The Wheelhouse

The honeymoon period is over for Gov. Ned Lamont. When he delivers his state budget address to lawmakers later on Wednesday, there will already be plenty of animosity among those watching.

New Haven Police Chief Anthony Campbell's recently announced plans to leave the department has brought the city's budget woes into focus, as well as its contentious brand of politics.

The police department is down to 395 officers, Campbell told city alders earlier this week. That's 100 less than called for in the department's 2019 fiscal year budget, he maintained.

President Donald Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday night was full of contrasting tones. Like when he endorsed national paid family leave for new parents, and then just seconds later, called for legislation banning late-term abortions.

Today, we break down his speech, and how well it went over or didn't go over with Congressional Democrats.

Elections aren't for another nine or so months, but mayoral races are heating up across Connecticut. That includes those in the state's three largest cities where the top municipal leaders are Democrats, and challengers from within the party keep emerging.

As the shutdown of nine federal departments drags into its second month, it's not only about federal government workers going without paychecks.

There has been an increase in warnings that various programs may also take a hit due to the stalemate between President Donald Trump and Democrats over border wall funding.

The new wave of progressive Democrats, both in the Connecticut General Assembly and in Washington, D.C., isn't waiting for the 2020 election to bring about big changes.

In Connecticut, there is emboldened optimism for increasing the state's minimum wage, like Massachusetts just did and allowing early voting, like New York, which is on the verge of enacting.

On his first day of the job, Gov. Ned Lamont made a lot of requests.

He requested state lawmakers to not play the "blame game" and instead confront the challenge of fixing state finances head on.

Ned Lamont has been waiting for this day for a particularly long time.

Our next governor may slip in a few new details about his specific policy goals after he takes the oath of office on Wednesday. But Inauguration Day will mostly be a time for Lamont to set the tone of his forthcoming administration.

It's the New Year and, for Ned Lamont, that means there is only one week left to prepare for the day he takes over the reins of state government.

Lamont has signaled a willingness to be a consensus-builder, someone who brings together opposing viewpoints to reach effective solutions. But does he have the backbone to stand firm during the budget process when groups that propelled him into office present him with wish-lists the state can't readily afford?

The troubling gap between the rich and the poor in Connecticut is formidable and only getting more profound.

Studies have shown that failing to address income inequality hampers overall economic growth. So it's in everyone's interest that something is done about it. But with the state carrying the weight of massive debt payments, can we afford more programs designed to lift up those at the bottom? Can we afford not to spend more?

To absolutely no one's surprise, outgoing Governor Dannel Malloy is not letting anyone define his legacy without adding his two cents.

While speaking to the media Tuesday after the final Bond Commission meeting of his administration, Malloy struck back at those criticizing job growth in Connecticut and the level of state borrowing during his eight years in office.

Governor-elect Ned Lamont on Tuesday announced two team captains who will be tasked with helping him confront huge state budget deficits and Connecticut's tarnished business climate.

For his chief of staff, Lamont picked Ryan Drajewicz, an executive from Westport-based hedge fund behemoth Bridgewater Associates. His budget chief will be Melissa McCaw, currently the head of the city of Hartford's Office of Management, Budget and Grants.

A narrative often repeated by Connecticut Republicans and others is that state residents are sick of the high taxes and government ineptitude, and ready to bolt to greener pastures.

But new census data isn't all doom and gloom. Out-migration trends that soiled Connecticut's reputation in recent years are dissipating, according to a Hartford Courant editorial. In certain key categories, it found recent population losses have turned into population gains.

Happy Thanksgiving! This week, The Wheelhouse is out enjoying a well-deserved break and being thankful for Colin McEnroe. We’ll be back next week giving you the latest news on all things politics in Connecticut.

We’re still finding out results from last Tuesday’s elections in Connecticut and that’s not surprising, really. Some of the races were just really close. That’s probably a good thing.

Another good thing: Lots of people showing up to vote. Gigantic numbers showing up to vote in a midterm election in Connecticut and just about everywhere.

The bad thing: We still can’t seem to get this election thing right at least in our cities.

This hour, we look at possible fixes.

Upstart candidates like Connecticut's Jahana Hayes played a big role in Democrats regaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives in Tuesday's election. Hayes' victory over Republican opponent Manny Santos also kept the GOP locked out of the state's congressional delegation yet again.

The final debate in this year's race for governor is in the rearview mirror. What did we learn Tuesday night, and what should Ned Lamont and Bob Stefanowski be most worried about before polls open just six days from now? Should it be:

• Reaching out to those favoring Oz Griebel? A Quinnipiac Poll released Oct. 30 found 7 percent of likely voters support their unaffiliated rival. Of that group, more than half said they might jump ship at the last moment. In a close race, Griebel breakaways could put Stefanowski or Lamont on top.

Which party can get to 19?

That's the number of Connecticut Senate seats that Republicans or Democrats need to win on Nov. 6 to control the legislature's upper chamber.

Right now, it's an 18-18 split. But a national Republican-funded super PAC is spending large sums of money in an attempt to change that.

In the state House of Representatives, the GOP needs just five more seats to gain the majority for the first time since 1984.

We can learn a lot from campaign finance reports.

In Connecticut's race for governor, they reveal that the three top contenders, Bob Stefanowski, Ned Lamont, and Oz Griebel, are all dipping deep into their own pockets to fund their campaigns. 

Two issues continue to dominate this year's race for governor: taxes and the economy.

That notion has been reinforced by the latest Quinnipiac University poll. Of the likely voters surveyed, 31% said the economy was their chief concern, while 26% said it was taxes.

Climate change wasn't even an issue listed in the poll question. It's also been left largely unaddressed by those running for governor this year.

With the nation transfixed on the revelations pouring out of Washington, D.C., how much remaining brain capacity do voters have for Connecticut's governor's race?

It's undoubtedly hard to compete for attention against news cycles dominated by edge-of-your-seat histrionics that could shape the direction of the U.S. Supreme Court for a generation. So this week we set out to bring state politics back into focus.

The firestorm in Washington, D.C., over the sexual misconduct charges leveled against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is tearing its way through New Haven too.

Both Kavanaugh and his latest accuser, Deborah Ramirez, attended Yale together in the 1980s. As Ramirez tells it, the lecherous behavior came during a dorm party at the university and was fueled by heavy drinking. 

This election cycle has been perilous for many Democratic incumbents in Congress. Just look at the primary losses of ten-term U.S. Reps. Michael Capuano and Joseph Crowley next door in Massachusetts and New York.

Yet members of Connecticut's all-Democratic congressional delegation are well on their way to being re-elected. The one exception is U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty who dropped her bid for a third term due to a singular scandal.

In recent days, Republican gubernatorial nominee Bob Stefanowski has ratcheted up the pleas for campaign donations. If more money doesn't come in quickly, he may be forced to curtail his television advertising blitz, Stefanowski's wife warned in an email to supporters.

This week, ahead of the first debate between the two major party candidates Wednesday night, we evaluate how Stefanowski and Democrat Ned Lamont are doing at this critical stage of the race, both financially and otherwise. Will the constant barrage of attack ads, from both sides, continue?

Connecticut Public Radio, The Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges, WFSB Channel 3, the CT Mirror hosted the first gubernatorial debate of the general election at the University of Saint Joseph on September 5, 2018. 

Missed the event? Listen to the audio above

Should she win the Fifth Congressional District race on Nov. 6, Jahana Hayes would no longer be the only black female from New England elected to Congress. Ayanna Pressley, who toppled 10-term U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano in Tuesday's Democratic primary in Massachusetts' 7th District race, would hold that claim too. Unlike for Hayes, there's no Republican opposing Pressley in the general election.

This week, we gauge what Pressley's victory, and other trends suggesting this will be a big year for female candidates, means for Connecticut.