Kickin’ the can down the road: U.S. government will be funded until Feb. 2
U.S. lawmakers in Congress this week passed another continuing resolution to temporarily fund the federal government, setting the stage for further negotiations in the new year on a permanent agreement.
The lawmakers are grappling over spending. Federal Republicans want cuts, while Democrats seek aid for Israel and Ukraine.
Under this temporary pact, some federal agencies will be funded up until Jan. 19, while the rest would be funded up until Feb. 2.
Lisa Hagen, a federal policy reporter for the Connecticut Mirror and Connecticut Public, said Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson supports steeper spending cuts, but will need Democratic votes on any future agreement.
“I’m really curious to see what negotiations look like next year,” Hagen said. “You need votes in both parties to pass anything through Congress.”
It’s the second time this fall that Congress has used continuing resolutions to stave off a government shutdown.
Speaking on Connecticut Public’s The Wheelhouse Wednesday, Hagen explained how people in Connecticut would be impacted if the government shuts down in the winter.
“Federal workers – and there is a decent amount of them in Connecticut – would be furloughed,” Hagen said. “Basically, a lot of workers that are deemed as essential, they have to continue to work – like the military, like the Coast Guard – and they don’t see pay until the government gets funded again.”
Hagen says Social Security, Medicare, and VA Benefits would still go out even in a shutdown, but people relying on government nutrition or education programs could see a stoppage in support.
The proposed date for a new Democratic primary in Bridgeport is Jan. 23.
Attorneys for incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim and John Gomes, sides in a lawsuit over results in a primary held in Bridgeport, worked with state officials to finalize a new date for the city's primary this week.
Gomes and Ganim now agree the new Democratic mayoral primary should be held on Jan. 23.
“I would have preferred having the primary in December, but given the new guardrails that have been put in place regarding absentee ballots, I think it’s a fair trade,” Gomes’ attorney William Bloss told the Connecticut Mirror.
Gomes lost the Sept. 12 primary by 251 votes. He’d gotten enough support at the polls from voters, but absentee ballots tilted the final tally in Ganim’s favor. Gomes then challenged the results in a local superior court after a video surfaced alleging ballot-stuffing.
Superior Court judge William Clark eventually ruled in Gomes’ favor, citing a “volume of ballots so mishandled” that it put the results of the Sept. 12 primary in doubt.
But the judge was unable to stop the general election, setting up a bizarre scenario where Ganim won on Election Day, only to see his attorneys immediately work to set up a date for a new primary and, possibly, a new general election next year.
Before there was agreement on the Jan. 23 date, Gomes’ attorney argued for a December primary, while a legal team for the city of Bridgeport said it shouldn’t happen until January.
In an email to Connecticut Public, the Gomes campaign said it was okay with the later date so long as guardrails were put in place – like stamps on ballots emanating from drop boxes – allowing officials to better track absentee ballots.
If Gomes were to win the new primary, his name would be placed on the Democratic line in a second Bridgeport general election to follow on Feb. 27. If Gomes loses, Joe Ganim would be the city’s mayor.
More than a mascot: Killingly school board flips Democratic as town copes with aftermath of conservative GOP agenda
Some residents in the town of Killingly, including students, are looking forward to a change in the makeup of the local school board.
But before the new school board, which flipped to Democratic control this month, officially begins working, state education officials are holding hearings examining the board’s actions when it was managed mainly by Republicans.
“It’s a failure to implement the educational interests of the state … their failure, quite frankly, to respond at all to their students’ needs,” said Mike McKeon, a director of Legal and Governmental Affairs for the Connecticut State Department of Education during a hearing in Hartford on Wednesday.
The focus of the hearings is the Killingly school board’s rejection of a state grant to put a mental health center inside Killingly High School.
Ginny Monk, a children’s issues reporter for the Connecticut Mirror, is covering the hearings. Speaking on Connecticut Public’s The Wheelhouse, Monk said that the rejection came at a time when Killingly students were demonstrating a “hefty” need for mental health services amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wednesday’s hearing was the first of several, eight days after Democrats regained control of the Killingly School board.
“These are national issues that are sort of being decided on a local level. It’s notoriously hard to get people to turn out for local elections but they’re so important — particularly in the lives of kids in the community,” Monk said.
Republicans took over the Killingly school board in 2019 after they ran on a hyper-focused platform to restore a mascot deemed offensive by several local Native American tribal nations. School board members had adopted the name “Red Hawks” in a move that received wide support from students and faculty within Killingly schools. But after the 2019 municipal elections in the town, the GOP-led board changed the Killingly High School moniker back to “Redmen.”
In response, the state reprimanded Killingly by withholding $94,000 a year in education funding.
The Killingly school board also faces legal bills from its defense of the decision to reject the mental health center.
Frankie & Johnny premieres Fridays at 4:44 p.m. during All Things Considered on Connecticut Public Radio. Connecticut Public’s Lisa Hagen and Patrick Skahill contributed to this report.
