Democrats are fuming over Gov. Ned Lamont’s veto of House Bill 5002: An Act Concerning Housing and the Needs of Homeless Persons and Senate Bill 8: Protections for Workers and Enhancements to Workers’ Rights.

What are these bills about and what will they do?

H.B. 5002 could be better named the “Democrats Hate Small Town Life in Connecticut Bill.” Among other things, it’s an attempt to mandate far left DEI housing policies into every city and town across the state. Many Democrats appear to believe that all local zoning ordinances are racist and discriminatory. Their solution for increasing the amount of low-income housing in Connecticut is to force the cities and towns to comply with state-issued mandates.

Democratically elected planning and zoning commissions determine local zoning ordinances. They reflect the needs of their municipalities and residents in accordance with current laws. H.B.5002 would sideline local commissions and put the power to decide where, what type and how much low-income housing will be built in the hands of state lawmakers. Compliance with the first version of this bill would have been devastatingly costly to small communities. Even the later, slightly watered down version would be financially problematic for many small towns.

H.B.5002 is nothing but a power grab for Democrat lawmakers in Hartford. It’s a crack in the door Democrats will use to push DEI policies into small communities with limited resources. Unaffordable housing is an inflationary problem of government’s own making. Homelessness is a combination of economic and social problems. But more regulations are not the answer.

Household income in Connecticut did not keep up with the housing market because we lack better job opportunities for our people. Why don’t Democrat lawmakers work to bring back the good paying manufacturing jobs they drove away with high taxes, high-energy costs and excess regulation? Then more people could afford to buy homes again. Governor Lamont was right to veto this bill.

Senate Bill 8 should have been called the “Taxpayers Funding Endless Strikes Bill.” S.B.8 aims to give unionized workers taxpayer funded unemployment benefits while out on strike. This is the second time Governor Lamont vetoed this bill.

If any company needs another reason to not do business in Connecticut, here’s one more manufactured by none other than our own legislature, with the help of public employee unions. How will employers react to the State of Connecticut injecting themselves into private labor negotiations? Would public funding of protracted strikes stifle job growth? You bet it would.

Try to imagine the effect it will have on state, county and municipal union contract negotiations. Public employees can go on strike against their employers, we the taxpayers, and we taxpayers must pay them unemployment benefits until they get what they want from us? Sounds more like legalized extortion than fair labor negotiations.

And all of this to be financed by an overtaxed population of Connecticut workers who (according to a 2022 Nutmeg Research Study) earn on average 40% less in pay and benefits than a State of Connecticut employee who does similar work. Governor Lamont was right to veto both of these bills. In this instance he stood up for the taxpayers, which is something Democrats in our legislature almost never do. Thank you, Governor Lamont.

Robert Brzozowski lives in East Haddam.