Page 6 - Ct Viewpoints News Today

Even though Connecticut is a blue state with a Democratically controlled house, senate and governor, it  is just one of seven states in the nation does not allow universal absentee voting prior to election day. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged during the primary season, the Connecticut legislature voted to permit Connecticut residents to cast absentee ballots. Who would have thought that it would take a pandemic during a presidential election year to expand access to voting in Connecticut and al...

The Zoning Atlas developed by Desegregate Connecticut identifies the extent to which communities limit housing choices. President Barack Obama once said, “a child’s course in life should be determined not by the zip code she’s born in, but by the strength of her work ethic and the scope of her dreams.”  Yet we know where a child is born, and grows up, affects their future education, finances, and health. However, changing one’s zip code is not always easy.  From the availability of ...

Speak up for mental health transparency A child comes into the emergency department, gasping for air. She is immediately seen by an emergency doctor, diagnosed with an asthma attack, and started on treatment. Knowing that she will need a hospital admission, her doctor calls her insurance company to try to convince them that the admission is medically necessary. If the insurance company disagrees, they will deny her hospital care and her family will have no choice but to take her home, untreated...

Right to counsel is both a housing and public health intervention The COVID 19 pandemic exposed and clarified the significance of housing for health and well-being. Recognition that housing instability and homelessness contributed to the spread of COVID 19 spurred urgent and creative action to address symptoms of a longstanding affordable housing crisis including the risk of eviction from rental housing. As one example, here in Connecticut, a statewide moratorium on evictions helped keep rent...

The CT Senate should act now to remove non-medical vaccine exemptions. Last week, the Connecticut House of Representatives advanced legislation to eliminate non-medical exemptions from school-entry immunizations, a timely and important step towards protecting our children and families from vaccine-preventable illnesses. The Senate should move decisively to do the same. Our professional society, the American College of Physicians (ACP), established national policy in 2015 recommending that vacci...

Amid concerns about family separation, let’s remember Connecticut’s children with incarcerated parents While many Americans watched in horror as family separation policies tore families apart at the border, many of us didn’t know how frequently our laws tear apart families of color here in Connecticut. When judges sentence parents to incarceration, they can unknowingly sentence children to family separation through termination of parental rights (“TPR”). After TPR, a parent has no rig...

As redistricting process begins, Connecticut must abolish prison gerrymandering In 2021, Connecticut’s legislators will undertake the legislative redistricting process that must occur every ten years. Before they do, they have a once-in-a-decade opportunity to eliminate an unjust and discriminatory redistricting practice that has no place in our state: prison gerrymandering. “Prison gerrymandering” is a simple concept. When drawing districts, Connecticut counts the vast majority of people...

Last week college sports fans in Connecticut were roiled by some startling news. The University of Hartford has been privately considering a move from NCAA Division I to Division III. Grappling with the financial implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the University commissioned a “feasibility study” from the consulting company CarrSports. The confidential report concluded that the “current Division I-funding model is not viable and cannot achieve the goal of becoming more self-sustaining...

For the first time in almost a year, we can see a light at the end of the tunnel of the COVID-19 pandemic. But that does not mean we are out of the tunnel yet – and these coming months will be critical for the recovery. That is why this is not the time for the Connecticut General Assembly to push the polystyrene ban (HB 6502) they seem on track toward passing. This is not only a matter of the legislature allowing themselves to get distracted by some non-urgent issue when they should be focusi...

President Joe Biden’s redefinition of the word “bipartisan” is wise, even necessary. Measures that have majority support among regular folks throughout the country– say, universal background checks for firearms purchases– have “bipartisan” support because lots of citizens of both major parties approve: that makes sense. If not a single GOP senator or representative will vote for something that practically everybody in America wants, that’s their problem. Or, it should be. Given ...