By CHRIS POWELL
Governor Lamont’s campaign in the Democratic primary for governor often broadcast a television commercial emphasizing a comment he made during his welcoming address to the General Assembly in February. Referring to agents of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, the governor commanded: “ICE, go home! We’re keeping Connecticut safe without you.”
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Within a week of the governor’s easy victory in the primary, these headlines appeared in Connecticut newspapers:
Hartford Courant: “One person gunned down, four others also shot amid ‘very large crowd’ in Hartford.”
New Haven Independent: “2 die in 2 unrelated downtown stabbings.”
New Haven Register: “New Haven man accused of killing ex-girlfriend threatened to stab her days earlier.”
Connecticut Post: “Person slashed in Bridgeport attack on Railroad Avenue” and “17-year-old charged with murder in killing of Connecticut basketball standout.”
Of course this was just another week in Connecticut and the horrible incidents it produced are considered normal. So while the state may not need federal immigration agents to keep it safe, maybe only a governor seeking re-election could imagine that the state is any safer under his administration than it was under his predecessors, or any safer than it would be with someone else as governor.
Meanwhile the Republican candidate for governor, Greenwich state Sen. Ryan Fazio, has been saying he wants to “cap” municipal property taxes. It’s a lovely idea but there’s not much capping in his proposal.
With property tax rates varying widely, a single rate for all municipalities would either devastate high-taxed municipalities by draining their revenue or provide little restraint to municipalities with low or average rates. So Fazio proposes that state law limit property tax increases to the rate of inflation or 2% annually, except when a municipal referendum votes by a supermajority to suspend the limit for a year.
This wouldn’t really “cap” property taxes. At best it would just slow their steady rise.
Neither Fazio nor most others who complain about property taxes note the bigger underlying issue. That is, most property tax revenue is used to pay unionized municipal employees. If property taxes were ever really “capped,” then the compensation of those employees would be capped as well, provoking controversy, insofar as municipal government employee unions are the largest and most influential local special interests.
Fazio’s proposal dodges the big issue of the local tax burden.
If referendums on larger property tax increases are OK, why not just require referendums on all property tax increases and even municipal employee union contracts? This would be far more effective in restraining and democratizing property taxes. Transferring the taxing power directly to the people would also relieve municipal elected officials of a big responsibility they don’t want, and diminish the power over them held by the special interest.
The ultimate reform for municipal government in Connecticut would be for state law to create in every city and town the elected office of arbiter of government employee union contracts. Under Connecticut’s binding arbitration law, such contracts now can be settled by unelected arbiters who almost always favor unions over taxpayers.
That is, in Connecticut the biggest expenses in both state and municipal government, and the biggest political issue in municipal government — property taxes — are removed from the ordinary democratic process and settled by someone who answers to no one.
This system — a system of taxation without representation — was in effect in Connecticut 250 years ago and the colony joined a revolution to overthrow it, only to disenfranchise itself two centuries later.
The public needs some clarity on these issues and only Fazio can provide it during the campaign.
Last week he and the governor spoke to a convention of state employee union leaders. The public and journalists were excluded but Fazio says he stressed a governor’s responsibility to taxpayers. The unions constitute the Democratic Party’s army and the governor promised them raises every year forever.
If Republicans think that trying to make nice with the other side’s army will help them, they have already lost the election.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
Chris Powell column 