Gov. Ned Lamont has turned to repairing relationships frayed by his vetoes of an omnibus housing bill and a measure that would have provided jobless benefits for strikers, both priorities of various elements of the Democratic coalition and its party’s legislative leaders.
Lamont’s veto of the housing bill came without a courtesy call to House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, one of the bill’s key sponsors and a man with whom the governor’s administration now must negotiate to save portions of the most significant housing bill to reach the governor’s desk.
A call to Rojas was one of the first Lamont made after the veto Monday. Another went to Ed Hawthorne, the president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, the labor federation that worked successfully with the Democratic governor on a significant list of first-term labor victories.
The challenge now facing Lamont became clear in two very different conversations: one with a legislative leader who sees and is ready to grasp the building blocks of a housing deal; the other with a union man who sees Lamont unfeeling about workers and immovable on an issue that has come to the fore for labor.
“I was very frank with him,” Hawthorne said in an interview Tuesday. “The state elected Democrats, and Democrats put two bills on his desk that would have made a difference to working people. And he sided with Republicans.”
Lamont cast himself as a labor ally, a Democrat horrified at the Trump administration’s efforts to cripple the influence of public sector unions in the federal workforce and its removal of labor-friendly members of the National Labor Relations Board.
“I think about labor rights, and I think about what the Trump administration is doing to the NLRB and the rights of our workers to organize, rights of our workers to stand up to themselves. We’re trying to do everything we can,” Lamont said Tuesday at a public event at the state Capitol.
In his veto message the previous day about Senate Bill 8, which would have provided jobless benefits to strikers in Connecticut, the governor enumerated the first-term victories he helped deliver for the labor movement.
They included a higher minimum wage, a nearly universal mandate for paid sick time, paid family and medical leave coverage, expanded collective bargaining rights for public employees, and protections for workers who leave captive audience meetings.
“Connecticut workers are the backbone of our economy,” Lamont wrote in his message. “I strongly support their right to organize, advocate for better conditions, and be treated with dignity and respect in the workplace.”
Hawthorne acknowledged the governor did those things, but he noted that federal labor law largely preempts states from enhancing the standing of unions to organize workers or negotiate contracts. One notable exception, Hawthorne said, is a state’s ability to remove the prohibition on striking workers collecting unemployment.
“When we asked him to sit down to talk about the [strikers’] bill, the response was, ‘Think of something else,’” Hawthorne said. “But everything else was preempted by federal law.”
The governor, who was elected in 2018, reelected in 2022 and is considering running again in 2026, also has a what-have-you-done-lately problem with labor.
“There’s first-term Ned Lamont and second-term Ned Lamont,” Hawthorne said. “He mentions the minimum wage — first term; paid family leave — first term; expanded collective bargaining — first term.”
The list goes on.
“We can’t live off the past when the president and Congress want to destroy every gain we’ve made in the last 15 years,” Hawthorne said. “We need a fighter, like first term Ned.”
Only New York and New Jersey provide jobless benefits for strikers. Oregon just passed legislation that would do so, and Washington state has a version that takes effect next year. Lamont has supporters strikers in Connecticut, sometimes visiting picket lines.
“But I think paying striking workers is a bridge too far and doesn’t help our cause. I think that some people say … ‘you’re too pro-labor’ or ‘you’re too pro-business,’ ” Lamont said. “I think I’m pro-jobs, and I want to watch out for any bill which I think discourages jobs in this state.”
Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury, a retired UAW executive, said there is little room for compromise on the strikers’ bill, which would have provided jobless benefits after two weeks out of work. Passage eventually will come, but probably not while Lamont is governor, she said.
“I do like the governor. He is right on so many issues, but he is so wrong on this,” said Kushner, who called Lamont “stubborn.”
On housing, there is room to negotiate.
Rojas ignored the slight of a veto that came without a heads-up and focused on the possibility to salvage the essence of House Bill 5002.
Among other things, it would have required municipalities to set “fair share” goals for affordable housing, prioritize state aid to communities that build housing, and streamline approval for so-called “middle housing,” defined as a building with two to nine units.
Rojas said he was encouraged at the governor’s seeming support for establishing the conversion of commercial lots as something developers can do “as of right” for middle housing. But he was concerned that Lamont, in his view, seemed overly deferential to municipal officials.
The governor expects local officials will come to the table and negotiate a new version of 5002 over the next 90 days.
“I’m skeptical,” Rojas said. “In 45 days, most will be thinking about being up for election.”
The Connecticut Mirror reached Rojas by telephone after he finished a panel discussion at Princeton University on fair housing. The event was tied to the 50th anniversary of New Jersey adopting a fair-share requirement for municipalities to assess affordable housing needs.
In 1975, the New Jersey Supreme Court established the “Mount Laurel Doctrine,” requiring all communities to take responsibility for a share of a region’s affordable housing needs. The decision came in a challenge to restrictive zoning, and it kicked off further litigation and decades of legislation.
Rojas said participants were consoling and encouraging, reminding him that passing significant housing bills is a marathon, as they learned after Mount Laurel. Rojas, whose daughter is a runner, is hoping for a shorter race.
