When members of the Connecticut General Assembly head back to Hartford for the new legislative session, there will be a lot of new faces in the legislature—and they’ll face a lot of the same old problems. On Dec. 5, State Representative Sean Scanlon (D-98) sat down with residents to discuss the big issues on the horizon.

Scanlon was elected to a third term in the recent midterm elections and will go back to a Hartford that is significantly bluer than it was before November. Democrats increased their majority in the House of Representatives, took back a majority in the Senate, and the newly elected governor Ned Lamont keeps the governor’s office Democratic as well.

However, as Scanlon spoke with residents for about and hour at the Guilford Free Library in one of his Coffee and Conversation sessions, it was clear he believes that some of the big challenges the state has to face can’t be solved by a partisan talking point.

Residents asked about a slew of topics but transportation, tolls, and pensions were big points of concern.

Tolls

The prospect of putting tolls back on Connecticut highways was a big talking point in the last election. Connecticut’s infrastructure—the roads, bridges, and railways—is in need of maintenance or upgrades and the fund that the state has used to pay for improvement projects in those areas is on track for insolvency in the next few years. For some, tolls are seen as the most logical revenue source to get cash flowing back into that fund.

Scanlon said again that he is in favor of the concept of tolls, but wouldn’t commit to voting on anything until he sees a detailed plan.

“The devil is in the details on where these tolls are going to be,” he said. “There was a report that came out about a month ago that said there were going to be 86 tolls on I-95...I think that is ridiculous and excessive because it would cost my constituents way more money than I think would warrant that, so I want to see what the final proposal is going to be and how much it would raise and how much it would cost before I commit to voting for it.”

Residents asked Scanlon why legislators have been looking at tolls versus doing something like raising the gas tax to push more revenue into the transportation fund. Scanlon said the gas tax hasn’t performed as well as it needed to keep up with the rate the state’s infrastructure is deteriorating. He also noted that Connecticut already has one of the highest gas taxes in the nation and that pushing it any higher might do more harm than good.

“If you go to New Jersey or New York, their gas tax is substantially lower than ours, which is why a lot of the time people just drive through Connecticut and don’t get gas here because they know it is cheaper somewhere else, so the idea behind the tolls is to try to diversify the revenue a little bit,” he said.

Pensions

One of the largest challenges facing legislators in Hartford is the size of the state’s ballooning pension debt. For decades, the state underfunded the state worker or teacher pension plans and now the unfunded liability is in the billions each year.

To demonstrate the size of the problem, Scanlon told resident about a Boston College study that looked at the state’s pension problem and how bad the numbers are likely to become over the next decade if nothing changes.

“In the next 10 years, if we did nothing, the pension payment just for the state employee retirement plan would be $6 billion a year and that’s out of a $20 billion budget,” he said. “That is unsustainable. So what they recommended is we spread that out, and we did, so we will be paying for a bit longer, but we will avoid the $6 billion spike. We are not going to avoid, though, the $3 billion spikes and that is coming sooner rather than later.

“We are pretty much there right now and just to give you a sense of how bad that is, of the $3 billion that we spend every biennium budget on the pension costs, $2.8 billion of that is for past debt and $200 million is to fully fund the retirement for every current state worker,” he continued.

Scanlon said because of the size and complexity of the problem, no one person is going to have a perfect solution, no matter what was said out on the campaign trail this fall.

“We just had a big election for governor and both [candidates] sort of had different answers for this, but I think if you talk to a lot of my colleagues on both side of the aisle up there, most of them thought that neither guy really had a plan to solve this that they really articulated to the public,” he said. “Both of them were going to be in for a rude awakening when, the day after the election, someone knocked on their door and said ‘OK, here is the deficit projection that you are about to inherit.’”

Residents asked Scanlon if there were any big structural changes that could help curb the size of the problem. Scanlon said at this point, the only viable solution in his opinion is to try to grow the state’s economy because there isn’t much left that can be cut in the non-fixed portion of the state budget.

“These are very difficult decisions that we have to make and there are things that we can cut, but we are getting close to the bone,” he said. “I think in my opinion the only way we can survive this is to grow our economy out of this problem… I think we have to learn the right lessons from this election and I think the people of Connecticut want to see us growing.”

Marijuana

Connecticut has discussed the idea of legalizing non-medicinal marijuana for a few years now, but Scanlon said residents should expect to see the conversation pick up steam in this upcoming session.

Over the past few years more and more states have moved towards the full legalization of marijuana, including neighboring states, and some legislators have been tempted to move the conversation along because of the potential revenue.

Scanlon said this is a difficult issue for him.

“It’s something that I am very conflicted about personally and it’s something that historically I have not been in favor of the full legalization of it,” he said. “The reason for that is twofold: I strongly believe in decriminalizing it and Connecticut since 2010 has strongly decriminalized it, so people aren’t really going to jail over small possession or marijuana, and I also think that we have a pretty robust medical marijuana system that I support, so for those two reasons I have historically not really seen the reason to legalize it. I also have hesitated to look at the dollar signs associated with [legalization] as a reason to do it. My belief has always been [rely on] if the science is there to show that it’s a good thing, if the criminal justice reasons are there.”

Despite how he might feel about the issue personally, Scanlon said he thinks it is inevitable that marijuana will be legalized in the state, maybe even as soon as this year.

“The decision I have to make as a legislator is twofold: Number one, I think the majority of people I represent want to see this, and number two is if this is going to happen, can I work with the people who have expressed serious concerns to me about legalization about the affects that has on young people, the economy, and law enforcement, and can I work with all of those concerns and try to make that bill better or should I just vote up or down on it?” he said. “That is the decision I have to make and at this point I think I do lean more toward trying to make that bill the best that it can be.”

Scanlon thanked all residents for coming out and for the good conversation.

“I’m glad to see there is a big crowd here tonight and what I say to folks is I hope this isn’t the end of this conversation,” he said. “I hope that people will continue to share their thoughts with me.”

The new legislative session begins Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2019.