Connecticut Politics Week in Review: ‘We’re not out of the woods yet,' Gov. Ned Lamont says, as coronavirus cases continue 6-week climb

With coronavirus infections continuing to rise in Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont Friday urged state residents to continue taking precautions including mask-wearing and social distancing, noting “we’re not out of the woods yet” as cases continue to rise nationwide.

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The big story

Coronavirus numbers on 6-week rise: Connecticut’s coronavirus metrics have been on the climb since early September, leading Lamont to ask state residents to double down on the three Ws: wear a mask, wash your hands and watch your distance. “A lot of this prevention, of turning this around, is within our own personal control,” said Dr. Deidre Gifford, the acting public health commissioner. A total of 19 cities and towns have now been deemed at “red alert” status per the state Department of Public Health. That’s up from 11 a week prior. The new towns on the list are East Hartford, Fairfield, Groton, Lisbon, Norwalk, Plainfield, Prospect, Salem, Waterbury and Waterford. The uptick of COVID-19 infections in Connecticut comes as the country as a whole is grappling with a resurgence of coronavirus cases that some experts have attributed to pandemic fatigue, as well as colder weather that is forcing gatherings indoors where the virus can spread more easily. Public health workers engaged in contact tracing continue to report cases linked to small, informal gatherings, rather than superspreader events that led to large clusters of infections. “I’m concerned,” Lamont said Thursday. “I take nothing for granted.” The rate of positive coronavirus tests in Connecticut reached 3% Tuesday, a high not seen for four months.

Five things you may have missed

Masks won’t be required at polling places: Connecticut election officials are urging voters to wear a mask if they plan to cast their ballot in person on Election Day, but they won’t be turning away anyone who chooses not to. “While we can ask people to wear masks, we cannot deny people the right to vote,” said Gabe Rosenberg, a spokesman for Secretary of the State Denise Merrill. State guidance to local election officials gives them five options to address voters not wearing masks: ask the voter to retrieve a mask while holding their place in line, offer a mask to the voter at the polling location, offer the voter the option of completing their ballot outside the polling location, provide the voter with a provisional ballot they can fill out in their car and leave with a poll worker or offer the voter the opportunity to vote in a segregated part of the polling place away from other voters.

Surge in tax revenue helping state budget outlook: An unexpected surge in income tax revenue from some of the state’s wealthiest residents has helped brighten Connecticut’s state budget outlook. Lamont’s budget office Tuesday shaved $763 million off the projected deficit in the current fiscal year that ends June 30, slashing it by 40% to a still worrisome $1.2 billion. But that’s a marked improvement from a shortfall of more than $2 billion that was forecast last month, forcing Lamont to release an interim plan on how to bridge the gap. While Connecticut has recovered just 60% of the jobs lost due to the coronavirus pandemic, the stock market has largely rebounded, leading to better-than-expected tax collections among the state’s Wall Street crowd. And Connecticut’s current strong real estate market — pegged as one of the hottest in the nation in a recent survey by RE/MAX — has led to higher real estate tax collections than had been anticipated.

Defacing, theft of political signs a continual problem: A perennial problem each election season, campaign law signs are once again being stolen, destroyed or defaced across Connecticut. While some communities say the problem is far worse than typical years – and cite the divisive national political climate – other cities and towns have reported hardy any issues. Bristol Republican Town Committee Chairman Jeff Caggiano said more than half of the 100 Trump signs his group out have been destroyed or removed. “People are tearing the 4-by-8-foot ones, even driving through them.” Republicans and Democrats alike say they’ve been targeted. Bristol homeowner Sandra Kaye Baker said a Biden sign she placed in her lawn was taken in the middle of the night as a whole street’s worth of Biden signs disappeared. After posting about the episode on Facebook, Bristol Mayor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu, a Democrat, offered to come by and replace it. Police in nearby Canton and New Britain, however, report they’ve gotten few complaints.

Professors, students protest state university budget cuts: At a rally at Central Connecticut State University Wednesday, professors, students and alumni from the state’s regional universities spoke out against recent budget cuts that would thin the ranks of part-time lecturers, among other changes. Faced with a significant coronavirus-driven budget shortfall, the Board of Regents for Higher Education voted recently to cut $2 million from the budget for part-time lecturers, part of $8 million in new cuts that were approved to try to shrink an expected $69 million deficit across the state university and community college system. “The core mission of the four state universities is being threatened,” said Patty O’Neill, president of the Connecticut State University American Association of University Professors. Mark Ojakian, president of the university system, said enrollment has declined at the schools and that no classes will be eliminated as a result of the cuts. “If there’s a need to have a certain number of class sections, we will have them.”

Blumenthal, Democrats boycott Amy Coney Barrett vote: U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal joined his fellow Democrats in boycotting Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee meeting where Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court was advanced to the Senate floor for a final vote. In his empty seat, Blumenthal placed a photograph of Connor Curran, a 10-year-old Ridgefield boy who suffers from Duchenne muscular dystrophy and for whom “the Affordable Care Act is a lifesaver.” Blumenthal and other Democrats believe Barrett would vote in favor of striking down President Barack Obama’s signature health care law as unconstitutional. He and Connecticut colleague Sen. Chris Murphy, as well as all other Senate Democrats, have vowed to oppose Barrett’s nomination when the Senate takes a final vote, accusing Republicans of a rushed process to confirm her ahead of Election Day on Nov. 3. Murphy called it “an abomination of a process that makes a mockery of the Senate and the Constitution.”

Odds and ends

Kanye West isn’t on the ballot in Connecticut, but the rapper’s presidential campaign registered with election officials here as a certified write-in candidate, meaning write-in votes for West will count toward official totals. West, who launched his campaign this summer as an independent, qualified for the ballot in a dozen states, missing deadlines or failing to clear hurdles in the rest. A Reuters/IPSOS poll on Oct. 17 showed West capturing 2% of the vote nationwide. … New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart endorsed 81 Republicans running for the state legislature Tuesday through her new political action committee STEWPAC. Stewart, who many expect will make another run for governor in 2022, launched the committee this summer to support candidates who she feels are fiscally conservative but socially liberal, like herself. “Contrary to popular belief and liberal media spin, there are many Republicans who actually believe that love is love, that women’s rights are human rights, that we are all immigrants and that Black lives matter too,” Stewart says in a new digital ad. … UConn economists Fred Carstensen and Peter Gunther predict in a new report that Connecticut’s economy my not fully recover from the coronavirus pandemic until the next decade. "It looks bad, the report begins. “Even an optimistic scenario argues recovery will be slow and painful; a more realistic assessment sees Connecticut struggling to recover in employment, real output, personal income and state revenues out past 2030.” Carstensen and Gunther warned that raising taxes, cutting programs or reducing government employment will not “change the projected trajectory.” … U.S. Rep. John Larson and his two opponents in the 1st Congressional District had their virtual debate Monday evening interrupted by a profane Zoombomber who posted vile messages in a chat window that were visible to the candidates and the online audience. “This type of hatred has no place in Connecticut,” Larson said. Some of the profane messages contained sexual and anti-LGBTQ language. Mary Fay, Larson’s GOP challenger, is among Connecticut’s first LGBTQ congressional candidates. “It was unbelievable, it was distressing, it was completely horrible, it was vulgar, it was hateful,” she said. … The state Department of Economic and Community Development launched a new program that will offer $5,000 grants to small businesses still struggling through the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses must have fewer than 20 employees or a payroll of less than $1.5 million to qualify. “This grant program will help provide some relief to these small businesses that are working each day to get through this,” Lamont said, in a news release. A total of $50 million has been set aside for the grants, enough to help 10,000 businesses. Applications will launch Nov. 9 on business.ct.gov.

Russell Blair can be reached at rblair@courant.com.

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