Another Fact-Check on Supposed “Commonsense” Laws<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Jack Perry has apparently decided that his path to office is to repeatedly misrepresent my voting record and hope no one bothers to look at what these bills actually did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I voted against these bills, and I stand by those votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What Perry conveniently leaves out is why<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Legislators do not vote on campaign graphics or carefully selected bullet points. We vote on entire bills, including the mandates, costs, unintended consequences, objectionable provisions, and sometimes outright bad policy that Jack Perry doesn’t tell you about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the same dishonest game we have seen throughout his campaign: find something that sounds appealing, strip away the inconvenient facts, and then tell voters that anyone who opposed the underlying legislation must therefore oppose workers, consumers, first responders, or whatever sympathetic group happens to be featured that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That isn’t an argument. It is political propaganda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AN ACT CONCERNING CONSUMER PRIVACY AND PROTECTION<\/a> The irony of this bill is that the same majority claiming to protect citizens from surveillance and misuse of their personal data repeatedly stopped short of giving individuals real control over that data. In many cases, the bill doesn’t prevent the invasion of privacy\u2014it creates a government process to complain or request deletion after the damage is already done. Even during debate, proponents acknowledged that once sensitive information has been distributed, it may be impossible to get it back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most telling of all, the majority specifically denied individuals a private right of action under important new protections in the bill. Think about that: they call it an individual right, but if that right is violated, the individual cannot enforce it, the government decides whether to act. That isn’t empowering citizens. It’s empowering government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Worse, Connecticut’s broader privacy law largely exempts government itself. I don’t believe corporations should track, catalog, sell or misuse your personal information, and I certainly don’t believe government should get a free pass to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My standard is simple: Your data belongs to you. Your privacy belongs to you. And your right to be left alone shouldn’t depend on whether the person watching you works for a corporation or the government. That’s why I voted no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additional Background:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bottom line, I want privacy law to begin with the individual: What information should others be permitted to collect? Did the person meaningfully consent? Who can access it? How long can it be retained? What happens when the person’s rights are violated? And what protections exist when government<\/strong> wants access? The majority’s approach too often begins with government: create a regulatory structure, put an agency in charge, and give government the authority to enforce it. That’s not the same thing as individual liberty. If your privacy right begins only after your privacy has already been violated\u2014and only the government gets to decide whether to enforce it\u2014that’s not much of an individual right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AN ACT CONCERNING WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT AND WORKING CONDITIONS IN THE STATE.<\/a> Jack Perry’s latest graphic tells you that I voted against HB 5003 and then highlights two provisions involving firefighters and corrections officers. The obvious implication is that I opposed those protections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn’t.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I supported the provisions providing benefits for the families of firefighters and corrections officers killed in the line of duty, as well as efforts to improve recruitment and retention of first responders. If HB 5003 had simply been about those provisions, I would have voted yes.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I said so repeatedly while debating the bill for nearly six hours on the floor of the Senate. You don’t have to take my word for it. You can watch the debate yourself:<\/p>\n\n\n\n HB 5003 Senate Debate, Part 1<\/a> & HB 5003 Senate Debate, Part 2<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n But HB 5003 wasn’t a two-paragraph bill about first responders. It was a 124-page labor omnibus bill containing scores of separate provisions affecting employers, employees, contractors, schools, wages, hiring, employment agreements and workplace litigation.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And that matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the central problems facing Connecticut families is affordability. Every mandate government imposes has a cost. Every additional compliance requirement, legal exposure, restriction on hiring, administrative burden and obstacle to doing business ultimately has consequences for employers, workers, consumers and taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is precisely why I spent hours challenging this bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Government Telling Private Employers Whom They Must Hire<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n One of my strongest objections was Section 9, which created a sweeping new worker-retention mandate for certain service contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When a covered service contract changes hands, work previously performed in-house is contracted out, or certain covered properties are sold or transferred, the incoming employer generally must retain eligible employees of the previous employer for at least 90 days. Service contract worker retenti\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Think about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A company competes for a contract. It wins the contract. It becomes responsible for delivering the service. Yet government can tell that company whom it must employ to perform the work.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The mandate is remarkably broad. It can apply at apartment complexes, commercial buildings, municipal facilities, public and private schools, malls, bank branches, industrial sites, pharmaceutical laboratories, airports, train stations, warehouses, distribution centers and colleges. And the definition of employer can reach businesses employing as few as two people. Service contract worker retenti\u2026 Service contract worker retenti\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The law doesn’t merely require notice. It inserts government deeply into the employment relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The successor employer generally must retain eligible workers for at least 90 days. If fewer employees are needed, the employer must retain them according to seniority within their job classifications, rather than simply selecting the employees it believes are best qualified for the work. Service contract worker retenti\u2026 Service contract worker retenti\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n During those 90 days, retained employees receive just-cause protection even though the new employer did not choose them in the first place. After 90 days, the employer must conduct performance evaluations, and satisfactory performance triggers an obligation to offer continued employment. Service contract worker retenti\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n I find that extraordinary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If a new contractor believes it can perform the work more efficiently with a different staffing model, different skills, different personnel, or fewer employees, those decisions should ordinarily belong to the people responsible for running the business, not politicians in Hartford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then Comes the Litigation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The same provision creates substantial legal exposure if an employer gets it wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Employees, groups of employees, or their unions may bring an action in Superior Court or file a complaint with the Labor Commissioner, and they do not have to exhaust the administrative process before going to court. Service contract worker retenti\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Potential remedies include back pay, benefits, reinstatement, compensatory damages, attorney’s fees and costs. A successor employer can also face civil penalties ranging from $500 to $1,000 per employee, per day<\/strong> for certain violations. Service contract worker retenti\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n That isn’t some harmless provision protecting workers from an obvious abuse. It creates an entirely new structure of mandates, liability and litigation governing businesses that may simply be trying to compete for a contract and perform it efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And That Was Only One Part of HB 5003<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n My concerns extended well beyond Section 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bill included new wage-transparency requirements that raised questions about rigid compensation bands, hiring flexibility, merit-based compensation and additional liability for employers. My concern was not with employees knowing what they are paid. It was whether Hartford needed to impose another one-size-fits-all regulatory structure on compensation negotiations between employers and prospective employees. HB 5003 labor omnibus HB 5003 labor omnibus<\/p>\n\n\n\n It restricted employment promissory notes and training-repayment agreements. I questioned why the state should broadly interfere with voluntary agreements between adults, particularly when an employer may have invested thousands of dollars training a new employee. I also raised the obvious unintended consequence: if employers cannot protect substantial investments in training, some may simply offer less training. HB 5003 labor omnibus<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bill changed teacher-termination procedures. My concern was whether adding additional process would make an already difficult and expensive termination process even slower, increase costs for local school districts, reduce administrators’ ability to manage their schools, and ultimately put procedural protections ahead of students. HB 5003 labor omnibus<\/p>\n\n\n\n It imposed additional paycheck requirements, raising still more questions about administrative costs, liability for errors, and whether small employers should face the same regulatory structure as major corporations. HB 5003 labor omnibus<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the bill expanded contractor wage liability. My concern was straightforward: businesses could become responsible for wage violations committed by other independent businesses over whose payroll practices they did not have direct control. HB 5003 labor omnibus<\/p>\n\n\n\n The legislation then increased the potential consequences of wage disputes, including double damages absent a successful good-faith defense. The combination particularly concerned me: expand who can be held liable, then expand how much they can be liable for.<\/strong> HB 5003 labor omnibus HB 5003 labor omnibus<\/p>\n\n\n\n This Is About Affordability Too<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a larger point here that Jack Perry’s carefully selected bullet points completely miss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Connecticut is already too expensive.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For decades, one-party Democratic control in Hartford has produced layer after layer of taxes, mandates, regulations and government requirements. Each individual proposal is inevitably presented as reasonable, compassionate or necessary. But businesses and families experience the cumulative cost of all of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Government cannot continually make it more expensive to hire people, train people, manage employees, compete for contracts and operate a business, then act surprised when the cost of virtually everything continues to rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is one of the fundamental differences I have with the majority at the Capitol, and it is why I have been such a persistent check on their agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So Let’s Be Clear About My Vote<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I supported the first responder provisions Jack Perry chose to feature in his graphic. I said so on the Senate floor.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But senators don’t get to vote on Jack Perry’s campaign bullet points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We vote on the entire bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perry selected provisions I supported, omitted the numerous provisions I spent nearly six hours opposing, and then presented my vote against the entire 124-page omnibus bill as though I had voted against firefighters and corrections officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I believe that is a grossly misleading characterization of my record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were good provisions in HB 5003. There were also sweeping provisions that I believed interfered with private employment decisions, expanded government power, increased litigation and liability, and contributed to the ever-growing cost of doing business in Connecticut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wasn’t willing to vote for all of the latter simply because legislative Democrats packaged them together with the former.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is not voting against first responders. It is doing my job as a legislator: reading the entire bill, asking difficult questions, considering the consequences, and voting on the legislation that was actually before me.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And after nearly six hours of debate, I voted no. I stand by that vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read SB 5 \/ Public Act 26-15 on the CGA website<\/a> Perry says I voted against SB 5, then cherry-picks a few provisions that sound unobjectionable, including identifying AI-generated content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once again, that leaves out what I actually had to vote on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SB 5 became a 74-page law creating an extensive new state regulatory structure governing artificial intelligence<\/strong>. Among other things, it established an Artificial Intelligence Policy Office and director, an AI Learning Laboratory Program, a Connecticut AI Academy, an AI working group, a Technology Advisory Board, an AI Workforce Research Hub, new state-agency responsibilities, new requirements governing automated employment decisions, requirements for AI providers and developers, and additional enforcement authority. Connecticut General Assembly<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n That is a very different proposition from Perry’s bullet point saying the bill simply \u201crequires AI-generated content to be identifiable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have no objection to transparency about whether something was created by artificial intelligence. I also recognize legitimate concerns about fraud, impersonation, discrimination, privacy and the responsible use of rapidly developing technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But recognizing a problem does not mean government should immediately build an enormous regulatory bureaucracy around an emerging technology that is changing faster than government can possibly regulate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That was my fundamental concern. Here is the video of my remarks on the senate floor:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n Artificial intelligence is still developing at extraordinary speed. Connecticut is competing with every other state for entrepreneurs, investment, technology jobs and economic growth. My concern was that instead of establishing a few clear rules against identifiable harms, SB 5 attempted to put state government in the middle of an enormous number of decisions involving the development and use of AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The law reaches automated employment decisions, subscription AI providers, frontier developers, synthetic content, workforce programs, state procurement, collective bargaining, education, health care and economic development. It also creates multiple new government entities and programs to oversee or participate in this emerging industry. Connecticut General Assembly<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n That is precisely the kind of approach I am skeptical of: identify a legitimate concern, then use it to justify another sprawling government regulatory structure.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There were provisions in SB 5 I could support. Transparency about synthetic content is one. Sensible protections against actual discrimination, fraud or misuse are another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But legislators vote on the entire bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My preference is straightforward: punish identifiable misconduct, protect individual rights, enforce existing laws where they already apply, and establish narrowly tailored rules where genuinely necessary. Do not assume that every emerging technology requires another state office, another government program, another advisory board, another regulatory regime and another layer of mandates on Connecticut businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFirst, SB4 Senate Bill 4<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
You are welcome to use any part of this statement below. I appreciated our conversation and the questions thoroughly.\u00a0 Don\u2019t hesitate to reach out if you have any follow ups.
I voted against SB 4 because I believe privacy is a fundamental civil right, not a slogan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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<\/li>\n\n\n\nNext House Bill 5003<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
HB 5003: I Supported the First Responder Provisions. I Opposed the 124-Page Labor Omnibus Bill They Were Buried In.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNext Senate Bill 5<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
SB 5: The Problem Was Not Identifying AI Content. It Was Building a Massive New Government Regulatory Apparatus Around AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n