Republicans from Connecticut, who came to Washington, D.C. to celebrate and mark Trump’s transition back into power, believe he is best-positioned to enact such changes and move in a different direction than the last four years of the Biden era.

A large group of supporters ranging from state legislators, mayors, city councilors and rank and file Republicans travelled to Washington to experience the inauguration in person. But the shift to an indoor ceremony upended the plans of Republicans making the trek from the northeast.

Connecticut Republicans, who originally had seats to watch Trump take the oath outside of the U.S. Capitol or on the National Mall, ended up at more informal events to watch the speech and swearing-in ceremony.

Supporters from across the U.S. waited in massive lines to get into Capital One arena to watch the ceremony on a livestream before Trump stopped by later in the day. But many from Connecticut opted to watch it from a restaurant less than a mile away from the Capitol.

The state’s Republican Party partnered with New York’s delegation on events throughout the weekend, including a watch party Monday at Capital Grille. One of those attendees was Ray Ouellet, an at-large Republican city councilor from Meriden.

Beneath a veneer of calm, Trump’s inauguration holds warning signs for US democracy

“The country needs to go in a different direction, and he’s the man to do it,” Ouellet said in an interview ahead of the inauguration.

“I still kind of keep my opinion to myself, but Donald Trump is our next president,” he added. “I think it’s time to not be afraid to show your support for our United States president. It’s very difficult in Connecticut to be a proud Trump fan without getting any backlash.”

More moderate Republicans in the state have grappled with how closely to align with Trump and some largely distanced themselves during the most recent elections.

But others see the tide changing when it comes to Trump, even in a blue state like Connecticut. Ben Proto, chairman of the state GOP, said the group that came down to D.C. for the inauguration included many ardent supporters who have been with him “since he came down the escalator” during his 2015 announcement at Trump Tower, as Proto puts it.

“I think there’s more excitement now than in 2017. A lot of that has to do with how we lived for the last four years and saw the bad direction we had been going in,” Proto said.

Lisa Milone, the newly sworn in Republican registrar of voters in New Haven, said she was intrigued by Trump years ago when he was a businessman. She was able to secure a ticket to the swearing-in ceremony when it was planned for indoors. Prior to Monday, she was hoping for a speech focused on unity, noting that her job in a heavily Democratic city requires working with the other party.

“I’d like to see more of unifying America as Americans rather than party,” Milone said. “I’m all about working together. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t survive in New Haven.”

Monday was a historic day on a few accounts. Trump is the first president to serve non-consecutive terms since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s and the first in 40 years to have an indoor ceremony. He also delivered two speeches from the Capitol that offered a split-screen of the president’s style: one who sticks to the script with a disciplined message as well as an off-the-cuff approach with more rambling thoughts, humor and falsehoods about the 2020 election.

The swearing-in ceremony was held in the Capitol Rotunda – where Trump delivered his inaugural address under the coffered dome surrounded by murals and statues. Hundreds of guests and dignitaries packed into the circular room, including members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation.

Seated with Trump at the front were his Cabinet nominees, family, former presidents and vice presidents and billionaire tech executives from X, Meta, Google, Amazon and Apple.

Trump wasted little time rolling out his first batch of executive actions. During his inaugural address, Trump promised that he would imminently sign a flurry of orders, including declaring a national emergency at the southern border and sending troops there, as well as declaring a national energy emergency.

That will set up a showdown with Connecticut’s Democratic leaders, namely Attorney General William Tong who plans to sue against orders, particularly any efforts to end birthright citizenship, the enshrined right for anyone born in the U.S. to get citizenship regardless of their parents’ legal status.

Monday’s speech was reminiscent of Trump’s first inaugural address in 2017 where he described “American carnage” that he claimed was embroiling cities across the country. His past address also heavily referenced the “forgotten men and women” who had been left behind by the establishment in Washington.

Like he did eight years ago, he leaned heavily on that same imagery and vowed to fix “America’s decline” and usher the country into a “golden age.”

“During every day of the Trump administration, I will very simply put America first,” Trump said. “Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced. Our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous and free.”

This year’s inauguration coincided with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. After declaring Jan. 20, 2025, “Liberation Day,” he made a mention of the Civil Rights icon and argued his presidency would make King’s “dreams come true.” A number of Democrats and Black lawmakers had said they would not attend his inauguration and instead focus on events to honor King and the holiday.

While the frigid temperatures moved the traditional pomp and circumstance indoors, the day still had its own Trump-style flair.

With limited seating in the Rotunda, more than a thousand people packed into the overflow viewing room in Emancipation Hall, the large sandstone-walled room that greets visitors when they tour the Capitol grounds.

CT Gov. Ned Lamont attended Donald Trump’s swearing-in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. Credit: Lisa Hagen / CT Mirror
Congressional spouses, governors and other dignitaries were among those in the overflow room. Gov. Ned Lamont walked in with a group of governors before the ceremony, shaking hands with others seated in Emancipation Hall.

The overflow room was a who’s who of politicians and personalities: New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat; YouTube stars like brothers Jake and Logan Paul, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and podcaster and comedian Theo Von, who interviewed Vice President JD Vance ahead of the election.

Shortly after the ceremony, Trump, Vance and Republican leaders visited Emancipation Hall to directly address the guests, supporters and dignitaries who were not able to watch in the Rotunda.

Trump quickly launched back into his free-wheeling, campaign-style speech that went longer than his inaugural address. He joked with Vance and Republican leaders who flanked him on stage, and repeated the falsehoods of a stolen election in 2020.

He told the overflow crowd that he was urged to keep his traditional inaugural address on unity and to refrain from certain topics that he said he saved for the group in Emancipation Hall who “are serious Trump fans.”

“I was going to talk about the J6 hostages,” Trump said, referring to the rioters who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. “But you’ll be happy because, you know, it’s action not words that count.”

Republicans and the president himself argue Trump has a “mandate” to carry out his campaign promises and agenda after winning the popular vote, unlike in 2016, and having Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress.

That could be stymied by the fact that while Republicans control all of Congress, they do so with smaller majorities and will need Democratic support on some issues. They also face challenges from different factions within the GOP who have different priorities.

But for now, they are hopeful about the trajectory of the party – and the country.

“I think because everything is so expensive, everything that’s gone up in price, there’s some people, whether they like him or not, appreciate his business and economic stance,” said state Rep. Cara Pavalock-D’Amato of Bristol. “I think a lot of people are looking forward to that kind of administration. Because he now has four years under his belt, winning to losing and then being shot, I’ve definitely seen a change.”

Lisa Hagen is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2025 @ CTMirror (ctmirror.org).

They are confident Congress will follow the routine process that brings the country another step closer to a peaceful transition of power before the presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.

Despite this, the men and women who represent Connecticut in the House and Senate still carry a lingering sense of disbelief about the violence that unfolded after then-President Trump urged his vice president to block the results of the 2020 election.

As they prepare to affirm Trump’s 2024 victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, Connecticut Democrats say the Jan. 6 riots serve as an enduring reminder that democracy is fragile.

All seven members of the delegation were at the Capitol that day in 2021. Some were sitting in the House and Senate chambers when they went into lockdown to prevent the mob from getting onto the floor. Others were ordered to shelter in place in their offices along with staff as rioters breached the building.

Connecticut’s lawmakers recalled hearing the sounds of breaking glass and shouting from protesters that included chants to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence.

But any planned protests will not be able to get within close proximity this year because of the heavily barricaded grounds. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security declared the certification a “National Special Security Event” that uses the same security protocols for events like inaugurations and State of the Union addresses.

And while Democratic lawmakers have raised objections to GOP victories in recent elections, they are not anticipating many, if any, protest votes this time around in the hopes of projecting a seamless transition.

It will be momentous, however, in other ways. Harris will preside over the joint session as the head of the U.S. Senate and certify her own loss to Trump. Congress passed a law in 2022 clarifying the role of the vice president as ceremonial in overseeing the tallying of each state’s electoral votes.

Any political unity that arose in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot has largely dissipated within Congress. Trump promises to pardon those convicted when he returns to office. And Republicans say they will investigate the now disbanded Jan. 6 congressional committee. Disagreements over what transpired that day have made it a more challenging working environment in recent years.

In the lead-up to Jan. 6, 2025, each member of Connecticut’s delegation reflected on their experiences from four years ago, how it changed their approach to their jobs and how they feel heading into today’s certification that will usher in a new Trump administration:

U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District

Jim Himes helped document what was happening in real time as one of a handful of members sitting in the House gallery, which overlooks the floor. The pandemic limited how many lawmakers could be in the chamber that day.

As the mob got closer, the chamber went into lockdown. Because tear gas was deployed in the Capitol, police instructed them to take out the protective gear under their seats and get down on the floor. Himes and Rosa DeLauro, his colleague from a neighboring district, were stuck in the gallery for 15 or 20 minutes before they were allowed to evacuate to a secure location.

“We heard in the chamber people rioting. We had not seen the photos of the combat,” Himes said. “We had no idea how bad it was when we were in there.”

Four years later, his concerns about democracy have not subsided. Himes vented frustrations about political leaders sowing discord to push an agenda, and pointed to rhetoric from Trump and some Republicans about a false report that a migrant was responsible for the recent New Orleans terror attack.

“I used to think democracy was our natural inheritance. Now I see it’s really fragile and it requires nurturing and a real commitment,” Himes said. “If we continue to push b——t in the service of likes and online engagement and if American citizens continue to like that, kiss our democracy goodbye.”

While he offered a grim warning, Himes said he feels confident the final steps of the transition from President Joe Biden to Trump will go smoothly. But in an alternate universe where Harris won, he said he would have prepared to do his job this week much differently.

“Make no mistake, this Jan. 6 and Jan. 20 are going to be flowers and puppy dogs because Donald Trump won,” he said. “If Kamala Harris had won, I’d be buying body armor right now.”

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-5th District

Rosa DeLauro had a similar experience to Himes as the House chamber went into lockdown. But it was not the first time during her decades-long tenure that the threat of violence hung over the Capitol.

The congresswoman said it was reminiscent of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that prompted the evacuation of the U.S. Capitol after a plane struck the Pentagon. Ultimately, the Capitol was safe, but the possible risk of more attacks sent Washington into a frenzy.

But like that day 20 years earlier, DeLauro said there was an overwhelming sense four years ago that lawmakers needed to return. In 2001, a group of lawmakers including her returned to the Capitol and sang “God Bless America” on the steps. On Jan. 6, 2021, Congress reconvened after the rioters had been removed to finalize the count of Biden’s victory.

“In both instances, government was still standing. The strength of the U.S. government just overran anything that people wanted to do, whether it was a foreign power or domestic terrorism that was going to disrupt the free flow of government,” she said.

While she remembered the resolve of Congress to finish its work, DeLauro acknowledged the lasting trauma and fear that remains for those who barricaded themselves in offices for hours before the building was secured that night. She recalled a staffer of hers who needed to shelter in place alone in her office at the Capitol, hearing the screaming of rioters on the opposite of the door. She said the staffer did not want to come back to the Capitol for a while and was “pretty traumatized.”

“I watched Al Gore say ‘it’s over, we lost,'” DeLauro said, referencing when Gore, the vice president at the time, certified his loss to George W. Bush in 2001. “We cannot ever allow that to happen again and my hope is that people believe that it should never happen again.”

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

On the opposite end of the Capitol, Richard Blumenthal was in the Senate chamber along with fellow Connecticut senator Chris Murphy.

Like their colleagues in the House, they were evacuated to a secure location where they remained for hours. Blumenthal remembers walking right behind then-Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Blumenthal recalled the heavy security presence at the Capitol in the days and months after the attack. He said it resembled what he remembers of his congressional trips to the Middle East region where the U.S. embassies were “literally an armed fortress.”

Blumenthal and other members of the delegation said the experience makes them take security even more seriously. And it has complicated their relationships with some colleagues who continued to object to the election results after the riots or who have since downplayed the violence.

But on that day, Blumenthal remembers the overwhelming push to finish their work.

“I don’t think there’s one clear throughline … on the effect on our relationships, but it certainly has given us some of a common experience across the aisle and fear of a similar attack,” Blumenthal said.

“What was most dramatic at that moment was the clear consensus that we should stay. We should do the vote, do our job,” he said. “There was no hesitation on the part of any colleagues that at least I could discern that we should stay at the Capitol.”

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

For Chris Murphy, the experience has made it difficult to work with the “ring leaders” of Jan. 6, he said. But it has also brought him closer to Republican colleagues who dropped their objections to certifying certain state’s results when Congress resumed the count that evening.

One of those colleagues was Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma. Murphy negotiated a bipartisan border bill with Lankford, but it was ultimately blocked when it reached the Senate amid objections from Trump.

“It’s not a coincidence that I ended up spending six months of my life working with James Lankford on immigration reform and he was one of the few that switched his vote after he saw what happened,” Murphy said.

Murphy was in the Senate chamber and recalled the unease feeling that day as he headed in that morning. After that day, fearing a repeat of future election threats, he was part of a bipartisan group that negotiated the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 that spelled out the role of the vice president and made other changes to the certification process.

Since November, Murphy has been vocal about where he believes Democrats went wrong in their election losses to Trump and other Republicans. And he argued it should raise even more concerns within his party when it came to the campaign rhetoric involving Jan. 6.

“We should be really, really freaked out that Donald Trump, having not condemned that violence but celebrated that violence, got reelected,” he said. “Maybe that says something about the country but it probably says more about how unpopular the Democratic brand is that we can’t beat a candidate who openly celebrated and wrapped his arms around the violence that happened that day.”

U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District

From his congressional office, John Larson has a direct view of the Capitol. And on Jan. 6, 2021, he watched from his window as protesters started amassing outside of the building. He ultimately sheltered in his office along with a few staffers.

Like DeLauro, Larson vividly remembers the apprehension surrounding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks – and the determination of Congress to keep the government running.

“I think in both instances it makes you more determined to see that democracy prevails and the function of government continues as the Constitution intended,” he said.

Larson said he is astounded that a majority of Republican voters still believe the 2020 election was stolen. But he remains hopeful heading into a new political era in two weeks.

He recalled the significant moments – both good and bad – since he was first elected to Congress in 1998. He has witnessed the swearing in of the first female speaker of the House and first Black president as well as security threats at the Capitol.

“I’ve seen a lot over the years,” Larson said as he starts his fourteenth term, “and I still remain optimistic.”

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District

Like Larson, Joe Courtney hunkered down in his office with only one staffer who came in that day because of pandemic limitations. They watched events unfold on C-SPAN as Democratic leaders were removed from the House floor. And he recalled an alarm going off that he had never heard before.

The previous congressional certifications he participated in were unremarkable in comparison.

“It was my fourth certification,” Courtney said. “If you’d asked me that morning to describe where we were when we certified [Barack] Obama and Trump, I couldn’t have told you.”

Courtney said he still feels safe at the Capitol and worries more about safety at his district offices, especially after the 2011 shooting of then-Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz.

But heading into Monday, Courtney got the sense that Democratic leaders would approach the process differently this year and try to tamp down any objections like the ones that were raised to Bush’s victories in 2000 and 2004 and the first Trump win.

“I think people look at the certification differently because of how it was attacked and threatened. And the message I’ve heard from Leader [Hakeem] Jeffries [is] we have to avoid any temptation or inclination to use it as a way of being a protest moment,” he said. “This is part of our oath. Our job is ministerial, and not to mangle it.”

U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5th District

As a former teacher, Jahana Hayes grew accustomed to practicing security drills. And when the alarms went off in school, all the doors closed.

After the security breaches at the Capitol, she was struck by the fact that the glass on the first floor could break and that doors did not automatically lock.

“The only thing stopping people is a sign that says do not walk down these halls,” she said.

Hayes was in her office on Jan. 6 with her son who was around 11 years old at the time, seeking to reassure him that they were safe and could go back into the chambers once they got the all clear.

“One of the things that was very obvious to me was I could not blend in the same way other people could,” Hayes said, adding that she was “hyper aware as a member of Congress, as a Black woman.”

While the issue of democracy was top of mind for Hayes and her Democratic colleagues in the recent election, she noted that “even the urge to want to fight for democracy is a very privileged position” with voters worried about the economy and providing for their families. She said lawmakers need to “connect all these dots.”

Democracy “can be seen and felt by people at all levels,” she said, “And we really have to work hard to articulate that.”

Lisa Hagen is a reporter for The Connecticut Mirror (ctmirror.org). Copyright 2025 © The Connecticut Mirror.

Those funds — and the paychecks of thousands of federal employees — were all at stake with the imminent threat of a shutdown. But Friday evening, after a dramatic few days, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to fund the government.

The state’s congressional delegation played a pivotal role in pushing for more relief, particularly for farmers in Connecticut who were affected by extreme weather events in the past two years. In smaller farming states, like those in New England, farmers focus on growing specialty crops. They’re typically unable to get the same kind of federal assistance as farmers in states that grow commodity crops like corn, soybeans and wheat.

The provisions were tucked into a continuing resolution to maintain the government’s current funding levels through mid-March, including an extension of the Farm Bill.

The Senate voted to pass the measure just after midnight, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk and averting a government shutdown.

Farm relief and submarine funding

With the funding bill approved, Connecticut is set to receive billions of dollars in disaster assistance. That includes $23 million in agriculture disaster and economic relief; $6.7 million in small business disaster loans for 77 applicants; and $48 million in Federal Highway Administration Emergency Relief. The latter funding is slated to help with long-term housing and infrastructure as it relates to recovery from disasters.

Some farmers in Connecticut, who lost crops and sustained farmland damage from weather events in 2023 and 2024, may be able to tap into a $220 million block grant fund that provides “compensation to producers for necessary expenses related to crop, timber, and livestock losses, including on-farm infrastructure.” Because the program is geared toward small and midsize farmers, only states in New England as well as Alaska and Hawaii are eligible for the block grants.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, championed the creation of the Farm Recovery and Support Block Grant Program. And as the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, she helped craft and negotiate the year-end spending bill.

The idea came together after meeting with a farmer in her district, William DellaCamera, who sustained hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses after a 13-minute hail storm in August. He drove a tractor from Northford to Washington, D.C., where he met with DeLauro and the Connecticut delegation to urge them to do more for small farmers to recoup losses.

DeLauro said she’s working with Connecticut and the state agriculture commissioner to rapidly identify farmers in need who will qualify for compensation. Eligibility does not hinge on whether or not a farmer has crop insurance or whether there was a national disaster declaration in place.

“It is historic aid for farmers,” DeLauro said in an interview after the House vote. “Where you can see something happen and provide immediate relief on a problem, that is not usually the way of the Congress.”

DeLauro also hailed the responsiveness of the legislation. “One of the frustrations is [when] you can’t help people in real time and it takes a long time to get something done,” she said. “This happened in real time. That’s what this place is about. This is what we need to be doing.”

The bill includes the White House’s emergency request of $5.7 billion for the Virginia-class submarine program to help General Dynamics Electric Boat address workforce gaps, pay raises and cost overruns last year and this year. The company’s Columbia-class submarine program will also get nearly $6 billion to help with long-lead-time materials.

That will give a boost to Electric Boat, the nation’s primary sub manufacturer with locations in Groton and Quonset Point in Rhode Island, as well as Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. It comes after Congress approved a defense policy bill for fiscal year 2025 that authorizes full funding for one Virginia-class sub and “incremental” funding for a second. Congress and the administration were at odds over procurement for a second vessel.

A dramatic few days

Up until late Friday, all of the Connecticut-specific funding was up in the air as Congress was sent into a last-minute scramble to avoid a shutdown before the holidays.

The 11th-hour drama started Wednesday when intervention from President-elect Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk scuttled a short-term spending deal brokered by both parties. That set off a scramble among House Republicans to find a new path forward, but members of their own party voted against a new bill Thursday, along with most Democrats.

“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling. Without this, we should never make a deal. Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President,” Trump posted on social media site Truth Social during negotiations. “If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP.’ This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!”

There was steadfast opposition to suspending the country’s borrowing limit, also known as debt ceiling, for two years, which Trump had called for. After nixing that element of the bill, the House overwhelmingly passed the continuing resolution and the supplemental funding requests, 366-34.

Democrats, including those in Connecticut’s congressional delegation, fumed over the collapse of the original spending deal brokered by both parties. But a group of conservative Republicans also pushed back against the debt ceiling provision.

Right before the House vote, DeLauro railed against GOP leadership for stripping out some measures included in the original deal, such as funding for pediatric cancer research and reforms to pharmacy benefits managers to create more transparency on negotiating drug prices. She took particular issue with Musk’s role in the process.

Ultimately, she voted for the bill she helped craft — as did her other four Democratic colleagues from Connecticut.

“In eastern Connecticut, the short-term spending bill will ensure that federal employees, including roughly 9,000 sailors and officers at the Groton submarine base, will not have their pay disrupted, as well the Coast Guard Academy staff in New London. Their important work will continue uninterrupted,” U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, said. Courtney also took on a leading role to ensure that disaster and agricultural supplemental funding would pass before the end of the year.

Connecticut lawmakers argued that the 48-hour spending fight is a precursor to what the next year could look like when Trump returns to office and Republicans regain complete control of Congress.

They also raised fears about the rising influence of Musk, a billionaire tech entrepreneur who was appointed by Trump to co-lead a new federal agency tasked with cutting back regulations and overhauling the government.

“This wouldn’t have happened without the intervention of Trump and Musk yesterday,” U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, said in an interview, calling Musk “a fourth branch of government.”

“We’re seeing the agenda of the Trump administration before they’re even sworn in in front of our eyes,” U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Thursday. “Rig the rules in order to make the billionaires richer and telegraph that as your number one priority to Congress.”

Passage was a major victory for advocates who argue the deductions unfairly hurt those who collected pensions but also worked jobs covered by Social Security. It was the culmination of a years-long effort to eliminate the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset yet on a rare fast track through Congress over the past couple of months.

The timing was also significant, given the short window of time left in the current Congress, which has been dominated by must-pass legislation. And it passed shortly before the Senate took up the year-end package to fund the federal government and avoid a shutdown.

Momentum for the stalled legislation started this fall when authors of the House version sought to circumvent normal procedures and force a vote. They used a discharge petition, requiring them to collect a majority of signatures from lawmakers in order to get a vote. The bill overwhelmingly passed the House last month, raising the stakes for proponents to get it done before the end of the year.

That put pressure on the Senate to take up the legislation in the final weeks. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed last week to hold a vote before lawmakers left town. On Wednesday, the Social Security Fairness Act cleared the initial hurdle, and after a number of procedural and amendment votes this week, it moved to the last stage in the process late on Friday that stretched into the early morning hours.

The bill easily cleared final passage, 76-20, with support from both of Connecticut’s senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy. The bill now heads to the White House where Biden is expected to sign it into law.

Support for repealing WEP and GPO brought together a range of coalitions and groups including lawmakers in both parties as well as unions representing industries like education, law enforcement, government employees and other public workers. The Fraternal Order of Police announced earlier in the week that President-elect Donald Trump backs the legislation.

“We have different political views. We have different pedagogical views,” Connecticut Education Association Vice President Joslyn DeLancey said, referring to her union, which represents thousands of teachers across the state. “So when we can find an issue that every single one of our members, all 40-plus-thousand of them, say, ‘No, this needs to be fixed,’ right? And I think that that’s what is really interesting about this issue.”

But critics raised concerns because there is no offset to pay for the repeal, and it would speed up the projected timeline of Social Security becoming insolvent, though both sides have acknowledged that Congress will need to deal with larger reforms to the program for its long-term financial health.

The bill eliminates two provisions that reduce Social Security payments to certain beneficiaries as well as spouses and surviving family members who also collect a pension from jobs that did not pay Social Security payroll taxes. That can include teachers, police officers, firefighters, government employees and others in the public sector.

The Windfall Elimination Provision can lower how much beneficiaries receive from Social Security if they also get pensions or disability benefits from uncovered work. It applies to those who paid Social Security taxes on less than 30 years of substantial earnings, which is currently set at $31,275 in 2024.

WEP affects more than 22,000 beneficiaries in Connecticut, with the vast majority of them retired workers, according to December 2023 estimates from the Congressional Research Service. Connecticut is one of 15 states where WEP applies to teachers.

The Government Pension Offset can cut Social Security spousal or survivor benefits by two-thirds of the non-covered pension from local, state or federal government employment. For some who receive a teacher’s pension, the cuts can be larger than their spousal benefits, so they essentially receive nothing through Social Security.

The bill easily passed the House last month, with support from four of the five Democratic members in Connecticut’s delegation. U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1, voted against it because it does not include an offset similar to that in his own Social Security reform bill, which seeks to temporarily remove those provisions. His own bill would fund the repeal of WEP and GPO through raising the income cap on taxable earnings for Social Security.

Larson, who serves as ranking member of the Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee, has been pushing for more comprehensive reforms to Social Security for years. His legislation, “Social Security 2100 Act,” has support from 188 Democrats but no GOP co-sponsors. That will become even more challenging next session when Republicans control both chambers of Congress and Trump returns to the White House.

Current estimates show the Trust Fund for old age and survivors insurance will be able to pay 100% of Social Security benefits through 2033. After that, it could result in people receiving reduced benefits, amounting to about a 20% cut.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that if the bipartisan legislation is enacted and repeals both provisions, it would cost nearly $196 billion over the next decade.

Others warned against ending WEP and GPO without an offset, arguing that it will be a drain on the Social Security Trust Fund. U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., criticized the accelerated process for bringing up the bill, as well as concerns about having no offsets. In addition to the discharge petition in the House, Tillis noted the Senate held no committee hearings on the legislation.

“So it is something we need to fix, but this is not the way to fix it. We are 10 years away from most economists’ consensus believing that the Social Security Trust Fund is going to reach insolvency,” Tillis said earlier this week. “To right a wrong for a small percentage of people that should get fairly treated, they are going to take $200 billion over 10 years to pay for this. That pulls insolvency forward by six months.”

But those affected by the decrease in their benefits argue it unfairly affects many who have worked in public service, like teachers, police officers and firefighters, as well as survivor benefits for those who served in local, state or federal government.

A number of labor unions across industries have been at the forefront of the years-long push to repeal WEP and GPO. Groups like the Connecticut Education Association, the Connecticut chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, the Connecticut Alliance for Retired Americans and the Association of Retired Teachers of Connecticut made a big push to get a vote before the end of the session.

Those representing educators see the deductions as a particular roadblock for teachers because many of them need to work second or multiple jobs that pay into the Social Security system. And they note that it is an issue that disproportionately affects women, especially for many who raise their children and then reenter the workforce.

Advocates argue that WEP and GPO are barriers to hiring and retaining talent in Connecticut’s workforce, especially when it comes to second-career educators who have worked in a different field and decided to transition into education. CEA President Kate Dias said it makes it challenging “to attract people when there’s such a significant consequence to their joining the profession.”

Lisa Hagen is CT Mirror and CT Public’s shared Federal Policy Reporter. Based in Washington, D.C., she focuses on the impact of federal policy in Connecticut and covers the state’s congressional delegation.

The bipartisan “Social Security Fairness Act” got a jolt of momentum after it overwhelmingly passed the House last month. Since then, advocates for repealing the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset made a last-ditch lobbying blitz to get the Senate to take it up before the current Congress winds down.

As labor leaders and other supporters stood outside the Capitol at a rainy press conference last week, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., surprised the crowd by announcing the Senate would vote on the legislation before lawmakers leave town on Friday. They argue the decades-old measures have hurt public service workers who collect pensions but have also worked jobs covered by Social Security.

Support for repealing WEP and GPO brought together a range of coalitions and groups including lawmakers in both parties as well as unions representing industries like education, law enforcement, government employees and other public workers. The Fraternal Order of Police announced a day earlier that President-elect Donald Trump told their leadership he would back the legislation.

But critics raised concerns because there is no offset to pay for the repeal, and it would speed up the projected timeline of Social Security becoming insolvent, though both sides have acknowledged that Congress will need to deal with larger reforms to the program for its long-term financial health.

Schumer set up a make-or-break vote on whether the bill would inch closer to becoming law or languish in this Congress. If lawmakers blocked it, the effort would have effectively died and proponents would have needed to restart the process next year with a new Congress and administration.

The Senate ultimately advanced it in a procedural vote on Wednesday known as a motion to proceed. Lawmakers overcame the 60-vote threshold to bypass a filibuster in a 73-27 vote. They still need to hold another vote in the next two days if they want to get the bill to President Joe Biden’s desk before the holiday recess.

The bill was expected to have enough support since 62 senators co-sponsored it. That included both of Connecticut’s senators, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, who voted for it Wednesday.

The vote was a culmination of a years-long effort by groups and unions across the country and the state like the Connecticut Education Association, the Connecticut chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, the Connecticut Alliance for Retired Americans and the Association of Retired Teachers of Connecticut. They argue public service workers who have paid into the Social Security system through other jobs have been unfairly penalized.

“This isn’t a singular fairness issue. This is a workforce issue, and we really have spent a lot of time highlighting that — that you can break through the noise and you can encourage a bipartisan approach to fixing what has been a 40-year problem,” CEA President Kate Dias said.

The Social Security Fairness Act would eliminate two provisions that reduce payments to certain beneficiaries as well as spouses and surviving family members who also collect a pension from jobs that were not covered by Social Security. That can include teachers, police officers, firefighters, government employees and other public servants.

The Windfall Elimination Provision can lower how much beneficiaries receive from Social Security if they also get pensions or disability benefits from uncovered work. It applies to those who paid Social Security taxes on less than 30 years of substantial earnings, which is currently set at $31,275 in 2024.

WEP affects more than 22,000 beneficiaries in Connecticut, with the vast majority of them retired workers, according to December 2023 estimates from the Congressional Research Service. Connecticut is one of 15 states where WEP applies to teachers.

The Government Pension Offset can cut Social Security spousal or survivor benefits by two-thirds of the non-covered pension from local, state or federal government employment. For some who receive a teacher’s pension, the cuts can be larger than their spousal benefits, so they essentially receive nothing through Social Security.

The bill easily passed the House last month, including support from four of the five Democratic members in Connecticut’s delegation. U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, voted against it because it does not include an offset similar to that in his own Social Security reform bill, which seeks to temporarily remove those provisions. His own bill would fund the repeal of WEP and GPO through raising the income cap on taxable earnings for Social Security.

Larson, who serves as ranking member of the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee, has been pushing for more comprehensive reforms to Social Security for years. His legislation, “Social Security 2100 Act,” has support from 188 Democrats but no GOP co-sponsors. That will become even more challenging next session when Republicans control both chambers of Congress and Trump returns to the White House.

Current estimates show the Trust Fund for old age and survivors insurance will be able to pay 100% of Social Security benefits through 2033. After that, it could result in people receiving reduced benefits, amounting to about a 20% cut.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that if the bipartisan legislation is enacted and repeals both provisions, it would cost nearly $196 billion over the next decade. Others warned against ending WEP and GPO without an offset, arguing that it will be a drain on the Social Security Trust Fund.

Ahead of the vote, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., criticized the accelerated process for bringing up the bill as well as concerns about having no offsets. In the House, authors of the bill sought to circumvent normal procedures and force a vote on the House floor. They used a discharge petition where they needed to collect a majority of signatures from lawmakers in order to get a vote on the bill. Tillis noted the Senate held no committee hearings on the legislation.

“So it is something we need to fix, but this is not the way to fix it. We are 10 years away from most economists’ consensus believing that the Social Security Trust Fund is going to reach insolvency,” Tillis said Wednesday. “To right a wrong for a small percentage of poeple that should get fairly. treated, they are going to take $200 billion over 10 years to pay for this. that pulls insolvency forward by six months.”

But those affected by the decrease in their benefits argue it unfairly affects many who have worked in public service, like teachers, police officers and firefighters, as well as survivor benefits for those who served in local, state or federal government.

A number of labor unions across industries have been at the forefront of the years-long push to repeal WEP and GPO.

Those representing educators see the deductions as a particular roadblock for teachers because many of them need to work second or multiple jobs that pay into the Social Security system. And they note that it is an issue that disproportionately affects women, especially for many who raise their children and then reenter the workforce.

Last month, Mary Moninger-Elia, a retired public school teacher in West Haven who used to serve as the vice president at-large for AFT Connecticut, helped pass out flyers and joined other advocates from across the country to lobby Senate offices to support the legislation. Moninger-Elia has been working on the issue since 1997 but said her efforts ramped up in 2020 as a part of the National WEP/GPO Repeal Task Force. At the national level, AFT President Randi Weingarten spoke at the D.C. rally last week, pushing for protecting those who join public service jobs when they retire.

Advocates argue that WEP and GPO are barriers to hiring and retaining talent in Connecticut’s workforce, especially when it comes to second-career educators who have worked in a different field and decided to transition into education. Dias of CEA said it makes it challenging “to attract people when there’s such a significant consequence to their joining the profession.”

“It’s a workforce, recruitment and retention issue,” CEA Vice President Joslyn DeLancey said, “especially in directly impacted states like Connecticut, like Massachusetts, like Ohio, and it’s also an economic issue.”

The House passed the National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday to enable $895 billion in investments for various defense programs as well as support for service members and their families. It is poised to become law, though the bipartisan bill faced blowback from a number of Democrats over a provision to bar coverage of gender-affirming care for minors under the military’s active duty health care program.

Like in past bills, Connecticut’s biggest defense contractors — Sikorsky, Electric Boat and Pratt & Whitney — could stand to see major investments once Congress passes its longer term spending bills, though negotiations over those will continue into next year and appropriators will get a final say on the numbers.

Authorized funding for the Virginia-class submarine program will look different than previous years after a nearly year-long saga over the two-a-year production cadence. Lawmakers were unable to secure full funding for a second sub, but the bill will allow the U.S. Navy to make investments before its construction through “incremental” funding.

The final NDAA legislation negotiated between the House and Senate ultimately authorized $357 million in incremental funding for the second Virginia-class submarine. That will go toward additional materials needed for a ship in a year of procurement. That funding will allow the Navy to invest in a contract for a second sub before it enters construction and without the full funding.

The deal is at odds with the administration’s original proposal. Earlier this year, the Navy requested funding for only one of the nuclear-powered submarines in fiscal year 2025. Officials had cited production delays as well as federal budget caps enacted under the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

Electric Boat locations in Groton and Quonset Point in Rhode Island handle much of the Virginia-class shipbuilding, along with Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia.

But members on the House Armed Services Committee and U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, were pushing to restore production back to two subs and raised concerns about what it would mean for the supplier industrial base. Electric Boat’s Groton location is based in Courtney’s eastern Connecticut district.

Courtney earned the nickname “Two-Sub Joe” when he first came to Congress in 2007 by increasing the Virginia-class production cadence from one to two subs per year. As the ranking member of the House Armed Services’ Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, he had been advocating to keep production at the same pace.

With requests for cuts to the program, the original House version of the NDAA sought $1 billion in incremental funding for a second submarine, while the Senate also drafted a bill with money for a second vessel. At the time, both versions of the policy bill deviated from the House GOP-led defense spending bill, which only allocated money for one.

Prior to the NDAA’s passage, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote a September letter opposing the path forward on the defense policy bill, saying the industry would not be able to catch up and produce a second attack sub “on a reasonable schedule,” according to Breaking Defense. He also argued that funding could delay a new aircraft.

“Virginia-class, to be clear, was trying to get to a better, more healthy dynamic where we can get to the two-submarine-a-year production rate, and we thought that going a different direction was our best move in that case,” Mike McCord, the comptroller of the U.S. Department of Defense, said at a March briefing with lawmakers, noting that the boats that are supposed to be delivered this year were months behind.

While Congress did not authorize the larger funding of $1 billion sought by Courtney and others, the congressman pointed to the White House Office of Management and Budget’s recent supplemental request for nearly $6 billion to help Electric Boat and the submarine industry with workforce gaps. That request could get added into a short-term funding bill to keep the government running into the new year.

Part of OMB’s request could go toward an NDAA provision giving the Navy the authority to help shipyards deal with cost overruns and increase pay for workers in the metal trades as a way to bolster the hiring and retention of workforces like at Electric Boat. The company hired more than 5,300 people in 2023, with plans to grow its workforce by at least another 5,000 hires again for this year.

“Despite the slowdown caused by COVID, there are promising signs of industry’s recovery,” Courtney said on the House floor ahead of the vote. “This bill recognizes this progress and rejects the Navy’s woefully inadequate budget request, which would undermine procurement stability that is essential to growing the program supply chain.”

“This is not pie in the sky,” he continued. “Indeed just last month, OMB and the Navy belatedly acknowledged our committee’s stance and sent over a supplemental request to Congress of nearly $6 billion for the Virginia-class submarine program. It is our hope with this bill and the supplemental request, Navy and industry can achieve even higher production cadence and execute the long overdue next block contract for the program.”

The debacle over the Virginia-class program comes as the industry seeks to address disruptions that have put a strain on production due to the pandemic, supply chain issues and an aging workforce that is retiring. Companies like Electric Boat have been setting higher hiring goals to address those gaps and boost production rates, especially with the Australia-United Kingdom-United States security partnership. As part of AUKUS, Australia has agreed to initially buy three Virginia-class submarines from the U.S., but the first transfer is not expected to happen until the early 2030s.

In addition to authorizations for the Virginia class, the legislation will also provide a boost to the Columbia-class with about $3.3 billion for the second increment of funding to go toward construction of the second vessel in that program as well as about $6 billion in advance procurement for long-lead-time materials.

Congress also approved investments in research and development for future submarines as well as hundreds of millions of dollars to help the engineering and design teams at Electric Boat with capability upgrades for future submarines.

Aside from investments in shipbuilding, the NDAA will authorize about $2 billion in funding for Sikorsky to build 20 CH-53K heavy lift helicopters and $709 million for 24 UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters. Another $25 million will go toward modernizing the Army’s current Black Hawk fleet.

The bill also enables $527 million for the F135 Engine Core Upgrade. The Defense Department had approved new contracts for Pratt & Whitney to remain the sole provider of the military jet engine following a decades-long push by Connecticut’s congressional delegation.

Overall, the sweeping defense legislation authorizes pay raises: 14.5% for junior enlisted members and 4.5% for all other service members. That comes a year after Congress enacted the largest basic pay increase — 5.2% — in two decades.

Other measures include funding for the child care fee assistance programs and ways to help ensure pay for staff at military child care centers will be competitive with those within the private sector to deal with recruitment and retention.

The must-pass defense bill typically becomes a venue for potential policy riders that are either irrelevant to the military or ideological measures that can complicate negotiations and passage of the NDAA.

A controversial provision pushed in recent days by U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to ban coverage for gender-affirming care for minors under TRICARE, the military’s health care system, earned the ire of Democrats and led to the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., voting against the legislation he helped negotiate.

More House Democrats voted against the NDAA than in the previous year. Eighty-one Democrats ultimately supported the bill. Every House member in Connecticut’s congressional delegation voted for the bill with the exception of U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District. Some of the Connecticut members who voted for the bill cited concerns with the provision that would block certain care for transgender kids but said the overall bill would be beneficial to the military and Connecticut’s workforce.

“I am frustrated that Speaker Mike Johnson tucked in a provision to target the LGBTQI+ community that limits TRICARE health care coverage for children of servicemembers – one that was initially removed in a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on this legislation,” U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, said in a statement. “Our troops put their lives on the line, and our servicemembers and their families do not need the federal government dictating medical decisions. We must work together on a bipartisan basis to support our troops and protect our national security. Partisan provisions jeopardize that work.”

Courtney echoed a similar sentiment.

“It is unfortunate that one item that came out of the Senate that limits some TRICARE health care coverage for specific procedures for some minor dependents of service members stayed in the bill at the insistence of Speaker Johnson,” Courtney said.

“That said, Speaker Johnson’s intrusion cannot jeopardize delivering major quality life improvements to the sailors in eastern Connecticut and the investments needed to grow our submarine fleet, which the FY25 NDAA achieves,” he added.

But the NDAA only authorizes defense funding, and Congress will need to approve that money through fiscal year 2025 spending bills. Lawmakers are unlikely to tackle longer term funding until next year when Republicans take back control of both chambers. Instead, Congress is likely to keep government funded at current spending levels through March. The deadline to pass a funding bill is Dec. 20.

The U.S. Senate will take up the bill next before Congress leaves for the holiday recess at the end of next week. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill into law.

Congress has tried to establish new protections for minors online for years without success. But officials at X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, helped negotiate the latest version of KOSA to assuage lingering concerns over free speech and garner support from Republican leadership to take up the legislation in the House.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced over the weekend that she worked with Blumenthal and co-author U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., on further amending and clarifying KOSA. That secured the endorsement from X owner Elon Musk, who is poised to play a significant role in the incoming Trump administration and federal government.

The fresh support from Musk and other Trump allies gave KOSA backers a renewed sense of hope that Congress could prioritize it in the next couple of weeks. But the realities of time and resistance from House GOP leaders make imminent passage challenging.

“We’re in the final days of this session. We’re hopeful Elon Musk’s support may be instrumental because of his relationships to the president-elect and Republicans in the House,” Blumenthal said. “That’s a hope — not a promise or a prediction.”

“We’re going to work on every possible option until the last moment of this session. The path forward is not easy,” he continued, adding that he will work on passing KOSA next year if needed. But “our intent and goal is to do it by Dec. 20.”

After stalling last session, the bipartisan legislation got a boost of momentum over the summer when it passed the Senate by an overwhelming margin, 91-3. And a few months ago, a House committee approved a different version of the bill.

Blumenthal and Blackburn are looking to pass their version in the House and get it signed into law by the president before the current session ends. The co-authors said they wanted the updates to further reflect that KOSA is “content neutral” and would not infringe on protected speech.

Even with the newest revisions, the legislation still faces criticism from some groups in LGBTQ+, civil rights and digital privacy circles. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who controls the scheduling of votes, said he has seen some “great work” on KOSA but wants to address “whether it might lead to further censorship by the government of valid conservative voices, for example.” He indicated a GOP-led Congress would keep working on online protections for minors next year.

“I think all of us, 100% of us, support the principle behind it. But you gotta get this one right when you’re dealing with the regulation of free speech. We are very optimistic that if it’s not done this year, that we can do that early next year with our Republican majorities,” Johnson said at a Tuesday press conference with House GOP leadership.

To address concerns that have arisen in recent years, KOSA has undergone multiple revisions since it was first introduced in 2022. The bill aims to put in place stricter settings by allowing children and parents to disable addictive features, enable privacy settings and opt out of algorithmic recommendations.

The bill instructs the convening of an 11-member council with appointments made by the president and leaders in both parties to include academic experts, researchers, parents, youth representatives and others who are well-versed in social media and online safety.

The latest iteration clarifies that an independent audit focuses on a platform’s design, not content, that the Kids Online Safety Council does not have rulemaking or enforcement authority and would convene to make recommendations “for assessing, preventing, and mitigating harms to minors online.”

It also makes modifications to the “duty of care,” which would require tech companies to prevent and mitigate harm to minors. When it comes to anxiety and depressive disorders, the bill would only apply this section based on “compulsive usage,” which is defined as minors repetitively using a platform and impeding important life functions.

Supporters of the bill also say it spells out that the duty of care section will not be used or enforced “based upon the viewpoint of users expressed by or through any speech, expression, or information protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”

Musk, a close ally of Trump who has been tapped to co-lead a new agency tasked with cutting government spending and regulations, is seen as a stakeholder in the tech world who could potentially have sway with Republican holdouts. Blumenthal declined to say whether Musk played a role in the X-led negotiations or if he met with the tech executive when he visited Capitol Hill last week.

“We wanted to explore every possible partnership that could help us,” Blumenthal said. “X’s endorsement can’t hurt. Opponents [of the bill] are becoming more and more outliers.”

As Blumenthal and Blackburn work to build additional support across the Capitol, the path forward remains unclear — whether it gets a standalone vote in the House or if the bill gets added to must-pass legislation like government funding or the annual defense policy bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act.

There are only two more weeks left in the session for lawmakers to get KOSA done, as well as the Children’s and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA 2.0, on top of bills with hard deadlines. Lawmakers, advocates and parents who have attributed the deaths of their children to harmful content viewed on social media rallied outside of the Capitol on Tuesday to call on lawmakers to immediately pass KOSA.

If time lapses without further action, Congress will need to start the process over in the next session, which begins on Jan. 3.

Earlier this year, executives for Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord and X testified before Congress on the effects of their websites on minors. When prompted by Blumenthal at that hearing, Snap and X said they supported KOSA.

But others within the tech world feel differently. NetChoice, a tech trade association that represents members like Meta, Snap and other major tech companies, has been lobbying against KOSA’s passage and opposes the latest version. The group argues that it takes away choices from parents by appointing “a council of bureaucrats.”

While some LGBTQ+ organizations had dropped their opposition to the bill earlier this year, other groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation remain worried about the potential censorship of information they say is critical for those communities regarding health care, sexual orientation and gender identity.

“The newest text of the Kids Online Safety Act does little to alleviate concerns about free speech,” Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, said in a statement. “The bill puts the federal government in charge of decisions better left to parents, and it threatens all of our ability to speak, read, and express ourselves online.”

If the Kids Online Safety Act does not cross the finish line by the end of the year, support from Musk and others close to the president-elect gives Blumenthal and others hope it would remain a priority next year when Donald Trump returns to the White House and Republicans control both chambers of Congress.

But the Connecticut senator argued time is of the essence on an issue where children’s and teenagers’ health and lives can be at risk.

“There’s a real consequence to delay. There are harms that will be caused to real lives in real time if passage is delayed,” Blumenthal said. “Time is not on our side.”

Lisa Hagen is a reporter for The Connecticut Mirror(ctmirror.org). Copyright 2024 © The Connecticut Mirror.

Democrats elected their new leadership team Tuesday for the 119th Congress, which begins on Jan. 3 and lasts for the next two years. Some members already in leadership moved up the ladder with the No. 3 spot open after the retirement of Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, while Murphy was added lower down the roster as a deputy conference secretary to serve alongside U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.

Overall, leadership will remain largely the same as Senate Democrats enter the minority and Republicans take control of both chambers of Congress and the White House next year. U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., will stay at the helm as Senate Democratic leader.

As someone who has been a key player in bipartisan negotiations over the past few years, Murphy said the new position essentially formalizes the role he already had within the caucus. He said it does not come with many “formal duties,” but he will meet weekly with other senators to craft policy, messaging and strategy.

He was already a fixture on a Tuesday morning phone call with a larger group of senators and will now join the Monday night call that Schumer convenes with his leadership team.

“I’ve been in a constant conversation with Chuck about both policy and messaging. I think this was more than anything else recognition of that fact that in some ways I’ve been filling an informal leadership role in the caucus for the last couple of years just because of the big issues that I have been a part of,” he said in an interview, referring to the negotiations of the gun safety bill, bipartisan border legislation and reforms to the Electoral Count Act.

“I’m certainly going to use my seat at the table to try to advance the argument that we have got to completely reshape what we communicate and the way that we communicate,” he added.

Murphy, who won reelection for a third term last month, has spent the past month ruminating over Democrats’ losses across the country and over where the party may have gone wrong. He has delivered a blunt assessment that the elections were a “disaster” for the party and that it needs to find a way to deal with the disconnect between voters opposing Democratic candidates but supporting policies backed by the party.

He has said the party needs to do better reaching out to working-class voters and challenging the consolidation of power by corporations and billionaires, echoing some of the messaging that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has wanted the party to adopt. Sanders was also elected on Tuesday to remain as Democrats’ chair of outreach.

Murphy recently circulated a memo to fellow Democrats, arguing that focusing on holding corporations accountable can be a potent message and that the data from his own reelection race backs it up. In it, Murphy noted that he outran Vice President Kamala Harris in Connecticut by 4 percentage points.

Polling that his team conducted over the summer found that 82% of likely voters in Connecticut strongly or somewhat agree that a top issue in the U.S. is that “a handful of corporations and economic elites have too much power and the government is doing too little about it.”

“To some, Connecticut — one of the highest income states in the nation and the bedroom community for Wall Street — may not seem like a place where economic populism would have traction. But it does. And if it sells in Connecticut, it sells everywhere,” Murphy wrote in the memo.

But after nationwide losses and depressed voter turnout, Democrats have been calling for change, especially generational change. On the House side, the party also plans to stick with its top three leaders, though they had a shakeup two years ago when former U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her deputies stepped down from their leadership roles.

When asked if the party should have considered a shakeup or seen challenges to top Senate leaders in the wake of the election, Murphy pushed back that they can still learn lessons about the November losses with the current leadership in place. He pointed to the promotion of his ally and friend, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., to the No. 4 spot as a sign that younger members are carving out a bigger role.

“This is a moment where a lot of younger voices are going to be able to step forward. Just because the same leaders are returning in the House and Senate doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities for other voices to step out and stand out,” Murphy said. “I want to be in that room because I don’t want to run the same strategy back.”

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans will have a new majority leader next year as U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the longest-serving Senate leader in U.S. history, steps aside. The GOP elevated U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who had already been serving in leadership, to majority leader in a vote last month.

After holding a narrow majority in the Senate since 2021, Democrats will now need to navigate governing in the minority party. In the early months of the next Congress, Murphy and his colleagues will be tasked with considering and voting on President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees for Cabinet positions. And Thune said the early days of the Republican-led Congress will be focused on trying to pass a legislative package related to border security, defense and energy, according to Politico.

But Murphy said he worries about “a campaign of persecution against Democrats” by Trump’s Justice Department, especially with the nomination of Trump loyalist Kash Patel as director of the FBI.

“I don’t think this is going to be business as usual,” Murphy said. “I’m very much worried about Trump making good on this threat to destroy our democracy. Confronting that has to be job No. 1 of the Democratic opposition.”

As chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Blumenthal’s report detailed how five airlines profit through these fees, alleging they do so at the expense of travelers by unbundling certain services and charging separately for options that used to be included in ticket prices. The investigation examines the practices of three major companies — American, Delta and United — and low-cost airlines Spirit and Frontier.

The 53-page report from the Democratic majority of the Senate Homeland Security’s subcommittee comes as millions of people are set to travel this week for the Thanksgiving holiday. And more recently, Congress and the Biden administration have sought to prioritize addressing “junk fees” in various industries, including for travel.

In response to the findings from the yearlong investigation, executives from all five airlines are scheduled to testify on Dec. 4 before Blumenthal’s panel where they are likely to field questions over their pricing structure, revenues and taxes on fees.

“Our investigation has exposed new details about airlines exploiting passengers with sky high junk fees,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “This report pulls back the curtain on tactics like dynamic pricing that burden travelers and boost airline revenue.”

“I will be asking airlines to justify these practices when they testify on December 4th before my Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations,” he added. “As we head into the Thanksgiving weekend, we regret that travelers will be charged millions of dollars in fees that have no basis in cost to the airlines but simply fatten their bottom lines.”

Airlines have profited more from fees associated with seating — options like choosing a seat in a specific part of the plane or selecting options with more legroom — in recent years, according to the report. Between 2018 and 2023, the five companies generated a combined revenue of $12.4 billion.

But the report noted that the rising prices of these fees are not connected to the costs for providing services like checking luggage or assigning seats by the companies. And it also found that the ancillary fees are set by algorithmic pricing and vary by airline.

The investigation also highlighted a practice from Spirit and Frontier that incentivized employees to enforce the baggage policy and get customers to pay to check a bag if they did not comply. The report found that Frontier and Spirit paid a combined $26 million to gate agents between 2022 and 2023. For Frontier, personnel could earn up to $10 for each bag checked at the gate. And Spirit gate agents could earn $5 for each bag.

In a statement responding to the report and commissions for gate agents, Frontier Airlines said it helps “to incentivize our team members to ensure compliance with bag size requirements so that all customers are treated equally and fairly, including the majority who comply with the rules.”

Blumenthal’s report also alleged that Spirit, Frontier and United made certain services optional, allowing them to avoid taxes on some of those fees. Airlines are required under federal law to pay a 7.5% excise tax on air transportation.

A statement from Frontier said it complies with IRS rules and applies that tax on non-optional products and services. And Spirit said in a statement that the company is “transparent about our products and pricing.” United Airlines declined to comment.

Airlines for America, a trade association representing nearly a dozen airlines including American, Delta and United, criticized the findings in the report, arguing customers have more options to choose how they want to travel and at the price point they want.

The statement included a chart showing that in 2023, ancillary revenues were a small fraction of the average price for a domestic roundtrip ticket and accounted for less than taxes imposed under federal law. It also noted that revenues generated from changing a travel reservation declined between 2022 and 2023 as more companies got rid of change fees.

“We are deeply disappointed in Senator Blumenthal’s PSI Majority Report. The report demonstrates a clear failure by the subcommittee to understand the value the highly competitive U.S. airline industry brings to customers and employees. Rather, the report serves as just another holiday travel talking point,” Airlines for America said. “The subcommittee clearly lacks appreciation for the fact that air travel today is democratized, allowing Americans across all income levels to fly.”

Executives from each of the airlines will testify next Wednesday at 10 a.m. before Blumenthal’s panel. The witnesses include Steve Johnson, vice chair and chief strategy officer for American; Peter Carter, chief external affairs officer for Delta; Andrew Nocella, executive vice president and chief commercial officer for United; Robert Schroeter, senior vice president and chief commercial officer for Frontier; and Matthew Klein, executive vice president and chief commercial officer for Spirit.

“We respectfully disagree with numerous statements and conclusions contained in the report,” Spirit Airlines said in a statement. “With that in mind, we believe it’s time to come together and discuss meaningful initiatives that would even the playing field between larger and smaller airlines to benefit all travelers, including those who rely on airlines like Spirit. We look forward to explaining our position at a scheduled hearing on Dec. 4.”

Blumenthal’s report offers several recommendations, including that Congress require airlines to provide fee data to the U.S. Department of Transportation and enact stronger fee disclosures for customers. It also suggests DOT investigate the use of incentives to gate agents related to baggage policy enforcement. And if they are deemed unfair or deceptive practices, the report says DOT should consider civil penalties in response and ban them.

And when it comes to taxes, it also suggests that the U.S. Treasury Department look into whether airlines comply with the rules and regulations of the transportation tax.

The Blumenthal-led report concludes that these add-ons and fees make booking air travel “more complicated” and “less bearable” for those customers seeking the cheapest flights. And while some travelers can get those fees waived through credit card loyalty programs, the airlines are also relying more on those, which can “drive multiple sources of revenue for legacy carriers.”

“The result is that the markers of ‘class’ that airlines once adopted have gone far beyond first, business, and coach,” the report noted, “and there is no indication that airlines have any plans to stop.”

If confirmed, McMahon would take the helm of a department that Trump campaigned on eliminating and could oversee a major overhaul. Trump has said “we’re going to end education coming out of Washington” and “send it all back to the states.”

“I say it all the time, I’m dying to get back to do this. We will ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education,” Trump said at a Wisconsin campaign rally in September, according to CNN, which was the first to report McMahon was expected to be selected for the post earlier Tuesday.

McMahon, who lives in Greenwich, was rumored to be under consideration to lead the U.S. Commerce Department. Trump instead tapped investment banker Howard Lutnick to become the next Commerce secretary.

Lutnick serves with McMahon as co-chair of the president-elect’s transition team.

McMahon has been a longtime ally of Trump, serving in his Cabinet during his first administration as head of the Small Business Administration. She departed that role in 2019 to chair pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action, raising tens of millions of dollars for his 2020 reelection bid.

The World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder also serves as chair of the board for the America First Policy Institute.

The U.S. Senate will be tasked with confirming McMahon and other appointees to his Cabinet.

Republicans will retake the majority in the upper chamber next year. Trump, however, wants to use recess appointments, a procedure that would circumvent the Senate and allow him to temporarily fill vacancies, particularly for more controversial nominations that could face challenges even among his own party.

McMahon also has a history in Connecticut politics, running twice as a Republican for U.S. Senate and spending a combined $100 million of her own money between both races. She lost to Democrat Richard Blumenthal in 2010 and Democrat Chris Murphy in 2012.

Cardona, the current education secretary, is a Connecticut native from Meriden and an alumnus of Central Connecticut State University and the University of Connecticut.

He spent over 20 years as an educator in his hometown, first as an elementary school teacher then principal and assistant superintendent. Cardona went on to serve as the state’s education commissioner from 2019 through 2021 prior to his federal appointment to the Biden administration in 2020.

Cardona led the charge both in Connecticut and national efforts to reopen schools after the COVID-19 pandemic. His work on a federal level also included the restructuring of the FAFSA, the student application for federal financial aid, which drew sharp criticism for significant delays and bugs, the expansion of postsecondary education opportunities for incarcerated people and the allocation of billions of federal funding for mental health support in schools and initiatives to close the opportunity gap.