I am a mom, an education advocate, and a native of Connecticut. During the pandemic, public schools in my state have struggled mightily to meet the needs of students and families. During this difficult time, I’ve been heartened by the nimbleness of the charter school sector.

Early this spring, I went to where I grew up on Malikowski Circle in New Britain. I knocked on doors to greet residents. They remembered me as Bobby, their trusted voice on the local board of education, as their state representative, as their voice leading the state’s education committee.

A recent editorial parroted Republican talking points of a supposed ‘millionaire migration’ if the legislature dares demand Connecticut’s highest earners pay their fair share. Republicans have resorted to sound bites because they fall short on alternate solutions, or an actual budget, of which they have failed to propose for three consecutive years.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of Connecticut residents faced the unthinkable tragedy of potentially losing their homes in the middle of a public health crisis. Even in normal times, over 10,000 Connecticut residents are evicted every year. S.B. 194: An Act Establishing a Right to Housing, which is under consideration in the Connecticut General Assembly, can be the first step to protecting our neighbors who are currently experiencing homelessness or who are unstably housed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a precipitous rise in hate crimes and criminal activity by extremist groups. The Connecticut General Assembly has a duty to take both heed and action.

Remember Miss America, she of the eponymous pageant? Well forget her. Ditto Miss Universe, Miss Gluten Free and all the rest. They’re old hat—yesterday’s politically correct Kumbaya news. Who needs to ogle fulsome females bent on curing world hunger and striving for inter-galactic peace whilst strumming ukuleles in their swimsuits? I, for one, won’t miss […]

As shocking as it sounds, children as young as pre-school and kindergarten can be and are suspended from school each year, and in fairly sizable numbers. Despite the legislature’s effort in 2015 to largely eliminate the suspension and expulsion of children in preschool through second grade, during the 2018-19 school year there were still almost 1,000 very young children suspended from school.

This year, Connecticut has the opportunity to join the 15 states that have replaced the failed policy of cannabis prohibition with sensible and effective regulation. Now that the bill has advanced from the Judiciary Committee, we urge the Finance Committee to support Senate Bill 888, “An Act Responsibly and Equitably Regulating Adult-use Cannabis.”

We face three global issues that threaten all people of all nations. They are: climate, pandemics, and international conflict leading to deliberate or inadvertent nuclear war. These three existential threats have the potential to rob us and future generations of our lives, our liberties, and our pursuit of happiness.

This year the PROTECT Act, otherwise known as Senate Bill 1059, offers Connecticut an opportunity to address conditions in Connecticut state prisons and jails that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture condemns as “a State-sanctioned policy aimed at purposefully inflicting severe pain… which may well amount to torture.”