2020 Year in Review
Each year in the last week of December I share a “Year in Review.” I actually look forward to writing it because it gives me the opportunity to actually slow down and reflect which is something that, like most people, I don’t do nearly enough.
2020 was, to put it mildly, a difficult year. Each of our lives were touched in some way by COVID-19 and, tragically, some of us were impacted more than others. Below is a recap of what I was up to during this historic and challenging year.
Opening Day
Our son Jack, born the previous September, made his Capitol debut on Opening Day of the 2020 Session.
Affordable Insulin
For the last four years I’ve served as Chairman of the Insurance and Real Estate committee which means I’ve spent 95% of my time on health care policy. One of my biggest priorities for the 2020 session was attacking the high cost of insulin. In February, we held a rally at the Capitol to unveil our bipartisan bill capping the co-pay cost for insulin at $25 and supplies at $100. The best speaker that day was a Haddam teen named Logan who is sitting to my left in this picture. Logan testified that his family spent $10,000 per year on just insulin pump supplies. Another young man named Campbell testified that he spends more on insulin each year then he does to attend Western Connecticut State University. It was clear something needed to change but soon an unexpected development would change all of our lives.
Friday March 6th
The date sticks out in my head. That night, my wife and I had plans to go out to dinner with close friends. As we both tried to juggle getting ready and putting our son to sleep before grandma arrived to babysit I remember getting a text that the Governor was about to hold a press conference in Danbury which seemed odd given that it was a Friday evening. I turned on the TV and watched as the Governor announced that the first case of COVID-19 had been detected in Connecticut. After a few minutes it was time to go and I flipped off the TV. Little did I know it would be the last time I would eat indoors at a restaurant and the start of a very, very difficult period for our state and country.
A new kind of job
Those first few weeks after the Governor declared a public health emergency were a blur of conference calls, calls from constituents and, on a personal note, learning how to work from home with a six month old.
Constituent service has always been my favorite part of the job. Passing a bill you work hard on is a great accomplishment. Being able to solve a problem for a neighbor who calls your office because they need help and have nowhere else to turn is a great feeling. And there was no greater feeling than helping people — especially when it came to unemployment — in those early days.
In the end, more people called or wrote my office for help in the first six months of COVID then in the first six years of me doing this job. Almost overnight, my primary job as a State Representative changed from writing laws to helping people navigate their challenges and I was more than ok with that.
A historic special session
On March 9th legislative leaders announced the Capitol would close for four days for cleaning. It never re-opened and when our constitutionally-required annual adjournment day came and went in May, all of the bills we had been working on like the insulin bill died.
On July 23rd we gathered for a special session to consider four bills, two of which I was proud to have written. The first extended telehealth coverage through 2021. Telehealth had become truly vital to health care delivery and we wanted to make sure everyone in Connecticut would have continued affordable access to it.
The second bill was the insulin bill which I was very relieved to be able to get done so that people like Logan and Campbell would not have continue worrying about affording a drug they literally need to survive.
The session was historic because it was the first time in history legislators were allowed to vote from the computer in their offices instead of by pressing buttons on their desks in the House chamber.
A historic storm
When Hurricane Isaias struck in early August, the damage was tremendous and the extended power outages that came with it couldn’t have come at a worst time. Staying with relatives or friends who had power was a risk most people were unwilling to take given COVID while staying home on summer days without air conditioning became a whole different kind of risk for people like seniors and those with medical conditions.
From the get go it was clear that Eversource was staggering unprepared for the storm and had nowhere near the proper amount of crews in place to adequately respond. To their chagrin, I was one of the most vocal elected officials in the state calling them out for it.
I started posting regular updates every few hours on social media and quickly my Facebook feed became a place for hundreds of people to both vent their frustrations but also to tell me what was going on in their neighborhoods and ask me to come check it out. I started driving around and visiting the neighborhoods people had invited me to and then calling Eversource to try and direct them to the worst hit neighborhoods or houses with residents in the most need.
When I would show up in a lot of these neighborhoods a cool thing would happen. Neighbors would come out of their houses and we would have these impromptu, town hall-style meetings on people’s lawns or front porches. At each of these meetings, people said something like “Sean, don’t be a typical politician and say you’ll do something about this and then drop it.” At each stop I promised I wouldn’t.
Another storm… and then reform
Three weeks later another storm hit Connecticut and, lucky us, Branford was the worst hit town in the state in which at one point 99% of customers were without power. In the wake of criticism around their Isaias performance, Eversource dedicated a lot of resources to town. On the day after the storm, Governor Lamont and Senator Blumenthal came to Branford Town Hall and joined myself, First Selectman Cosgrove and Rep. Comey in a meeting with several top executives from Eversource.
Senator Blumenthal and I pressed them to provide credits to customers for lost service for both Isaias and this storm. The executives flat out said no and scoffed at the implication that they had done anything but a commendable job during both storms.
After the meeting we did a press conference in front of town hall. A reporter asked one of the Eversource executives what changed between August 4th when Isaias hit and this storm in terms of the company’s response procedures. He said “nothing.” If that didn’t speak for the need for structural reform, I didn’t know what would.
On September 30th, the House convened for the second special session of the year. The biggest item on the agenda was a bill that changed how utility companies like Eversource are regulated so that their rate increases would now be determined based on performance, required them to provide bill credits and reimbursements for lost food and medicine during outages longer than 96 hours and created minimum staffing levels for storm crews so they are never caught flat-footed again.
The bill didn’t do everything I would have wanted and we still have work to do to hold Eversource accountable but, in the aftermath of two big storms, I was glad we kept our word to our constituents and got something big done for them when it comes to energy regulation reform.
A new job for 2021
A few days after the November election the new Speaker of the House Matt Ritter called to ask me to be the next chairman* of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding committee. As it’s title suggests, this committee has jurisdiction over the budget and bonding. I had never planned on becoming chair of this committee and especially not as a still relatively junior member of the House but I was deeply honored to be asked to take on the incredible responsibility of helping to craft our state budget. Health care policy will always be my passion and I will miss being chair of the Insurance Committee but I’m really excited to dive into this new role.
*Keen observers may remember that my predecessor, Pat Widlitz, had also served as chair of the Finance Committee in the last four years of her twenty year career.
Silver Linings
2020 has been a difficult year for so many in our community but I’ve personally tried to focus on the silver linings that have come out of COVID. For starters it meant more time with family and being able to do things I wouldn’t ordinarily have done like trying to master baking (update: still working on it) and doing weekend day trips to state parks we’d never been to for long hikes followed by breakfast or lunch at popular local restaurants.
I hope you and your family were able to find similar silver linings.
We are going to be dealing with COVID for a few more months but there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. I’m excited to get back to work on your behalf in 2021 and, as always, thank you for allowing me to do this job. It’s truly an honor.
