NORWICH, CT — Attorney General William Tong and Congressman Joe Courtney were in Eastern Connecticut on Tuesday, Earth Day, to talk to students attending CT State Three Rivers about environmental laws and regulatory policy.
Although they touched on issues they are both dealing with here in the state and in Washington, questions from the student audience soon turned to other concerns.
Questions on the future of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United States pulling out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement under the Trump administration eventually led to discussions on the issues of mental health, special education, transgender rights, and immigration.
The optics of what people are seeing from the news media were also addressed. As one psychology major put it: “We see with the rhetoric going on about how these fights are kind of playing out. What are you guys seeing behind closed doors? How close are we to reality?”
Referring to conversations he and Republicans have had in Congress, Courtney acknowledged there is currently a lot of noise when it comes to public debate, noting that “there’s the public debate and then there’s the public cable show view of politics and a lot of personal interaction.”
He did acknowledge that things have changed in this current 119th Congress, pointing out that “the speaker has intentionally shrunk the amount of airtime in terms of activity on the floor.”
This is your world, and it’s going to be yours in a hot minute. And if you don’t stand up and fight for it, it will not be recognizable to you when you get there.”
Attorney general william tong, speaking to college students
He also noted that in the first 100 days of the Trump administration, “committees are just limping along and to date only five bills have made it from the floor to the president’s desk. That’s historically very low.”
Courtney stated that with the President’s approval numbers dropping, they’re hoping to get the system “rebalanced.”
The topic of increasing numbers of mental health issues and cuts to special education funding got Tong animated about the Department of Education being dismantled.
“This is about our support and our infrastructure for public education in this country and destroying public education and saying to the states: You’re on your own. And frankly, not just the states, but towns and cities,” he said.
Tong said it is the same situation with special education.
“We’re facing a $175 million cut to public health here in Connecticut right now. I’ve sued on it. I didn’t say a million. I didn’t say 10 million. It’s $175 million. The effect is profound,” he said.
But the two most personal moments of the 90-minute discussion came when two students asked about transgender rights and immigration and how both are frightened about what they are seeing.
Sam, a nursing major who identifies as transgender, said they’ve seen a lot of protections for transgender people on the federal level disappear and wanted to know what protections would remain in Connecticut.
“Trans rights are human rights.” Tong said. “Trans people enjoy the exact same rights as the rest of us do in Connecticut, period.”
Tong thanked the student for their courage and said he will fight every day for transgender rights and that it’s not just leaders like himself and Courtney, who people must hold accountable on such matters, but also the leaders of institutions and big companies.
On immigration, a student said she was worried for herself and her immigrant parents and wanted to know why the Democrats didn’t seem to be speaking up for immigrants.
Courtney said he took some exception to the comment, noting that “if you look at our caucus, led by Hakeem Jeffries and Jamie Raskin, you know we have been totally united since day one in terms of the executive orders that have been put out for the Department of Homeland Security.”
He said he and his colleagues are speaking out on the wider issue of how immigration affects the US economy and the impact it’s already having in rural America, where 50% of America’s agricultural and meat-packing workers are undocumented.
Tong, a son of immigrant parents, noted that immigration is a personal issue for him and stated how he will fight all the way on the issue, adding, “There is no America without us.”
In his closing comments, Tong reminded the student audience why they can’t afford to sit on the sidelines, referencing a recent Hands-Off Protest in Hartford at which he said the average age of the protesters was 55.
“It was not a young people’s revolution, okay? You guys were not there. And, and I’ve got to tell you, that is deeply concerning to me,” he said. “This is your world and it’s going to be yours in a hot minute. And if you don’t stand up and fight for it, it will not be recognizable to you when you get there.”
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