On the Record; 712

The following is a sci fi TV original. You know. I'm Bob Douglas and welcome to On The Record the 1993 session of the Connecticut General Assembly is now officially underway into the key leaders join us on this week's program. We welcome the new speaker of the State House of Representatives Thomas Reiter of Hartford. He's a Democrat and he'll be serving in his seventh term. We welcome back to our program state Representative Edward Corkey Jr. Bristol is the House minority leader and he will be serving in his eighth term. Joining us today is Lisa Marie Payne who is the state capitol bureau chief for The Associated Press. To both of you thank you for joining us and thank you for being with us for our first program a pleasure Mr. Speaker.

Governor Riker opened with a plan a proposal a process or two. Have the legislature take a close look at his or a proposed school desegregation plan. It's been called bold and brave. Some other critics have called it something else. What are you surprised at the governor's proposal in lieu of the economic problems that face Connecticut in his State of the state address and your reaction to what he had outlined. Well I think he should have focused on both education and the budget so to that extent I was surprised but related specifically about the education proposal. I welcome the challenge I wish there was more specifics I wish that he'd gone a little bit further in terms of how his approach would be. But in general I felt on this issue and many other complex issues the legislature advocates his responsibilities I think none of us would like to see the courts fill in for our role and if we don't get involved at this early level then we will once

again abdicate a tough responsibility too. Our courts and as you know in Horton v. Mesko they called education a fundamental right here in Connecticut as opposed to the federal Constitution. So we really have our our business cut out for us. And I for one exception appreciate the challenge of working on education rather than leaving to the courts and represent of course a serious proposal or a deflection from some of the other problems of facing you and your colleagues in the legislature. Well Bob I'll tell you I've heard a lot of the criticism that the governor is a master of the smoke and mirror routine and there are those that were talking in the Capitol about the fact that he floated out this education idea to get us off the the budget problems that we have and apparently the numbers are getting bigger rather than smaller and that's a serious concern to all of us. I was rather disappointed that he didn't spend more time talking about things like the budget the taxes in the state of Connecticut jobs the economy and things but let me tell you the governor feels very near and dear to children and children's issues in that regard I'm not at all

surprised that he floated his idea when he did. There are some outside of the arena who have now told me that even Attorney General Blumenthal might have been asking for that kind of a budget message as an assistant in the case that he's trying presently So in that regard I'm not at all surprised the governor delivered a pretty good rhetorical speech. But boy it was real thin and detail and you know he sort of left it all to us to explain for the next couple of weeks what might or might not occur and that will be very difficult. The office of the governor's office is telling us that it will be probably two or three weeks before his proposal is is prepared by Commissioner fair and you know so I'm anxiously awaiting that information but there's an awful lot of talk show hosts out there and radio shows and TV shows and people and writers you know guessing about what this plan will mean in the future it's it's a very difficult item for us to talk on the groups with the speaker the governor suggested yesterday at a news conference that this proposal or process that he put on the table is not about bussing.

Is it about bussing. Well actually I hope it's more about the property tax system. When you start talking about an equal education it starts with property poor towns versus property rich towns until we figure out how to lessen the impact. Property tax has and education will continue to flounder in this area so again my hope would be that as we continue to find solutions we focus on the property tax. I always believe that that's the most that's really the worst tax in Connecticut for our residential taxpayers as well as our commercial taxpayers and has an undue influence on unequal education. Is this plan or process going to go anywhere this session. I'll tell you. It has all the potential of of making the debate about the income tax look like a day in nursery school. This is one where parents feel VERY that the thing that's nearest and dearest when you put it that way I guess to parents hearts is their children. And when you begin to play around

with their children they begin to get extremely involved. In my experience has been as a young father believe me I know I'm paying very close attention to lots of things. I think it has the potential for complete fire firestorm across the state of Connecticut and the quicker the governor comes out with some details about what he really does have in mind I think the better off we're going to we're all going to be. I hope his his discussion really was about equal education opportunities all of us favor that all of us favor parental involvement. And I thought he was very very thin about how he wanted to involve parents in that process. And this thing will fail and fail miserably unless he brings those people to the forefront. That having been said we do want to provide equal opportunities for all our children and state of Connecticut from cities and those who aren't from cities. We need to make sure that those opportunities are always looked at and done in the fairest way so I think our education chairmen and ranking members and members of the

committee have their work cut out for them and I think they'll be prepared to roll up their sleeves and work with the executive branch in trying to come up with a meaningful solution to the problem. The governor says he doesn't believe that sanctions are necessary to carry out this plan which is still in the making. That the threat of court action is enough of an incentive to get the local communities off the dime. Do you think that is it that simple or what what kind of sanctions or incentives do you think are necessary. I don't I don't at all agree. I think that there will be very few people opting into any plan unless there's something that either encourages them or whacks them across the head to do it. And if it's to be an enticement you know a carrot to bring them into the system. That generally means money. And that was one of the things I commented about right after the governor's speech. I didn't hear how he would fund this process or make this process work in a more reasonable fashion. And until I hear those kinds of details I think he may be forced into the sanction department

somewhere down the road. It will be curious to see how people get involved and how they opt in to any kind of a plan. One of the things that really troubles me about the regions that he selected was that it was based on health service delivery. But that doesn't have anything in particular to do with education the reason those those areas were set up originally was based on where hospitals are located in the state so that you know people can come in from the outlying areas to to the major facilities around our state which is really small but doesn't have any DO IT education facilities and the ability to deliver those kind of services so I was a little troubled by that comment. So there's a lot of details that I think the executive branch now has to come to the table with and my hope is that he'll do it very quickly. And I agree with Ed but I the one thing what which should be occurring now I wish it occurred prior to the speech is that people understand why we are all in this together I think once people appreciate whether you're West Hartford or hard for as I said on opening day you know our goal is to have someone at Simsbury be as well educated as someone in Hartford or vice versa but

we have to have people to understand why we need to do this and why it's important for all of us. And I think I would much prefer to spend our time educating the communities as to what we have what our common interests are and that he will be much easier to go forth with what he was saying. On the budget front the governor seemed to indicate we talk to you about that. He seemed to indicate that it would he be willing to expand the goods subject to the sales tax. Is that something that you see being acceptable to the legislature. I would say that our goal is to pass a budget without any revenue increases. What I would like to do is what my plan we should and two years ago and that is pare the budget as much as humanly possible and I think we all agree that the pretty bare bones budget as it is but I think our focus has to be on reducing expenditures and saying you know we just can't we have to make priorities. And I don't want to have any discussion of revenue increases until we go through that exercise. I have

to tell him this. This is this is too reminiscent of two years ago for my liking and I I think we have not really spent any time as a legislator trying to reduce the budget. We have always played around the issue and we have always said that we were making reductions and requested increases and we call those things cuts but the budget the state of Connecticut for all intensive purposes has increased dramatically over the last five or six years. We have got to begin the process of convincing the public that their expectations must be lowered. I think this election sort of forced that debate out there and I dont think any broadening of the sales and let me just say this the governor used a certain definition of what taxes were when the discussion about an income tax or a net income tax. And I was very involved in the non income tax side of the ledger when we were trying to put our budget proposals together and we were broadening the base a little bit to try and bring in some revenue. Governor so that's a tax increase not

acceptable. I want him to know that I remember the definition and the definition is the same today as it was when he set the definition. From my vantage point and I won't tolerate that and I don't think the Republican caucus will and I think the General Assembly as a whole wants a revenue neutral budget and they will be looking for the first time I think that real serious reductions in services and I will tell you this I expect the governor when he comes in on opening night or for his budget message to come in with some horrifying cuts I think he will take large blocks and make the cut with an axe just cutting away at major departments and I would be very worried if I were in the health care industry I'd be really worried in some of the education provider areas. And I think that's that's the kind of thing that the discussion is going to center around and that will make talking about taxes almost look easy because many start cutting someone's program people everywhere begin to get all riled up so be very very difficult battle I think Liz.

Do you expect though that the freshman class which now represents a third of the legislature will be too idealistic at this stage to accept cuts like that. I think we're going to have a baptism by fire and they may be ideological about whatever it is that they believe. But I think the practical reality will set in very rapidly. I think they are seeking as much information as as is possible. I am extremely impressed with my freshman and frankly don't know enough of the Democratic freshman yet to make a judgment on all of them but our freshman I am very impressed at their willingness to roll up the sleeves and learn. They are the people who observed some of the worst times in government service during the last couple of years and yet they put their names and their and their you know reputations on the line. So they obviously care deeply about the state of Connecticut and I think this freshman class will lend an awful lot to the entire debate about how the budget and taxes and the like will be a four million estate.

Mr. Speaker many in your own caucus ran for re-election and obviously were successful your party remains the majority party in the State House and also in the state Senate. Many ran to repair and improve flying to whatever you want to use to describe what may or may not happen to the income tax law that is now on the books. What kind of a repair package would you like to see. And is it going to be possible to repair the income tax without raising somebodies taxes. Because any time that you do you repair what you it's really a shift is what what it is and what the Democrats have stated in caucuses our goal is to give meaningful tax relief to middle income wage earners. You know we already have the exclusion for the for lower income residents of Connecticut. And our goal is to do middle income tax relief obviously in order to give the deductions to people in certain places. It has to be replaced by revenue somewhere else. So our goal is again to do it revenue neutral so it really is a reform and not an add

a tax burden to the state as a whole. But clearly there will be some winners and some losers. And our goal is have the middle income wage earners be the winners and not at the same time not to do in such a burdensome way that we really are you know hitting the people as Governor Walker says you know just because they're successful. You're going to have any problems with some of your more liberal or progressive members of the caucus. Some have suggested that maybe a tax increase might be possible this year because of the kinds of cuts that all of you are going to be looking at. Well first of all we agree as a caucus that our first job is to repair the income tax and that's going to be done is not done by early February. I want to abandon that effort and then we'll just go right to straight finance package and we'll worry about that in May. So we're going to try to do our best hopefully working in cooperation which we've been very good. We really want to work as closely as possible with the and his caucus and we have very good working relationship but our goal is to do it early to repair it or not do it at

all. And it's not going to be if we do it early it has to be revenue neutral. That's the way you repair something. So you want to see a tax package repaired or otherwise by February and if not well then we're going to do it and then if not then we'll be partly consideration of the big tax package finance package that only comes in May and we just say too in terms of you ask about problems with progressive. We don't have the word adjective in front of Democrat the more we do not have we have a Democratic caucus all the splinter groups are now working together. We understand that only by working together can we have a caucus that means something. And the Democratic caucus means something again. And you're confident you can hold it together. I sure am. OK. A repair package that I have to tell you I think it's got very serious problems right now only because of the diversity of the members and their points of view. There is clearly a large segment still of the house make up that want to see

a repeal vote of some type. I will tell you that I don't know that there are the requisite number of votes to overcome a gubernatorial veto which obviously will come. So there is I think some feeling that. Why should we waste our time if you can't muster the requisite number of votes. And I'm sympathetic to that theory. The other day at the Finance Committee there were six different proposals raised to review in this process of trying to create tax simplification from my vantage point I would like to make it a simpler tax system. We have one of the more complex systems now of any state on the face of the you know the union. And if we don't do something about that the public will continue to be more and more angry. I want to see a system that that brings into account some of the issues atime mentioned earlier. For example property tax credits I think that's essential. We need to be dealing with mortgages and the costs of mortgages to homeowners middle income wage earners health care costs child care costs those things are all issues that

need to be dealt with. And if the votes are going to be there to repeal this tax and it clearly is where I. Base are where I come from. I don't think we ought to be just sitting back and saying no no no we ought to be working together and I expect that given that backdrop we will do something but whether it can be done by February I'm not anywhere near sure and I think it probably will just come into play when the big tax packages is being talked about with the budget. What about the chances of a bipartisan repair package. We're talking cooperation at least here. Well I can tell you that everything that I thought I would be part of I would hope would be bipartisan and we as I said opening day we accept the burdens of governing we share. And we would share that responsibility with anyone in. And I think you can see that we have a good working relationship. There's no premium of ideas of one party versus the other. We have some sort of basic tenets that our party has the post of their party but that doesn't mean that good ideas don't come from either side of the aisle and any good

idea no matter who it comes from. I will I will work with that person. This is why if you're much more amenable to the idea of an income tax preparer Do you still want to have a vote on repeal. I did say I was more amenable to it I said as a practical matter Lisa if the votes aren't there then you have to go about doing the business of the people of the state of Connecticut. And there's a big difference between saying OK now I'm all happy and you know I had my big fight and you know I. I don't view this as I'm going to take my ball and go home if I have the opportunity to call some plays and you know it doesn't work. Well then you go on and you have to. You have to do the business of the people of the state of Connecticut and that's what my caucus has been telling me this year they said there are a number of our members that still want to have a vote on repeal as I know there are those members of times caucus that want to have a vote on repeal because they campaigned on it. There is a there is a bond between an elected official and their constituents when they campaign on an issue. They they put their name their

reputation on the line and they say I will try to do X Y or Z in this case there are a goodly number of members that have said I don't think this is the right tax system for the state of Connecticut So that's important first to deal with. If that fails and I'm not at all convinced right now that there's enough votes to have this thing passed so that would infer that it will fail then I think we need to be looking at how to make this system simpler and easier for people to deal with. My vantage point on that is that it has to include things like property tax credits. It must include the heavy burden that our middle income wage earners have to pay their mortgages to to pay for their childcare with two working parents too to have that item included is is essential along with the mortgage deductions and to have health care dealt with we've got to deal with the major issues as individual taxpayers are struggling to make ends meet. So with that backdrop it is essential I think for us to be cooperative in trying to reach a consensus.

And I think that with that backdrop we can be cooperative in trying to work something through the General Assembly. Tom are you willing to allow a repeal vote in the house. Sure I do. I don't view my role as blocking anything. If people want to have a repeal vote I will make sure you know if I have to sort a bill I will make sure that people who have the ability to express their philosophy I think that's my job. You have a reputation of being on time and you talk about this legislature hopefully working more efficiently than maybe some of the legislators and legislatures in the past year have I going to do this thing you talked already with your chair people of your committees to limit the number who will make that process more efficient so you can limit maybe what hits the floor. I mean just even starting on time which the public may seem like something so small but you know those of us who are at the Capitol know that you started me at night it could start at 12:00 just in time theres no meeting there and we have to bring it back so fact I met with the chairs yesterday.

There are three that were not there in time and I chested. I really did I mean they they have to perform on time as a condition of their employment and if they cant do that they will not be there. So its important for every committee because we have to run professional and people who want bills and people who come to public hearings are our customers we have to treat them that way rather than people coming in and coming out and not starting on time. So we will what we also talked to with our chairs and vice chairs because a real team effort. Is that over January in February when there's not a lot of time on the floor. They can report out on limited number of bills but after that there will be a limited number of bills I will be giving each year that number and if the chairs go above that number then I'll choose which ones go to the floor. So we really have to clean up our act it's the general assembly is not efficient place and some part of my definition were inefficient in some areas but the places where we can clean up our act is a very important I will

be extremely strict when it comes to an orderly session. We've got about six minutes left and we haven't mentioned casino gambling one so let me. It's going to it's obviously been the headline issue before the session and it's going to be a headline issue during the session. Are we going to get legalize casino gambling in Connecticut before you folks go home in June. Well I'll tell you that's a that's a good question but I think the chances of passage of casino gambling is increasing as people begin to try to package it as an economic development tool not as economic development because I don't think it could ever be that night. I would hope people would stop trying to make believe that but as an economic development tool in an attempt to try and revitalize some of the areas of our state that have been devastated I think there are legislators that are beginning to say maybe we ought to consider this is as one of the options. I've been

listening carefully to the members of my caucus as as I try to learn where they really sit on this issue and I am getting the flavor that there are more and more of them who are inclined to perhaps vote in that direction. If you if a bill is brought to the floor I think this is a cleanout shall there be casino gambling I think it gets defeated out now. And I don't think anybody is even intending to try that stunt anymore. I think what really will happen is someone will come in with a pack and say if we are to have casino gambling and it's to be on. I mean you pick a location. Bridgeport waterfront or something like that. You might have a shot. And it has to do with coupling it with all of the other economic development tools that are out there and I know the governor doesn't support this concept at all. I know he will strenuously argue against it but I just think there may be activities at work that are just beginning to force legislators to look for other alternatives and it may be that it does pass. Well as you know I'm against any expansion of gambling. What I have my major concern right now at this stage of the

process and I think it's been expressed through my appointed Mary Frances the House chairman of Public Safety is that first of all this is not predominate the cession casino gambling. It's a serious proposal we have to deal with seriously. And I wanted to have a very strong highly ethical person be my representative to that issue but again not being so preoccupied that we don't deal with the veterans issues in the state police issues that come before public safety My other concern is making sure that all of our members deal with this in a very highly ethical manner. We this is something where as a leader of the House I think I know what he shares his concern. We just got to make sure that how we deal with this issue is extremely important. You see in a lot of other evidences in other states so we have to set the tone for how we deal with the issue and right now aside from my personal opposition to it that's my primary role. You see three minutes in it in the past you said that you were going to wait and see what your appointee to the task force Richard or you did before you came up with an opinion have

you. Well let me tell you what I did I and I did appoint Richard Gordon and I think he's one of the you know most outstanding ethical business men I've ever met and he reserved his judgment was under tremendous pressure I know because of a recent loan that the Wailers received so I just sort of added fire to his weighing out what was going to happen because it came through the obvious executive branch. Richard let me know how he was going to vote. I then said You know I put no strings on you when I appointed you so that's that's fine. I mean I'm asking him now to sit down with me and explain all of the different reasons why he came up with the decision that he did. I like time have been a opponent of casino gambling and I don't particularly feel very comfortable moving off of that position. But I think I owe it to all of the people that have studied this issue that panel did an outstanding job I think in looking at all of the various options. And I

will try to keep as open of mind as I can on the proposals that are really offered but I'm not ready to make a change in my opinion just yet. We've got about two minutes left. These are difficult times in the state of Connecticut you folks have to make some difficult choices this year. Are your constituents and do the constituents of the state of Connecticut have to appear have to be prepared to expect less from state government from your party which is in charge of the absolutely and what our goal has got to be is to continue to make government more efficient so that they are a more efficient we operate they more that they can receive. And that's where we have to focus in. And it's as Ed said is a very difficult decision he made and they will have to expect less. Is this going to be a positive session for business. Can business look forward to this session. Well I think so because especially small businesses are the ones who create the jobs. And we have to create jobs and we have to maintain jobs and create jobs that's our number one issue here.

So we have to focus on that area so the answers are resounding yes. What can business do you think he expects from the legislature and with the labor unions let it happen. Well I don't know. Labor unions are going to have anything to say about many of the proposals dealing with with economic development and Jack creation I think it's in their best interest to be overwhelmingly in support. The Republican Caucus voted very early on that this was an area of primary concern it's a reason why we came out with a you know a job an economic blueprint back in November. I wanted to see the state of Connecticut move very rapidly in the direction of agreeing on all of the various components that we could agree on and I just wanted everyone to know where the Republicans were coming from at least in the house because many of those proposals have now been you know given the blessing by the executive branch I know the Democratic leadership has seen many of those and agree that they make sense so I think it's something that we're going to see an awful lot of movement on. We all recognize we have to make Connecticut a magnet for manufacturing jobs in the future and hopefully to be a very successful session.

Gentlemen thank you we're out of time Mr. Speaker you haven't broken any gavel as yet we have to wait I say I hope I don't have to. Thanks for joining us. Not bad. I guess have been House Speaker Thomas Reiter Democrat of Hartford. And our thanks to State Representative Edward quicky of Bristol the minority leader. And to Lisa Marie pain Associated Press and Bob Douglas join us next time for another interview on the record.