Carol Reimers, LWVCT President, submitted the following letter to the Government Administration and Elections (GAE) Committee on February 26, 2021 as a response to the February 22, 2021 Public Hearing on Early Voting and No-Excuse Absentee Voting:
To: The Honorable Government Administration and Elections Committee
Public Hearings must be for the public. Sadly, this is no longer the case.
The League of Women Voters of Connecticut is deeply disturbed by the present management of public hearings. It is has become increasingly apparent over the recent years that the rules for public hearings need to be changed. This has been true in the past for hearings held at the Legislative Office Building particularly when there was a controversial piece of proposed legislation. With the use of virtual public hearings, which can be beneficial to the public for many reasons, this is brought into stark reality for viewing by the public.
The rule that gives precedence to legislators and state officials with unlimited time to speak is no longer acceptable. While we recognize that legislative committees need to hear from their colleagues and state officials, the time for this exchange should either be at a separate hearing or they should speak last after the public portion. Legislators and state officials are paid to conduct the hearing. Expecting citizens to wait for long hours without any consideration of their work and family commitments has to stop.
We recommend a set of rules with no special considerations for anyone. These rules would be equitable to any person who cares deeply enough about the proposed legislation to sign up to speak in person. An example of rules that would treat all speakers, including legislators, fairly would be to allow 3 minutes per speaker with a total time allowed for that speaker’s presentation and Q&A of 10 minutes. In addition, limiting the time period for legislators and state officials would be more equitable.
The recent permission granted to allow a legislator to yield their time to a particular public speaker has set a disturbing precedent. If this practice is allowed to continue then the method of setting speaking order can be gamed to favor certain speakers over others. Lobbyists, organizations, activists and individuals with more influence would be given prime speaking positions by arrangement with a legislator while the ordinary citizen, who was unaware of this method of “jumping the line” would be left out.
We hope that the Government, Administration and Elections Committee will be the first legislative committee to recognize this serious problem and remedy it as soon as possible. Give the public back their voice within a reasonable framework for equal consideration of all points of view.
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For more information on our 2021 Legislative Priorities and Advocacy:
