Voter Confidence Takes A Dive

Missing: Voter confidence, about 2 million strong, last seen sometime in January.

While faith in Hartford normally waxes and wanes, it’s dropped tremendously in recent months, said many legislators. They point to the unions’ failure to ratify a concession deal and higher taxes across the board as two main reasons for the dip. 

“In anecdotal encounters around Westport people are dismissive, if not derisive, of union leadership,” state Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, a Democrat representing Westport in the 136th House District, said. “They respect his [Malloy’s] determination to see this through. Their focus is that the unions need to get real and ratify this.”

From the start, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy talked about shared sacrifice in order to balance the budget. One great piece of that was getting at least $1.6 billion in union concessions. The unions rejected the deal late spring. In turn, Malloy said about 6,500 layoffs might be required to balance the budget. Many of those layoffs have started.

Then the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition and the governor announced a deal for another vote. Much of the original $1.6 billion concessions deal stays. Among other things, that deal included no longevity payments, hiring and firing freeze. But language about health care changes tweaked. That’s because when SEBAC rejected what many legislators from both parties and most of the public called a sweetheart deal they did so because of state concerns about health care.

That led to a crisis of confidence, said several lawmakers from both parties.

State Rep. Brenda Kupchick, a Republican representing Fairfield in the 132nd House District, knows where voter confidence is these days.

“It’s in the toilet,” Kupchick said. “I have constituents —small business owners — calling me because they don’t want to pay taxes.”

The union leaders recently revised their bylaws. Now ratification of a deal won’t need a super majority, a simple majority will work. The change came in part because under the old rules, although 57 percent of the unions had voted for the concession deal it wasn’t enough for ratification.

It’s not change one state senator can believe in.

“Voter confidence on all levels of government is low and it’s justified,” senate Minority Leader John McKinney, a Republican representing Easton Fairfield, Newtown and Weston in the 28th Senate District, said.

McKinney said government’s behavior on both the federal and state level has unraveled confidence. It’s not enough that Congress reached a debt ceiling deal, and Harford voted on the budget, he said.

“The problem is that neither fully addresses the long-term problems. In Connecticut union leadership has not performed well. The leaders proved they can’t at all,” McKinney said.

Connecticut isn’t alone in the union fight. Over in the Empire State, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo counted on $450 million in savings from reduced labor costs and warned there would be as many as 9,8000 layoffs if state employees didn’t accept wage freezes. To the north, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick wants to curb municipal employee bargaining.

Changes in union rules are desperately needed if the public is to regain trust, McKinney said.

“Union collective bargaining needs to be overhauled, but as long as Chris Donovan is speaker we’re not going to see change,” the senator said.

Westport’s Steinberg said the issue raises the question of the future of collective bargaining in the US.

“I’m not averse to restraining the unions to some degree, some things need to be reformed,” he said.

However, ratification of the agreement could go a long way to restore confidence, state Sen. Bob Duff, a Democrat representing Norwalk and Darien in the 25th Senate District, said. 

“Without that I believe confidence in the role of government will be lost,” Duff said. “The best solution would be not to have the layoffs. We can only hope for the best. It’s not pro- or anti- anything. It has to do with sustainability.”

Union concessions are just one part of what the governor and some legislators call the three-legged stool needed to steady Connecticut: higher taxes, more spending cuts, and union givebacks.

The union issue is only one part of the problem, state Rep. Jason Perillo a Republican representing Shelton in the 113th House District, said.

“I actually think the bigger issue affecting residents and their views on government is the retroactive tax increase set to begin this week,” Perillo said. “The Governor has reached back in time to collect taxes and it means even higher withholdings from people's paychecks. It's going to be an eye-opener.”