Capitol DisPatch: Is Connecticut California Without the Weather?

“Connecticut is California without the weather” goes a relatively new quip making the rounds.

Lately it appears the small state suffers from an identity crisis. Some point to the social policy passed during the last legislative session as evidence of Connecticut’s tilt to the left. And some point to the fiscal situation as proof positive the Nutmeg State shares much with the Golden State.

So is Connecticut really California without the weather? Capitol DisPatch set out to analyze the aside.

“There’s something to that. Connecticut has been clearly evolving. It’s almost counter-culture people who have come to power here,” said Prof. Gary Rose, chair of Politics and Government at Sacred Heart University. “When you talk about paid sick leave, civil unions, marijuana, that used to be a West Coast thing. But now it seems Connecticut has been absorbed into the liberal fold. The state has changed from being a swing state. It voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984.”

Then a blue front moved across the state changing the political forecast. Democrats continue to outnumber Republicans in the state house, and Democrats hold all Connecticut’s Congressional seats, both in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.

The weather part of the jibe refers to southern California, where temperatures average in the 70s. However, the state also has the hottest spot in the Western Hemisphere — Death Valley. There, the average 24-hour daily temperature in July is 101 degrees.

Connecticut is less constant when it comes to weather. According to the National Oceanic Atmosphere Administration, the warmest temperature on record is 106 degrees, recorded in Danbury on Jul. 15, 1995. The coldest belongs to Falls Village, which registered -32 degrees on Feb. 16, 1943.

But when state Rep. Chris Perone, a Democrat representing Norwalk in the 137th House District, thinks about climate, it’s got nothing to do with temperature.

“We’re breaking new ground as a microcosm,” Perone said. “We’re not so much California, but we have an upstate-downstate thing going on. It tends to be more progressive upstate.”

This past session that progressiveness introduced decriminalization of marijuana, transgender rights, and good behavior credits for convicted criminals.

Precisely, said state Sen. L. Scott Frantz, a Republican representing Greenwich, New Canaan and Stamford in the 36th Senate District.

“It’s the kind of legislation that gets states into trouble,” Frantz said. “Often, when you break the mold that created the best country known to mankind — if you get too far away from that mold — you are in trouble.”

Frantz said decriminalizing marijuana, transgender rights, and the passage of gay marriage illustrate this kind of mold-breaking. The second-term senator said he would have preferred Connecticut to leave it at civil unions, calling that a “terrific solution to the age-old question of how to avoid discrimination."

State Rep. William Tong, a Democrat representing Stamford in the 147th House District and a candidate for U.S. Senate, sees it differently.

“I view Connecticut as its own state with a very clear identity — a wonderful place to raise a family; a community of hardworking people; and a place ready to be a leader in the economy of tomorrow,” Tong said. “During the current recession, many states have run into budget problems and some, sadly, have attempted to balance budgets on the backs of our working men and women.”

For Fred Carstensen, UConn’s Director for the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, comparing the two states is like comparing apples and oranges, or the White Oak and the Redwood.

“I don’t see the analogy at all,” Carstensen said. “Connecticut doesn’t have a super majority to make tax increases, it doesn’t have split party rule. It doesn’t have the kind of referendum and recall structure that can make life so difficult there. I don’t see it at all.”

Yet, regarding the financial situation, most legislators agree that Connecticut stands on a precipice. Moody’s recently lowered the outlook for the state’s bond rating to negative from stable. 

“Unlike previous administrations that failed to address the state’s economic problems, our new governor proposed a tough and balanced budget that called for all of us to share in the sacrifice necessary to restore our state to fiscal soundness,” said state Rep. Zeke Zalaski, a Democrat representing Southington in the 81st House District, and state Rep. Joseph Aresimowicz, a Democrat representing Berlin and Southington in the 30th House District.

The General Assembly passed Bioscience Connecticut as a means to carve a research and development corridor in the state. It also passed “Learn Here, Live Here” as a means to attract and keep young people in the state. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy also told legislators to prepare for a special session on jobs come autumn.

Yet, it isn’t just jobs or lack of them that prompts the Connecticut-California comparison. It’s the debt.

Right now California has a $10 billion debt and Connecticut’s debt is $1.6 billion, Frantz said. Put another way, California’s debt is $270 per person while Connecticut's debt is $471 per person.

“We are the single most-indebted people. We are in worse shape than California,” Frantz said.

Unlike budgets that were recently passed in New York and New Jersey, our state budget protects our cities and towns and does not pass the burden on to local property taxpayers. As we all know, the property tax is the most regressive of all taxes, Zalaski and Aresimowicz said in a joint statement.

Connecticut also exceeds California in numbers when it comes to the respective state houses.

California has 120 legislators for 37,253,956 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That breaks down to 40 state senators and 80 assembly members. Connecticut has 187 legislators for 3,574,090 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That breaks down to 36 state senators and 151 state representatives.

“People are very pro-government here, which is ironic since the license plate says Constitution State — which implies limited government,” Rose said. “Connecticut as California — it’s apropos.”