an idea of of what you might have to do.

A special session in terms of dollars from Medicaid.

Is it more dollars for health care overall?

What might be a push that you try to?

Yeah.

I mean, we know that built into this budget that we adopted, that there's going to be a surplus, right?

And we know that we have a healthy, rainy day fund.

> > For situations just like this, right, whether they're either there's an economic downturn and revenues have dropped significantly.

We now have a rainy day fund to help backfill that Washington acts in a certain way makes reductions to Medicaid.

We now have a savings account that we can go back to draw from to ensure that people can continue to have access to health care.

Now, is that sustainable forever?

Probably not.

So we'll have to have some difficult conversations.

And then in the options that we will have is reducing access right, limiting who can get access to Medicaid.

And when you talk about Medicaid, you talking about folks at the lows and income spectrum.

You're talking about elderly people in nursing homes.

You know what?

I believe people who are receiving care at home.

You're talking about children who don't have access to health care that we're talking about when we talk about Medicaid, I mean, that's almost a million people here in the state of Connecticut who were in that program.

And again, we can either be proactive in strategic and pay for it up front or pay for it on the back end.

I mean, I don't think that's a very wise policy at all.

> > Will be awaiting news out of Washington, D.C., on the Trump domestic policy agenda and how Jason Rojas will react.

He's a Democrat.

The majority leader of the Connecticut House of Representatives.

Thank you so much for coming here in person.

Every she absolutely.

Thank you.

Sorry for not getting his trust open.

It's not that you live with.

This is my has.

This is a summer look and you're very so.

I look at work in higher education and it's summertime.

It's it's it's time to it's time to enjoy the summer as well.

Get to a little bit of work and looked at as well.

You're from ranking Democrat following the close of the 2025. legislative session for Connecticut Public on Frankie Graziano after the break, we're joined by House Republican leader Vincent Candelora.

What would you like to see lawmakers prioritize here in Connecticut is the stated doing enough to respond to changes in Washington?

What issues are hitting your pocketbook this year.

Give us a call.

88 7 to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 7, to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, See after the break.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ This is the Wheelhouse from Connecticut Public Radio.

I'm Frankie Graziano, Connecticut.

Lawmakers passed the two-year 55.8 billion dollar budget during the final days of the legislative that adjourned last Wednesday.

The budget passed following agreement between Democratic leadership and Governor Ned Lamont.

But many state Republican lawmakers say the budget up ends.

The state spending cap and will lead to future tax increases.

Vincent Candelora is the leading Republican in the Connecticut House of Representatives.

Thank you so much for coming in the studio to thanks for having me.

I appreciate you coming in here, folks.

We got Representative Khanna Lauren, the House.

We're hoping that you ask him a question.

8, 8, 7, to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, Maybe there's a point of a clarification on a bill or something like that.

Give us a call.

It ate 7 to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, the way the session shook out.

Governor ended up making a deal with Democrats that you say eviscerate the state fiscal guardrails.

The spending rules enacted a few years back to drive the state's budget deficit drive down the state's budget deficit.

I think the two-year plan has about 1.2 billion in spending the first year and then 1.4 in the second.

My impression of the situation, I have you react to all this in a second to what I'm saying right now.

But I just want to get my impression out to see if I'm right leading the folks in the right direction.

Generally you and the governor almost not necessarily in lockstep, but you guys are in a similar position when it comes to the guardrails, it seem like either you didn't have the input this year or you just weren't on the same page with the governor in that regard.

do I have it right?

Yeah.

The governor really put the football in a different spot in the field when he started the budget negotiations.

He came out of the gate back in January saying that he was willing to adjust the volatility, cap.

That was sort of a nonstarter for us.

Part of the reason is that we were entering this budget cycle with a 500 million dollar deficit.

We have over runs in particular of Medicaid spending which drove us.

We ended up having to use the surplus last session in order to balance that budget.

So we are really concerned about taking the volatile revenue, which is one of those caps to that pays down our unfunded liabilities and using that for budgeting.

And that's what ended up happening.

So the governor had started, I think about 700 Million.

They ended up landing around 1.3 billion in this budget where they're taking The revenue that's volatile.

It's supposed to go into paid on our pensions, which are over 80 billion dollars of unfunded liability that were most indebted in the country.

And that money has been shifted over to the budget.

So you're talking about almost a doubling to what you expect you're talking about maybe 700 million and we're still not really for that.

But then we talk about it being 1.3 million instead of totally preserving the guardrails.

Democrats allocated new funding into Medicaid and child care.

And that's where I want to talk about Medicaid.

I think it's the non budget, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

They're saying that the big beautiful bill and Trump's policy would cause nearly 11 people know 11 people, 11 million people to lose health coverage over the next decade.

Nearly 8 million of those due to the Medicaid provisions.

It could be a little more dire here because of our population.

The bill seeks to punish states like Connecticut that used Medicaid funds to cover undocumented immigrants.

We've talked about this in the past, but I want to rehash this conversation here because you would reduce the federal investments in that case, not you.

But the federal government would do that.

So how would you address Medicaid knowing what could be coming down the pike with the big beautiful bill?

Yeah, we actually House Republicans put forth a budget to address those issues.

We no longer funded a Medicaid program for undocumented immigrants which is costing the state over 125 million dollars in the biennium.

What we did is we shifted the money to federally qualified health centers and to dish payments for the hospitals because these individuals are going to get health care regardless of it.

But it's how you fund it.

So the way the Democrats have chosen to fund it is actually going to put our Medicaid funding in jeopardy to the tune of 700 million dollars.

It was unnecessary.

They could of provide those services and just done it in a better way.

But I feel as if Connecticut Democrats are sort of looking to make a political statement as opposed to just complying with the feds are looking for, you know, our Medicaid is really over run right now.

The able body provisions that are talked about, we are spending.

I think it's over 350 million in the state of Connecticut.

Able-bodied people who are working earning up to $95,000 a year are getting access to Medicaid and the feds are paying 90% of it.

That type of program is probably going to go away because it's it's just too rich.

That area we we should have taken a look at, but it was just sort of ignored.

And then you have the hospital tax, which was over budgeted in the budget.

And that's another area that the feds are saying.

You can't keep taxing health care and taking that money.

The budget relies on that about 375 million dollars, which the hospitals are against.

You've always said that you're you're certainly not against anybody actually getting care.

And that's what you're trying to talk about.

It trying to funnel money into fq HTC's.

I'm probably saying it wrong.

The federally qualified health there centers and hospitals.

Is that gonna be enough to actually care for people, though, to you?

There's a there's a there's a place where you're at right now.

And then we also talked to you and I believe I talked to Stephen Hardening last week where you always say that these these undocumented migrants are getting Cadillac care.

And I don't know exactly if that's the case, but this is where you seem to be on the issue.

Do you think it's enough to actually help these people?

Yeah, it would be.

I think that population, many of them are going to hospitals after a she's already for their health care.

But that Medicaid program that is provided is a lot more robust.

So it's not even healthcare.

Its we're giving them, you know, dental.

I care prosthetics prescription drugs.

There's no co pays its quite rich program.

There's a way to kind of scale it back.

But most importantly, delivery in a manner that complies with federal law.

So we don't potentially lose 700 million dollars in funding.

And to me, that's a smarter way to go.

We have a caller on the Here's Stephen from Bridgeport.

I understand that you want to talk about the cost of living in Fairfield County.

Go ahead.

Let's see what you got.

Stephen, you there.

Do we have this morning on the Wheelhouse?

other you are Stephen, how you doing here?

> > I'm here, buddy.

All right.

When he got Stephen Doughty had basically just to statement for > > Like to see change in Connecticut number 2, I like to see the state pay more attention to the quality of life issues within our own state.

> > Number 2, when it comes to federal money, I'm curious as to why.

Only being probably the 4th or 5th, which is state and nationwide will always going after federal money.

What's this and what can we do?

would have.

Where is all the tax dollars will give it already?

Why do we have rely so much on the feds?

> > Just really quickly, really quickly before I before I lose you here, Stephen, I just want to ask you a quick question so that I can frame the right way for for for Representative Candelora here.

Is there a particular quality of life issue impacting you down in Bridgeport?

> > Yeah, may seem a bit need to Mayo, but it has to mostly it's noise and most of them do with the to a unlicensed to stroke engines that run all day everyday by these long care services.

But yet they want us to buy electric cars.

1, 1, to stroke.

Lawnmowers just it doesn't dozen cars, but yet nothing is done about this.

We will when it comes to the noise level or any of the emissions level when it comes to these all these crappie and still can't.

And overall, you're talking about the quality of life in Fairfield County could hear from you this morning or Stephen.

Thank you so much for calling us by.

> > There you go.

Yeah, there's a Stephen who's a who's having an interesting morning.

They're down in Bridgeport, but he does want to know.

First of all, how we can solve maybe that local noise issue.

But in general, I guess we're worried about quality of life issues.

Yeah.

I mean, in Connecticut, we have system home rule, you know, so the town's really > > Those noises shoes.

We see govern.

it in Greenwich right now where they've then the leaf blowers during certain hours.

And I think those are the things that that should be taken up locally.

You know, globally, I think the quality of life issue in Connecticut when when you you look at our tax structure, we have a heavy reliance on the property tax.

And I think the way we fund education really leads to housing becoming unaffordable.

You know, I spoke to this and the House floor.

I never imagined that in order for me to live in my own home, I have to pay over $1000 a month in property taxes.

And when you talk to people that largely exceeds a lot of the mortgages that their pain and that's something that Connecticut has to address.

The state really doesn't fund education the way it should.

We don't have come county government.

We don't have county taxes.

So it really should be the state income taxes that's filling in that gap.

The budget didn't make some inroads increasing education spending.

And I think this is where the governor and U.S. kind of to par and we align a lot more with the Democrats is we've got to focus on and funding education at the local level.

More.

I want to talk about child care to before we leave here today, your colleague, Stephen Hardin, said that he's worried about the using the surplus money for their to set up a new endowment for early childhood education.

I heard you say it last week, too, as well.

I think I saw I read it in the mirror and then I kind of threw that up at by which you came on the show.

So just help me understand why it especially if we want state money for education, why we can't use the fiscal guardrails to help out with the early at here.

Yeah.

So I think it was kind of not a smart move the way we funded it.

You know, the governor and the Democrats funded out of surplus.

By removing that money out of surplus and not allowing it to pay down our pensions.

It actually took 25 million dollars of a tax savings a year out of the budget.

Had we just put that money into the budget?

We would have annualized savings of 25 Million.

We could have taken that.

25 million and your market first for early childhood going forward.

Instead, we took that savings and put it into an endowment that's just going to be spent down and that money might be exhausted within 5 years.

If you pay your debt down, you take the savings.

And now you have early childhood funded for as long as you you want to prioritize it.

And so that was sort of we wanted to see our caucus, agreed with a lot of the initiatives.

I think that bill overall is hitting a lot of the issues that need to be addressed for for early childhood education and getting people to be able to work and have children at the same time, it was just the way it was funded.

I think was all wrong as the 25 billion, though, it sounds to me like it could drop in the bucket.

Maybe over years that it's not as bad.

But I say that because when we look at ecs funding and how much money you guys have for that for education overall, I know there's more kids, but we're talking about billions of dollars.

So I don't know if 25 million dollars.

I know you're I know the hard part is you have to stomach losing.

25 million dollars, but is that is that going to be enough at the end of the day to help on early child?

Yeah, it's only a small piece.

We don't think it was enough that that's what the governor's proposal called for.

It was about 10% of a 200 million Dollar fund.

So he was looking to fund it about 20 million a year.

So we think 25 million certainly would have fill that need.

But it really comes down.

It's sort of subsidies.

The private market and individual still have to pay in what they could afford.

But it is long term.

We need to do a lot more investment for early childhood.

We only got a few minutes left.

If you want to give a call out to rep Candelora here, give us a call.

8, 8, 7, to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, be like Stephen here from Bridgeport and give us a call.

8, 8, 8, 7 to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, If you're a little shy, you can also e-mail us or you can say something out on social media.

I want to get your thoughts on the special session because obviously it's never written in stone that there's going to be one.

But you could be working late in the summer or early in the fall.

What do you might think that you might be working on and what might your position be if you're coming to look at me, ask you a loaded question.

Yeah, no, it's an easy want to.

I think we know we have to go back in to adjust the hospital tax.

That number of 375 million of new taxes that were put on hospitals is incorrect.

The number that they were looking for was somewhere around 285 Million.

It's also going to require new legislation because the governor has to negotiate a new contract.

So we will definitely BN to address the hospital tax issue and then make some other fixes.

There was a $0.05 tax that's put on everybody's cell phones.

It's a new tax that the cell phone companies have said it's not workable.

The way it's structured, we can't implement it.

So I imagine we're going to have to go back and try to address that as well.

And then the big house and do you know it's a big question of whether the governor is going to veto it.

If he does veto it, I'm sure we'll be back in to try to put forth the policies that everybody can agree on.

I thank you so much for coming Th was so nice.

Talk to you.

State Representative Vincent Candelora.

We don't know if you're going to have a summer off.

I know you have your private business to attend to, but we'll see what happens.

And hopefully we'll follow up with you down the road.

I appreciate you coming in.

Thanks.

Any time that is the minority leader in the state House of Representative Vincent Candelora.

Thank you so much for coming to the studio today, folks.

We just want you to know that coming up next, reaction to the reaction.

We'll have our state government reporter Micaela Savage and CT Insider reporter Alex Hunter.

Mont analyze the finer points of this year's legislative session.

You can join the conversation.

8, 8, 7, to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 7, to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ From Connecticut Public Radio.

This is the Wheelhouse.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

We can go.

Connecticut close the book on its 2025.

Legislative session.

Some landmark bills were passed and some will have to wait until next year.

This hour, we're breaking down what these legislative changes mean for Connecticut residents.

Joining me now Micaela Sabot State government reporter for Connecticut Public all over the end of the legislative session.

Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you for having me.

Frankie, great to have you on.

We also have a friend with us, Alex Betterment reporter.

It CT Insider.

You might be batting 1000 on the softball field with the team Merced.

How you doing today?

I'm doing well.

Brandy Press off that big W good to see you.

> > Nice to hear from me and nice to see a if folks have questions for our reporter's any reaction?

What we just heard from lawmakers give us call.

8, 8, 8, 7 to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 7 to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, Alex, Stick with me here you have any response to what we just heard from Representative Rojas and Representative Candelora.

> > Yeah, you know, I don't think there are any huge surprises I think Democrats viewed this as a successful session.

They were happy with the budget that they passed.

They were glad that they were able to find a lot of their priorities, whether it be higher education or Medicaid, special education, child care, you know, not always at the levels that everyone is thrilled about that in their view, they they sort were able to take give some money out where they wanted I know Republicans are frustrated that there was some tweaking in bending of the fiscal guardrails.

Think that will remain a story every year for the near future.

But yeah, no, no huge surprises.

I didn't think from what we are the first to second for both of you here.

We talked a lot about Medicaid.

> > And it seems like there's a discrepancy over what the actual problem isn't, how much funding that will be necessary.

I'm looking at the an undocumented immigrant angle in particular.

I've had this conversation with a candle or a couple of times.

They seem to think that if they could, it sounded a little like I got more of a plan here today with the federally qualified the centers there and also hospitals may be getting more money to help.

If we do lose funding, there's a big threat looming with the federal government potentially taking 3 billion dollars away from Connecticut if it continues to have a plan where it serves an document and migrants that AR 15 and under and we had somebody on the show recently from Georgetown who said that Connecticut's probably going to end up dropping them.

If that's the case, we don't know if the bills going to pass, but nonetheless, folks are trying to make it harder for people to do the right thing serve anybody that needs medical care.

So I don't know if any of you can kind of dissect that or at least help us understand if a unique Laura has it or doesn't have it in terms of having maybe some money for for undocumented migrants.

If coverage is dropped.

But I can speak to the you know, what would Democrats in the majority are thinking?

You know, I think the session, the goal > > was about holding the line on Medicaid funding or that, you know, the state funded and health care for undocumented immigrants.

I spoke with House chair of the Human Services Committee during the session.

That's reptilian Gill crest and, you know, think, you know, our discussion was around.

You is there.

You what about the calls for ski for immigrants?

And she was, you know, you could come to that.

But, you know, the fight is going to be challenging to expand what we have right now.

Given what's happening on the federal level.

But I know that you her many other Democrats are going to be looking to continue that state investment in health care because you know what?

What?

You know what the numbers show us is.

If you provide that health care coverage to people it like, you know, it prevents bigger cost down the line from major, you know, health things coming up in hospitals and at the doctor's office, etc.

That's a great point.

Mckayla essentially the salvation here is that Republicans think it's too rich to provide.

> > Health care to undocumented migrants.

They talk about a Cadillac plan.

Other folks will bring up the fact that first of all, you have to provide coverage and second of all, there's really a downstream effect.

If you don't treat them when McKayla does come on the show, we like to talk about the environment.

I want to dig into some bills that passed particularly bills addressing the climate crisis.

I understand too big bills made it across the finish line.

What do those bills do?

> > So apologies.

There been a lot.

I think I'm you know, not huddling.

I think that's got calling and saying, hey, I had my alarm go.

I've got a new phone.

I've got my alarm going for like an hour and I got to turn it up.

The alarm was too low will be learned is I she'll like You say it's time to talk about climate change, talking about climate change.

When is it not time to talk about climate change?

Well, in my perspective, you know, it's always the time to talk about our environment and climate.

You know, sometimes I think this issue gets pushed you know, to the side because other things are happening.

But > > in the world are thing.

Yeah.

Look at futures thing.

And so, you know, I want to do want to talk about that.

2 of this pair of bills that passed and they made both men across the finish line, which advocates were very excited about.

first is the mitigation bill, which I know talked about before an this got passage on the last day of session.

That focus is on, you bringing down on our human driven Green House gas emissions.

So updates the global Warming Solutions Act.

So it says, hey, the state needs to reach net 0 emissions by 2050.

A lot of other parts of the bill.

And, you know, it's a big as many of them are, you know, are based around reports are plans are studies.

Another part is, you know, the parrot has to report on the solar canopy strategy.

Other parts call on our Department of Environment, Energy and Environmental Protection to develop plans for heat pump systems evaluate how to involve nature based solutions in mitigating our emissions.

And renters use of energy efficiency and clean energy programs.

Now looking to the other bill, is more about how can we prepare our state to handle future impacts of climate change?

Again, incremental kind of thing.

Yes, exactly.

Resiliency.

And you know, this one had a lot more bipartisan support, I think, because it focuses more on the side of, you know, it brings into you know, it brings the economy into play.

It brings like their real-life impacts and to play as opposed to some of those more big costs and investments, which will talk about a little bit later.

I imagine.

So we included in that is like, you know, hey, we're going to create resiliency districts.

This will help towns, finance mitigation projects.

It requires updates to the state's hazard mitigation plans updates the state's water plan and it also requires information about flood risks to residents and requires a sea level rise when it comes to new building.

you know, so the these really these 2 bills really came in tandem with one another and advocates said, you know, you know, you know, this is good.

We're very happy.

You know, it's been a couple years since major legislation surrounding climate, his pastor, Ben things, you know.

in bonding and another smaller bills so these were compromises that were made and as one advocate said, you know, that there would have been like an uprising if no major climate policy, a pass this year.

not wearing a hat so I can come to you with my hat my hand.

But I come to you with my heart in my hand here to ask you, because I'm not necessarily understanding it as well.

> > In terms of the nuance.

Does this represent?

Real money or real investment?

situation where I there's a.

> > It is it a political will issue.

Is there political will to get this done?

> > Or is this more of of kicking the can down the road?

And I guess finally, how much of it is?

Some kind of effort to address climate change but not being able to do so on a bigger scale like we couldn't with the California admission standards and trying to do that in Connecticut by 2035.

So I guess I'm trying to say in some drawing out wakes I'm trying to understand it.

Is there real political will behind climate change efforts?

You talked about pushing it sort of to the side.

Is this a real kind of change in these 2 bills or our climate activists worried about it?

> > Well, I I think there is definitely political well, and I think they're, you know, I think there's a the climate can become a very political issue as well and can become very partisan issue.

So a lot of compromise has to be made on that front.

And that was something.

And you know, that that looked that was very apparent this year that, you know, they were they were working, you know, in a lot of ways, both sides were working really well together.

And I think that, you know, when you talk about the political will, I mean, are you saying like now you answer the right away.

I want to understand.

I'm just trying to figure it out.

From my perspective.

I wanted to see if this was kind of a good thing or a bad thing.

It's just a bad thing.

But > > when you're talking about when you talk about climate change that you're talking about having some kind of meaningful change instead of kicking the can down the road.

And when you talk about this being a compromise, it helps me understand that the that the bill can be seen by people that care about the environment as a good thing because compromises were made.

So it seems like a he did help me get to the new out there.

Every state Alex, let's pivot to Connecticut's affordable housing crisis which continues to be a big talking point every year at the state Capitol that any major housing bill is passed through the session this year.

> > They're Probably the most significant housing legislation.

And in years it could take a whole other hour to explain everything that's in the the sort of thrust of it is encouraging in different ways not requiring but encouraging towns some for more affordable housing.

That Bill is kind of in limbo right now as we wait to see what the governor is going to do, it seems like instead of signing it or vetoing it and having it not be the end of the story, there's going to be some sort of compromise there are certain provisions in the bill that the governor does not like.

And it's starting to sound like there's going to they're going to be some maneuvers eliminate those provisions.

But as written, I think this bill, I mean, it's pretty similar to what the killer was just saying about housing.

I'm sorry about This bill would not be every last thing that that housing advocates wanted.

It was certainly I you know, there are a lot of compromises along the way to get here.

But it's been a while since Connecticut had anything of this scale.

And it'll be interesting to what happens next for the high lob sort of a flimsy softball.

> > at the Kayla second ago with the question that I let me do the same to you here.

Help me understand In terms of this legislation is gonna look more like work live right after they're done with it.

I guess so.

Are we going back to more transit oriented development versus making some more meaningful change?

And I guess affordable housing or do we know anything yet again before that?

That's a good question.

Work live ride on, which is the transit oriented development concept is in the bell.

> > There are sort of a bunch of different provisions.

There's also a provision that the governor introduced that would basically tell towns you can designate these these specific development zones and be a little bit more permissive about Watkins constructed in those zones.

And in exchange, we'll kind of go easy on you when it comes to some of the other regulations that was kind of a controversial proposal because it both encouraging towns to build more housing, but also easing up on the regulation around affordable housing.

In other ways, this sort of central component that people may be heard about where towns are given an allotment there was a study that calculated up.

It's sort of divided up the housing need across every town in Connecticut.

Lawmakers that divide that by 4 to make it a little bit easier and then gave each town an allotment that is the part that the governor does not like and that a lot of Republicans also don't like and some Democrats and they're both county in particular.

This has been a very controversial.

It's not that times would have to build or necessarily even zone for those units.

But if they did so, they would be prioritized for some state funding work live right?

Transit-oriented development Micaela does have something to do with climate change initiatives.

Can you help us understand that?

> > Yeah.

Yeah.

Like like Alex is talking about and we would encourage Eunice apologies to build more housing near public transit buses, trains and I think, you know, bottom line is to encourage less of a reliance on cars, which in turn, you know, contribute a lot of them.

Many of them yeah, contribute to our greenhouse gas emissions which making our climate warm up even faster and transportation is the biggest contributor in Connecticut to greenhouse gas emissions.

And I think the zoning changes are also intended to help, you know, talking about using our land in better ways like converting industrial or commercial buildings into housing that have been building new everywhere.

And and there was also, you know, talk about planning development.

There is also a new plan.

Conservation development that was passed this session and climate was baked into that in a major way is about so lot of climate or into thinking.

I legislation I got to ask you guys about something that might also have some climate initiative kind of things in there as well or at least it involves a energy or excuse me, the environment and kids and > > conservation efforts.

I just got to ask out quickly, are you hearing anything about the hospital tax coming up in the special session?

This is something Republicans have pushed by.

Democrats don't really want to talk about.

Is there an issue with this hospital tax?

What you think?

Are you hearing anything about yet?

That is not my area.

> > Expert who?

Yes, but I think we're still kind waiting may be.

Miguel has a better answer.

I waiting I think it's gonna happen with the special session.

I haven't heard as much out.

I just want to see if you just thought we're at.

We're on the same page there.

Hey, let's go here quickly.

I think Alex could start us off here because I want to ask you about.

> > Black bear season growing cries for bear hunts recently.

There's a connection with deep.

Okay.

Like and have you explore.

But it do you think we'll hear anything about bears in the special session?

You think this is something that could come up next year?

> > It's definitely going to keep coming up as long as people keep having bears in their backyards and sometimes in their house.

it's going to continue.

Coming you know, the idea of bear Hunt is very polarizing, strong opinions all around on that there.

It looks on the last day that session like there might be at least a study to look into different remedies.

You know, people talk about, you know, bear awareness and trash cans that are harder for bears to get into it.

But you may be something to try before we start shooting the bears depending who you ask they're definitely going to continue to be ideas bounce around on that ballot.

Spider-man's Bear aware.

I want to know if Micaela Sav it is.

So we have that deep connection with Katie D****.

It sounds like > > At least endorsed the idea she's.

of a limited hunting season like messages and York.

So what do you think that goes anywhere?

Do you think that she has the ability to kind of it effectuate change.

There.

What are you and Patrick Scahill, who's our digital editor here.

What are you guys hearing about possible bear on in the future?

Will deep does not have the authority the.

> > allow their hind that the final version of the bill.

There was a lot of changes in the last couple weeks.

But the final version would have like Alex had allowed to study and a small version, a small part of the bill would have said, hey, and you know, if we were to do a bear hunt for the purposes of public safety, what would that look like?

A previous version would have allowed the governor to declare you would have allowed the governor to directly to make rules for a bear hunt.

I believe something along those lines.

Thank you for clearing that up.

I appreciate so.

That may be some encouragement from Katie D****.

You've been listening to Alex Parliament reporter for CT Insider.

Alex, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

It's always so good to see you.

We've also been listening to McKayla Savitz State government reporter for Connecticut Public.

became so great to have you on.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming by in studio today.

Show produced by Chloe when it was edited by Patrick Scale.

Our technical producer is Jean Amateur.

Do we also had help today from Robin Doyon Aiken and Nick Fitzgerald download the Wheelhouse anytime on your favorite podcast app.

Thank you.

To our visual steam, a Connecticut Public and are obscene on Frankie Graziano.

This is the Wheelhouse.

Thank you for listening.

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