Connecticut’s federal delegation is entirely Democratic. How are they faring amid a national Republican trifecta?
WSHU’s Molly Ingram spoke with CT Mirror’s Lisa Hagen to discuss her article, “With Trump at the wheel, what are CT Democrats to do?,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. Read Lisa’s story here.
WSHU: Connecticut is one of seven states in the country that has an entirely democratic federal delegation. Republicans control all three branches of government. What are our representatives and senators — I think we could say none of whom are happy with how the government is running right now — doing to make that displeasure known?
LH: Yeah. I mean, they’re definitely in an interesting position and a challenging one because, exactly, they’re all Democrats. They’re out of power in the Senate, the House, and, you know, they no longer control the White House, and so there are limited options for what they can do, especially the congressional delegation, on what they can do in Congress. And so there are delay tactics, there are ways to put pressure on them, but I think a lot of what we’re seeing is the kind of going and doing kind of external pressure. They’re going to rallies, they’re going outside of federal agencies to protest, and they’re really just partnering with a lot of these grassroots groups to just be able to have a vessel and a channel to, you know, get that frustration out there and have people know what they’re working on, but also what they see as challenges in the Trump administration.
WSHU: I was going through some of the responses that people like Chris Murphy and Rosa DeLauro get on social media, and the comments, a lot of them are brutal, but some of them are people just begging for them to step in and do something legislatively. Is there anything that they can do?
LH: It’s tricky because, again, in the Senate, they do have the option, legislatively, to block things because there is that 60-vote threshold, and basically overcoming the filibuster, so Democrats can stop a lot. But in terms of putting out their own legislation, that’s tough. They don’t control the floor. The same goes for the House, which is even trickier because everything can pass with a simple majority. So again, putting their own legislation out there can be really tough, but I think where Democrats do hold leverage, and this is where Rosa DeLauro comes in, is in government spending bills. And so she being the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, she’s going to be the one that’s negotiating what federal agencies get in terms of money, how these programs and services are funded. And the thing about, again, depending on which chamber you’re in, you do hold a bit more leverage. And the fact that Republicans are not unified on a lot of fronts, especially when it comes to government funding, that’s where Democrats feel like they’re going to be able to exert some influence.
But again, the Trump administration is challenging some of the decisions, like whether even to release some of that federal funding that Congress has already appropriated. That is an additional challenge for them.
WSHU: Senator Murphy is particularly outspoken. There was a piece about him in the New York Times last week that pretty much crowned him the leader of the opposition party. What is he doing differently than his colleagues?
LH: I think he’s just getting out there much more frequently and doing it more. I don’t know if unconventional is the way, but it is in more untraditional ways. Like a lot of Democrats, they may go on specific kinds of channels and do specific kinds of interviews or talk to specific kinds of groups. He’s going on conservative media and talk shows. He’s going on social media a bit more. He’s really creating videos that are spelling out exactly what he and Democrats believe the Trump administration is doing and how that will affect people. And so he, and this is something we’ve seen since pretty much the day after the election, he was, you know, been very critical and outspoken on what the Democratic Party could have done better, especially in reaching out to working-class people and working-class voters. And he’s kind of, you know, taken the charge in that way and is kind of, you know, keeping that going into the early days of the Trump administration.
WSHU: And I know not everyone is happy with the response from Connecticut’s elected officials. Some people agree with what Trump and Elon Musk are doing, and some people, while they may not agree, they just want to see their representatives spending their time focused on Connecticut issues. What’s been said in response to that?
LH: Yeah. I mean, you know, Connecticut voted for Kamala Harris in the election. It is still a blue state. And so, you’re still seeing a lot of constituents and voters who want the delegation to be more forceful in their response to Trump, but there are Republicans and Trump supporters in Connecticut. And so you know, you’re still seeing that frustration. Whether you’re going out to Murphy and Blumenthal, who did a town hall in Was Hartford, there were pro-Trump protesters outside of that. There are people who are showing up at town halls. There was one who showed up to Jahana Hayes’s town hall and wanted to know more about what she was doing about cutting government spending. And so I think there’s, you know, there’s still that frustration out there, even in a state like Connecticut, and so you’re seeing, you know, the delegation, a big portion of what they’re doing right now is countering and trying to rebuke Trump, but they’re still going to be doing and focusing on the main issues, whether it be transportation or health care. You know, it’s going to be the same things that they’re focused on, but again, being in the minority, exerting little influence that they have.
WSHU: Do you think that they’re prepared to keep this momentum up for another three years? I mean, we’re six weeks in, and it seems like the news hasn’t stopped for a second. What does that future look like?
LH: I think they’ve spoken about that in rallies where they’re all talking about it, it’s exhausting. It’s keeping up with the pace of everything; I’m sure they’re sending out so many press releases, they’re going to so many rallies, and, you know, people, I think they were saying, you know, we can’t have low morale. We have to keep this up. And so, again, yeah, it’s only six weeks, I think, to the day right now. And so I think they’re trying to make the argument that people can’t get complacent. But I think there’s also the notion that, you know, you can’t take every battle. And maybe for I know, Chris Murphy has said that you have to kind of pound the drum and, you know, go out and do things every single day of every minute, that’s not ever going to be everyone’s approach. And, you know, I think you know, I think you know, especially that this will be the next, you know, still have four years of the Trump administration, they’re going to have to pick and choose their battles, and we’ll see if momentum sustains, or if Democrats again are able to exert more pressure and maybe extend their influence a little bit more.