On the Record; 621; Interview with Cornelius O'Leary and Jodi Rell

I'm Bob Douglas and welcome to On The Record Our guest this week our state Senator Cornyn Yes O'Leary he is the Democratic majority leader in the state Senate. And we welcome State Representative Jody rouse she is the Republican deputy minority leader in the state House of Representatives. And joining us is Bob King of the journal Inquirer in Manchester. To both of you thank you for joining us good to have you with us today. Senator Robb We'll start with you first. The assembly has concluded its regular session you're going to be going into a special session shortly hopefully to fine tune in to finish some budget implementation work rate the performance of the legislature. Well pretty good. You have to take it in context. I would say that if this were seven or eight years ago I would have rated the performance average nothing special given the fact that we're in part of this northeast slump. The defense industry thing down all of the economic woes that

visits upon the state of the state budget the very great difficulty much greater than we ever imagined of adjusting to a governor who is in on affiliated without a majority of support in either chamber or in the state for that matter given that context I would say that what the legislature has done to deliver a budget on time was an extraordinary achievement and I would give them fairly high marks for that. Representative rolls from the other side of the aisle. I'm just sitting here listening to con and I'd have to tell you that I'm disappointed in the results of the session. Certainly having a budget out this year was our number one priority and having it out on time and we did accomplish that there's no question about it. But the fact is that we are going back into special session. And in my eight years there while we've had an unusual year last year a special session to deal with basic cleanup bills implementing bills is really just out of the ordinary and it shouldn't have to take place

the last day of the session was chaotic at best. It was absolutely unnecessary debating on a bill that was going nowhere and to have to now ask the taxpayers to foot the bill for a special session to deal with things that should have been completed on that day. I'd have to tell you it gives me great disappointment in the overall progress of the legislative session this year. But I should point out by the way that Jodi is referring to the House and the Senate. We'll talk about that. The Senate didn't complete all of its business and I'm sure we can discuss the debate. We will and I like to ask about the income tax issue and how you think it might play in the fall of both of your leaders although you senator earlier have been have had differences from many of your more liberal counterparts. First Representative Rhyl the House Republican spent plenty of breath fighting so-called repair of the income tax in the last days of the session especially in the last day on the floor. What do you think the Republicans will say about the tax and about the whole issue during the

campaign. Well Bob speaking strictly for myself although I think I echo the views of many of my colleagues we are committed to repealing the income tax. We honestly believe however that we have to do it next year. That is our best chance and that is going to be the number one priority as far as the debate on repair of the income tax I don't think that the issue for Republicans by and large in the last hours of the session was to deal the issue of repair primarily However we did have amendments drawn to call for a referendum and for sunset on that tax as you know we debated some amendments passed some failed but the overall bill itself actually will not and has not been taken up cannot be taken up by the Senate so it's a moot issue at this point. I believe very strongly however that it will be an issue in the election this year people have not forgotten and I don't think they will forget. You think it will be an effective issue for the Republicans. I think that it will be an effective issue but I don't think it will be the single issue I think that what you also have to look at is not

just the income tax but the very liberal tax and spend philosophy that has brought us to the brink of having to need an income tax in the so-called minds of many individuals and I think that's going to be more of an important issue. What brought us there and it's that philosophy that has to be changed. Conway do you think that although you as I said you're a you have a different standard do you think the majority of Democrats will be saying about repairing repeal during the election campaign. Well I think the majority of the Democrats are going to have to get the truth out to the people. And the truth is that Connecticut is a low spending state. As a percentage of our peoples income we take the smallest percentage of virtually every state in the union with the exception of Alaska. Our spending per capita is among the lowest in the nation. There are many confusing figures that are put out by various people and they've got to be analyzed awfully carefully. For example

they indicate that Connecticut has a high number of state employees per capita. That's not true. Other states have a county form of government. Most other states have a county form of government and they don't count those employees. Connecticut does not have a county form of government and so you have to compare apples to apples. And when you compare the number of state employees in another state you've got to include their county employees as well. So when you do the thing correctly Connecticut is a state which has deserved a reputation for Yankee frugality. We have always had that there are some areas that we don't fund sufficiently. And I would cite the University of Connecticut and the higher education system as a prime example of that. There are other areas where we are generous. Our teacher salaries for example are among the highest in the nation. But I think that's appropriate. That's a cost which is shared by the municipalities as well. They pick up about half of that

state picks up about half an average. So I think that those are the the figures that people have got to get out to the public and explain that to them. The income tax of course I opposed the one that we had. People have got to explain that it's an issue on which reasonable minds can disagree. If the income tax is going to be repealed as the Republicans suggest then I think the voter has really got to ask what is going to replace it. Are you going to re-impose the dividends interest and capital gains tax which gave a measure of fairness and progressivity to Connecticut's sales tax based revenue stream. Are you going to leave that off. That's a critical question. The income tax however you see it as it has a Democratic majority liability during the upcoming campaign. Even though you opposed a specific tax that is now on the books you had it another plan but for those of your colleagues out there who voted for it many or at

least some already have announced that they plan to retire or not run. Is it a political liability. I think it is a political liability for any incumbent. Jody and I didn't support it. It's a political liability for us. We were there when a very difficult measure had to be taken not because the income tax is right or wrong but because it's a very difficult thing that people are unhappy with the incumbents who were there when it occurred whether they fought against it or whether they were for it are faced with a difficult situation nationally. I think incumbents are faced with a difficult political problem. Connecticut is no different. Of more Democrats supported the income tax clearly than Republicans but without Republican support. There would have been no income tax as well. So we are all in the stew so to speak. Are you in the stew.

Representative Riddle. I think I'm hit I think any incumbent is in the stew this year so to speak. But I would only point out that with the actions of an independent governor that lobbied very hard for the income tax and while con is correct there were some Republicans who helped to support that income tax I would point out that they're very disappointed in the measures that have been taken since then. And as we tried to point out to some members last year it's the handwriting is on the wall I think that we see first hand what's going to happen with an income tax as the repair measure the other night indicated it's going to be back to business as usual it's a new source of revenue for the state and we don't have enough in the present structure. Once again it will be tapped those who they feel can afford to pay. Consider a progressive income tax what you may but once again whether it's interest dividends capital gains or if it's a new level on the so-called wealthy of the state this is the issue that's going to throw those people who might have supported it in the past over the brink and not support it again. I think that we have to attack the very basic philosophy I get back to what Bob asked earlier and that is that you really have to get rid of the mentality that government can afford to

spend on every single program that is out there. Our business is not to continue to to perpetuate. Spending programs but to get spending under control and the sooner we do it the better off we'll all be. Jim is right. The spending is the fundamental issue. The difficult problem of the unaffiliated governor sticking very adamantly to his particular position compounds that the budget this year was pretty lean budget. In fact in the Senate when we brought the budget out and the Republican senators brought their amendment out to change it they didn't reduce the bottom line. They made no suggestion to reduce the budget any further. They wanted to rearrange some of the priorities they wanted to provide more money to slightly more affluent towns in the education spending formula. The Democrats were leaning a little more toward the cities

and the blue collar towns. That was our fundamental quarrel in the Senate. And I thought that the absence of Republican amendments to reduce the bottom line of the budget still further indicated that it probably is a pretty lean budget they didn't find areas that they felt they could slash. I point out that that was in the Senate. Speaking of the governor in Texas he recently said that his apology should increase their property taxes if they find that they're having trouble meeting programs due to cuts in state grants. I just want to ask each of you what you think is the scorecard on the legislature's attempts to help towns avoid large tax large tax increases. Well I thought that the governor's statement that the towns could increase taxes if they didn't feel the cuts were appropriate really revealed two things about the governor. First that he is a native of granite and grew up there and Greenwich has not had the problems that 95 percent of the rest of the towns have had. It's a very

fortunate time. It's a pay as you go town. They revalue their property on a yearly basis. That's a very expensive thing to do. It also revealed that he's been in Washington for 18 years while Connecticut has been going through a revolution of effort to reduce local property tax in when he was last in the general assembly of the state of Connecticut was paying $50 per pupil to the town's per head. This year we're spending nearly $5000 per pupil for head in the city of Hartford and in other places. So there's been a tremendous revolution in the base of the property tax in the big cities in the past 20 years since he's been in Washington has eroded to practically nothing. And in the past 10 years federal assistance to the state has diminished enormously. So this statement in the modern context the

present context look very callous and I think it's does reveal those two aspects of the governor. He's been away. I think that with all due respect to our governor that it would appear that he's speaking out of both sides of his mouth. I think that what we hear him say when things come from Washington or do not come from Washington it is you know how can they do that to us you know your mandate for us to do certain things on a state level and yet the federal government is not helping to support these mandates. And he fights and screams and kicks and crawls and then turns around and does the same thing to our municipalities and said Oh and by the way we're not going to help you pay for it but we want you to pick up the difference. You can't have it both ways. There was a lot of talk right after the governor's budget message back in February about helping the towns in terms of mandate relief and both parties talked a lot about mandate relief in the area of heart and eye protection and binding arbitration 40 hour work week House co-pay premium insurance for state employees.

And you could argue I guess see the way that not very much was done in the mandate relief area did not go far enough. Republicans made several men attempts this past week in the in the state house and they got nowhere. What about mandate relief and did the legislature do a good job. Did it go far enough in terms of helping the local municipalities representative grow. No they really didn't and in fact I would point out and you brought up several of the issues the heart and hypertension for example one of the things if you remember early on the governor speech he indicated that he was working towards or would be asking for a 40 hour work week in the co-pay et cetera. And it's ironic that last year with the passage of an income tax the governor's people were on the floor constantly. In fact it became an issue with those that they were. We almost want to get them to have lobbyist badge because they were in the General Assembly so much and they were begging and pleading with legislators at that time to support the governor. The governor came out early on and asked for the legislature to enact these mandate

reforms yet no one from the governor's office could be seen lobbying in favor of any of these reports we begged the governor's office to help in this issue. And it was it really felt fell on deaf ears. So I don't think they went far enough I think that many people on the other side of the aisle simply did not want to deal with some of those issues that traditional labor issues for example that would meet some resistance from from people who traditionally help them. And I think that that was certainly a factor. The governor's proposal and one that we put forward in the our alternative budget was to have controls as far as state employee cost to be effective in 1994. We weren't asking for changes to be effective immediately to plan for it at the expiration of current contracts. Again it met with total resistance so I think that we didn't do our job this year the legislature certainly could have done more. In fact one bill that came before the legislative management committee we were fortunate enough to get it out I believe convert it for it on an eight to seven vote was to control mandates by saying that you can't

impose a mandate on any municipality unless there's appropriate funding from the legislature. And while we've been talking about that for years it died on the calendar on the last day for lack of action. I think that we have to put our money where our mouth is and continue with that kind of approach next year. Mandy really. Well I want to quarrel with Jodie because I think that undoubtedly we didn't do enough for a number of people but what I will do is to point up and highlight what what accomplishments we have made in the area of binding arbitration which has been of concern to me. We made some modifications. We've now brought the town and the town can reject the arbiters award and then that bumps it up to another level so that I think has been some help and will probably bring a little bit of realism into the process. The heart and hypertension issue we have introduced the idea that the town can rebut

the presumption that somebody has gotten their heart attack or their problem purely because of their job. Now you can bring in the factors such as their diet their weight their habits whether or not they smoke whether or not they get exercise. And that's those are two things that will help this process. I'm sure that for some that doesn't go far enough. There are some who would like to see you know heart hypertension or no binding arbitration. I understand that. The legislature once again this time failed to enact any auto insurance reform and one theory why this happened was that there was an inability of two special interest the insurers and the trial lawyers to agree. Similarly a compromise between health maintenance organization on hospice and hospitals on open negotiations of hospital rates also didn't come up for a vote. I'm just wondering. I know there may not have been a groundswell on either of these two issues and I understand alleged they just closed the deal basically

with budget items but if you see these issues as favoring consumers wouldn't you say that the legislature might be able to get you know between these parties and kind of forge a compromise and try to deal with these issues. I think that that may happen. It's unfortunate when the legislature has to do that has to step in between two warring parties. I think we would prefer to have them find the middle ground themselves rather than have the legislature impose something on them. And you're correct there is a great battle out there and it's going to continue to grow hotter between the insurance companies and those who claim to be representing the consumers. The insurance companies feel that their reforms will save the consumer money. The people who present themselves as representing the consumers argue that it will only save the insurance companies the hassle of a lot of legal costs but not too much for the consumer. I think a lot of legislators are

confused and unsure at this stage of the game so that was why they didn't want to move forward. They want that battle to be a little more protracted and hope that they can sort truth from that. I think that's absolutely right and I'm kind of grinning to myself because there was as you know there was a bill that passed this year dealing with stalking. And you might have seen the side out in the halls that said attention lobbyist stalking is now a crime and connected with that that was one of the issues where lobbyist were very much involved as far as insurance reform and also you know of course with the the hospital cost. And there was no clear cut indication of where legislators stood. I mean it was an evenly divided issue and I think that there is a lot of information that was lacking. And I think we need more input before we can move forward. One of your colleagues on this very same subject earlier week said to me that she was very angry and frustrated over the fact that as a state representative she didn't even have a

bill before her for example on the oil reform issue that she could vote yes or no for she favor doing something for consumers back home and was very frustrated very angry over the fact that you had these two big lobbying forces working behind the scenes and because of then you didn't have a chance to and you didn't have a chance to vote on this issue can something be done about that and are you frustrated over the fact that an issue as important as that is you don't even have a chance to consider it. Well as I said that didn't especially bother me because I felt that I really didn't have the answer. And I think a lot of legislators felt that they did. They were not sure who was right and who was wrong. And so when you're not sure maybe it's better to push them outside the building and let them continue to battle it out in the legislature to study it and watch it. And when they feel that they've got a sense of who's right on this issue they'll bring it in and they'll pass a bill.

There was in a room I think Conn's right on this issue I think that you know I personally would like to have had a bill before me in fact we did have a bill. We obviously knew that they were going to be amendments to that bill that would go one way or the other. But because we really didn't have all of the information I think we needed to pass a decent bill and something that would be productive. I think it's best left until we can get to it. Following is the question of video slot machines now dead in 1992. I hope so. It seems to me that it would be I don't think there's a lot of desire to take it up. The problem that drove that. Well there are some I suppose who who like gambling and feel that it was an appropriate addition to the gambling we already have. They're arguing that since the casino opened up in Ledyard run by the Indian tribe that it's damaged the Highline telephone and they're afraid that the thees will close down and jobs will be lost. So they wanted to add something to them

to improve their business. But that's a very small minority of the legislature. I think that really what drove that issue was the desire to add money back to the budget in a painless way to help the distressed municipalities and the near disaster in West Haven. The near disaster in Bridgeport where they Bridgeport actually filed for bankruptcy underlines and highlights that. So I think that was the driving force. The budget that passed added some dollars back to the cities. I think that there will be a little additional struggle in the next few weeks on the budget to do more of that. That may satisfy the underlying driving force behind the video slots and I think that'll take the wind out of it. If you die yes. I don't have any qualms about letting it die and I guess I have to tell you that while the con has mentioned the

fact that it was promoted for he gave the two reasons. I would also point out that in order to try to get it passed many of the supporters talked about well let's change the funding mechanism so that all municipalities pick up some money and that's always enticing to you know to a legislator to be able to bring money back to that district. But frankly it doesn't carry a lot of truth to a lot of legislators. We see first hand that it's a dangle of a promise it's money for Brookfield or about the oil or what have you of maybe ninety thousand dollars this year. But what we see is that next year we need that money somewhere else and it's as quickly as it's given it would be taken away. And I think that many of us who've been there long enough believe that that's exactly what this was no more than an attempt to get your foot in the door. And I'm particularly glad to see that it did not pass the General Assembly this year. We have less than four minutes rather an inside baseball question if I could. A lot of the institutional problems in the last two sessions have come because of the amendment

process. I just wonder representative really you may be in the majority next time you're in leadership kind you may end up in leadership again in the Senate. Would you have any ideas about reforming the amendment process or making any sort of change that may bring a little more order to the process. Well you are right that it needs a good hard look. We were talking about this in the last days because I believe in the Senate. We had over 500 amendments introduced in three days an amendment for the audience an amendment. It can be a brand new bill. And there are very major a slight change a couple of brackets in a 25 page bill can make a big difference changing a SHALL to a May and to an OR that's very difficult work. We had three lawyers who were spending a terribly long day reading everything and as human beings I feel very bad for them at the end of the process they were

really wrung out. It doesn't give you a lot of confidence in what you're voting on when you're relying on these people to comb through to make sure they've found everything. I'm still I think one change that can be made that's very effective. Any bill that died in committee and a bill that died on the honor of another as an amendment to another bill should not be brought up as an amendment process I think that while well-intentioned if it didn't make it through the normal process and the normal channels it should not be allowed as an amendment to a regular bill period at least start there. We've got a couple minutes left. We have finished up this term of the General Assembly's got some more work to do. We mentioned that both of you had to work with and ministration headed by an independent governor. Take a minute each. We're going to have a new general assembly next year they'll be working with the same ministration. Does it work with an independent governor. It does not work very well.

The political parties were created those people who are students of history realize that the political parties grew up naturally to address a need and the need was that we have a separation of power in this country between the executive and legislative. That is a built in deadlock. The bridge to that became the political parties. George Washington and the founders of the country didn't necessarily want to see political parties but they very quickly realized that it was a necessity. The executive needed allies and there had to be a glue that pulled it together. They had to be something that forged discipline in a democracy you need discipline. The political parties played that role. It was a real happening because it worked well with all those it worked with and I think it got summed it up very well it does not work very well and while he's talking about bridges and what have you the very candid response to that is is that the governor should be the leader of one or the other party

in order to forge a relationship that will get the bills through the General Assembly and an independent governor while he likes to brag that he's independent while he likes to brag that he certainly has no ties. Politically the fact remains that he has to work both sides and in this case it's very difficult. We thank you both for joining us have a short special session. Thank you. We will help our guests today have been State Senator Cornyn your soul Larry he is the Democratic majority leader in the state Senate. And we thank State Representative Jordy Rowe the Republican deputy minority leader in the state House of Representatives. Our thanks to Bob King of the journal Inquirer and I Bob Douglas. Please join us next time for another interview on the record.