We are living through extraordinary times. The global pandemic threatens our health and has created widespread economic insecurity. Americans are taking to the streets to demand an end to systemic racism. Social media fuels anxiety by bombarding us with contradictory and unreliable information, often intended to scare and divide us. Stable, well-functioning state government has proven itself as a vital bulwark against the chaos sowed by the federal government’s actions.

The moment calls for steady leadership, communication that is accurate, timely and helpful, and a full-time commitment to the needs of our region.

My style of leadership is to make connections, not exploit divisions.

An example: When leaders and residents in Sharon raised concerns about the Governor’s decision to convert the local nursing home, Sharon Health Care Center, into the state’s first Covid-19 recovery center, I communicated those concerns and the plan was delayed. Then, after further study confirmed this could be done safely and before the transfer of patients began, I gathered several of the state’s leaders on this issue to join a Sharon town meeting on Zoom to answer questions and explain precautions being taken.

An essential part of my job, especially now, is keeping constituents informed, regardless of whether the legislature is in session. Since my term began, every week I have sent a video report and email newsletter to constituents, making them available on my website and through social media. During the current pandemic when information was changing rapidly, I have emailed the newsletter three times each week.

There will be tough conversations ahead and the Northwest Corner needs to have a seat at that table where the decisions get made. I have forged strong relationships with Connecticut’s legislative leadership and government officials in Hartford that have earned me that seat, reflected by my positions as an Assistant Majority Leader of the House and a Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee.

Streets and public squares throughout our country, state, and region are filled with people from all walks of life stepping up to demand change in the wake of the killing of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. Black and brown communities are clear that the pandemic of systemic racism is nothing new, but has held them back, sometimes brutally, for generations.

My own interest in criminal justice traces back particularly to my time as a federal prosecutor, where I had an opportunity to work with many dedicated law enforcement agents, and observed the disparate racial impact of the system first-hand. When I was elected to represent the 64th District, I asked for a seat on the Judiciary Committee. Having brought my own experience to conversations both with local police leadership and long-time racial justice activists in the legislature, I am proud to have helped shape legislation passed in a July 2020 special legislative session that will begin to address the disparate impact our current policing methods have on communities of color.

Among the important provisions of that legislation:

● Increases recruitment of minority officers, ensuring that police are a better reflection of the communities they serve;

● Adds training that will include implicit bias, de-escalation, and crowd control

● Studies the feasibility and impact of using social workers to respond to calls for assistance;

● Prohibits the acquisition of certain military-style equipment;

● Gives cities and towns an easier path to de-certify officers engaged in conduct unbecoming of law enforcement, such as using excess force or exhibiting racist behavior;

● Allows for independent investigations of deadly police shootings;

● Provides a limited civil cause of action where an individual’s civil rights have been violated by a police officer who did not have a good faith belief that they were acting within their legal authority.

I’ve been thinking a lot about two major narcotics investigations I worked on as a federal prosecutor. I won convictions in both, but I now feel the second was much more successful than the first because it actually improved conditions and made life better in the neighborhood in which the illegal activity had been taking place.

The first involved a large international heroin-trafficking ring based in New York’s Chinatown. Although almost all the defendants were Chinese speakers, only one of the dozen agents working the case was of Asian descent – and he was Korean. We learned very little about the community in which they were operating and had limited personal connection to those who cooperated to convict them.

The second was a Brooklyn-based crack ring. The lead law enforcement official was deeply connected to the Brownsville section of Brooklyn and knew many residents in the public housing projects there. I remember Lulu, one of our cooperators who was an addict and low-level dealer. Our group worked not only to get her testimony, but also to help her get clean of drugs and regain custody of her kids. Meanwhile, the two defendants going to trial had unequal roles in the criminal activity: one was the ringleader and the other was his worn-down uncle who, intimidated by his violent nephew, had not been able to stop him from occasionally meeting others at the house the uncle owned. For that “crime,” the uncle would lose his house to forfeiture if convicted. Our team knew that was the wrong result, so we were able to convince him to plead guilty to a low-level marijuana charge (the only marijuana charge I ever brought), so that he could avoid forfeiture. I left that case not just with convictions, but with the sense that we’d really helped people, and a neighborhood.

No one should have to risk their health in order to exercise their right to vote. I applauded the Governor for issuing an executive order that, in the absence of a coronavirus vaccine, anyone who wished to vote by absentee (in other words, by mail) could do so for the August 11 primary. In a special session on July 23, I proudly joined my colleagues in the House of Representatives in passing a bill that would extend that to the general election on November 3, which the Senate passed the following week and has since been signed into law by the Governor.

This issue goes beyond the current pandemic. Connecticut has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country, limiting voting to a single day, and restricting access to absentee ballots to those with a qualified “excuse.” Moreover, we have enshrined these restrictions in our state constitution, making them cumbersome to change.

In 2019, we passed legislation allowing for early voting, which is the first step toward amending our constitution: we must pass it again in 2021 in order to put the question on the ballot for all voters to weigh in. We need to do the same thing for absentee ballots in order to expand access to the polls and allow more people to vote by mail.

Voting by mail, with appropriate safeguards, is safe and secure. Several states have been using it for years. A recent study looking at more than 14 million votes cast by mail found only 372 potentially fraudulent votes, or 0.0025 percent.

Current technology enables us to make this process even more secure. We have watched recent primaries in other states, with not enough polling places, machines that voters and poll workers did not know how to use, poll workers too worried to show up, and absentee ballots that were not mailed out, all making it dramatically more difficult to vote. We must ensure this does not happen in Connecticut, in August, in November, and in future elections.

The Covid-19 pandemic exposed glaring weaknesses in our healthcare system. It has claimed more than 4,200 souls in Connecticut, strained our ability to adequately protect our doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers, and upended everyone’s daily lives.

Tackling these weaknesses must be our top priority. That starts with ensuring that everyone has access to good, affordable care. As I’ve learned from fighting for a “public option” in Connecticut -- that would allow small businesses and nonprofits to buy into the same insurance system that state employees benefit from – entrenched interests make this a tall order. I pledge to continue that fight.

In our special session in July, we passed two important healthcare bills. The first reined in the costs of insulin and related-supplies by capping costs at $150 per month - we were the first state to do that. The second expanded access to telehealth, a critical resource extended during the pandemic that was so successful we have made it a permanent part of healthcare, increasing access to a wide range of medical professionals by video or telephone-only platforms. In 2019, we passed legislation that expanded Medicaid coverage, protected those with pre-existing conditions, and ensured that insurance companies cover mental as well as physical health needs.

It also means protecting healthcare workers, who have been recognized as “essential” during this pandemic -- not just doctors and nurses in our hospitals and nursing homes, but aides, janitorial staff, and home healthcare workers. Honoring them with hearts and parades is nice, but the legislation I supported and we enacted in 2019 to raise the minimum wage and provide them with paid family medical leave is critical to their economic security.

Protecting public health also means continuing to enhance gun safety in Connecticut. In 2019, I supported legislation to strengthen safe gun-storage laws and ban ghost guns. In 2020, before the pandemic hit, we were working to strengthen Connecticut’s “Extreme Risk Protection Order” (or ERPO) laws. These laws save lives by creating a legal mechanism, with due process protections, for anyone to warn the police about a person they believe is at risk of imminent harm to themselves or others and who may have access to firearms. If police find a risk of imminent harm, they can ask a judge to issue a “risk warrant” allowing firearms to be removed. Proposed legislation would have allowed family members or medical professionals to approach a court directly, and would have prevented firearm purchases as well.

We must also protect our children’s health. I supported legislation that passed in 2019 to raise the age of purchase for tobacco and vaping products to 21. As schools reopen while the pandemic is still with us, we must also ensure that we protect students, teachers, and staff from infection as we re-tool schools to provide adequate social distancing, ventilation, and high- quality remote learning for those who cannot, or choose not to, return in person. It also means continued vigilance and discipline on protocols for how to handle infections as they arise.

Covid-19 is still with us and likely will be for a long time. A top concern for me is ensuring our state remains at the forefront of providing personal protective equipment and other support for all healthcare workers, helping businesses manage the process of protecting their workers, helping schools protect their teachers, students and staff, and ensuring that our elderly and at-risk populations have access to the resources they need.

When I was elected in 2018, it was clear Connecticut had work to do to get its fiscal house in order. I supported tough legislation that took the first necessary steps in 2019, all of which passed without a single Republican vote:

● We passed a balanced budget, on time.

● We restructured pension liabilities to make them more sustainable, without raising tax rates or pushing pension costs onto our towns.

● We increased Connecticut’s Rainy Day Fund to an all-time high of more than $3 billion, placing us among the top 10 states in the country for the size of that cushion relative to our overall budget.

● We protected that Rainy Day Fund when Republicans wanted to spend it on infrastructure and other initiatives. It is a critical buffer for us in what is clearly a rainy day for our economy.

One of our challenges in Connecticut is high levels of income inequality: all of the economic benefits from the last recovery went to the top income bracket. The pandemic has not been even-handed, either, with economically vulnerable communities hit much harder than others. As we craft future budgets, and rebuild our economy post-pandemic, we must create structures that make it possible for all of us to participate in that rebuilt economy. That means building the framework to create good, stable jobs, and ensuring access to healthcare, to a quality education, to affordable housing.

I pledge to continue the hard work of keeping our fiscal house in order. My role as Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee gives the Northwest Corner a powerful voice in the tough decisions that will be made in the months ahead to keep our state budget balanced while rebuilding an economy we can all participate in.

As we begin to bring the economy back from the sudden standstill inflicted by Covid-19, we need to provide resources for both businesses and workers.

One interesting place to start is the many executive orders enacted by the Governor during this pandemic. In speaking with local business owners and planning and zoning experts, I’ve learned that some of those executive orders have lifted onerous or highly variable regulations that used to make it hard for our Main Street businesses to operate. In fact, fully 70% of the executive orders enacted during this public health emergency have eased restrictions, rather than increased them. I support making some of those orders permanent law.

We must also look at one of the biggest, fastest-growing costs our local businesses face: healthcare. I will continue to push for the creation of a “public option” in CT that would allow small businesses and nonprofits to buy into the same system that state employees benefit from. This would be good both for employers that struggle to afford healthcare for their valued employees and for the workers they employ.

Farms are a critical part of the economy, culture, and public health in the Northwest Corner. Local dairy farms, in particular, have been hit hard by the pandemic, disruptions to the food chain, and inequities in the distribution of federal benefits which have favored large industrial farms over the smaller family farms in our region and throughout the Northeast. I fought to ensure the preservation of Community Investment Act Funds set-aside to support dairy farms, and look forward to supporting their interests before both the Appropriations and Environment Committees.

The environment is part of our cultural heritage in the Northwest Corner: it’s what connects many of us to this region. Our cleaner air and water are also economic assets that many local businesses and farms rely upon to survive. Our parks, protected lands and state forests bring much-needed tourist dollars to the Northwest Corner and have provided a sanctuary for us during this time of anxiety.

A healthy environment is crucial to our own health. We now know that the pandemic strikes harder at those living with dirtier air. The very ones who benefit most from activities that pollute and degrade the air, the land and the water are the least likely to bear the burdens that result. Once done, that harm is hard and sometimes impossible to repair. For these reasons, it is the responsibility of our government to step in and protect our environment for the common good.

The current federal administration has shown no interest in that, and in fact has worked relentlessly to rip down environmental protections and to hide and even excise from its own agencies the scientific body of knowledge that underpins policies to protect the environment and reduce the most drastic effects of climate change. It is critical that the state continue to act to protect clean air, clean water, open space, and family farms.

I support legislation that will attempt to slow climate change by speeding up the shift to renewable energy and looking at structural changes such as not building more gas pipelines and tightening restrictions on leakage from those pipelines.

In 2019, I supported legislation that protected Community Investment Act Funds, which provide significant support for dairy farms, open space, and affordable housing, from being swept into the general budget.

I joined with another regional legislator to propose and pass a law to provide support for air-quality monitoring for towns at risk from the Cricket Valley plant in New York and followed through to make sure those resources were available to all towns in the region.

I was able to get the Housatonic Railroad to agree, for the first time, to stop spraying in sensitive areas along the railbed by bringing together stakeholders from the Department of Transportation, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the railroad, and local elected officials and property owners from the impacted towns.

And, helped along by some powerful advocacy from local students, I championed legislation that banned the single-use plastic bag. Of course, we have had to be flexible on that during the pandemic, but that shows that our government can adapt when situations change.

Before the 2020 session was cut short by the pandemic, I was working on an update of the state’s bottle bill, designed to increase recycling of glass and plastic containers, reduce costs for municipalities, and support redemption centers and the people they employ throughout the region. We face a serious issue in how our towns will deal with solid waste moving forward as our regional waste-processing plant (known as “MIRA”) has hiked fees to try to cover hundreds of millions of dollars in needed maintenance and upgrades. That plant, under current conditions, only expects to be able to operate until 2023. We will need an all-hands-on-deck approach if we are to avoid shipping our solid waste to landfills in other parts of the country. This should include both waste reduction strategies, and investment in alternative strategies such anaerobic digestion.

The pandemic has made it even more urgent to address an impediment to attracting families to live full-time in our region: lack of robust digital connectivity. When our schools had to close and switch to distance learning because of the pandemic, suddenly students had unequal access to an education. When businesses shut their doors and directed employees to work from home, some of us just could not do that. The internet connection at my house, for example, could not handle the combined demands of me, my husband and my two children who were back home after college campuses closed.

Zoom or other online video conferencing has become the norm in many places to connect with family, friends, co-workers and fellow volunteers on ongoing projects. Some people I know have to drive to the town library and park outside to get a strong enough Wi-fi signal to participate in these meetings. Quick access to sound information has been a critical priority during the pandemic, and the need to connect in this way is probably here to stay. Businesses are now building in more work-at-home positions. Online learning is likely to remain a component of our children’s education, as well as for post-secondary job training and community college courses.

Telemedicine became one way for people with chronic conditions to check in with their doctors during the past several months and, going forward, can help residents connect to specialists in other parts of the state or region. Real estate agents are reporting an uptick in interested buyers as people reconsider where they want to live. Wider availability of high-speed internet will help us attract families to our region.

In 2019, I led on legislation that would ensure towns could use existing utility poles to provide municipal broadband if they chose to do so. We shepherded the bill through two committees but could not get the Senate to vote on it. The courts then resolved the issue we were trying to address, overturning an earlier ruling and clarifying that municipalities do have the access they need. Now, I am working closely with the Governor’s office to build the political support and harness the necessary funding to bring more universal broadband service to the Northwest Corner.

Connecticut consumers pay the highest electricity rates in the continental United States. In July, ratepayers, including homeowners, renters, and small businesses in my district, were shocked by the astronomic increases suddenly reflected in their bills, particularly at a time when all are grappling with the economic crisis brought on by COVID-19. Then came Tropical Storm Isaias, which laid bare the failures of Eversource management to meet our basic needs, leaving vulnerable residents and critical infrastructure at risk.

It is clear that the current regulatory system is failing consumers and it is time to re-configure that system. I applaud current legislation proposed by the Energy & Technology Committee that would:

● Move toward a rate-making structure that is performance based;

● Limit executive compensation;

● Provide a bill credit to every ratepayer who loses power for more than 72 hours, retroactive to July 1;

● Compensate ratepayers up to $500 for spoiled food or medicine;

● Increase minimum staffing levels;

● Ensure the presence of a consumer advocate on electric utility boards.