Tina Courpas

The Dumbing Down of American Politics – Let’s Resist it in CT in 2026

The “dumbing down” of complex policy issues into partisan shorthand attacks is a characteristic of today’s politics that I am working to change. I believe that Connecticut does a better job managing our political landscape than the federal government and certain other states. Speaker of the House Matt Ritter (D-Hartford) and House Minority Leader Vin Candelora (R-Branford) set a civilized tone in the CT House of Representatives, and the dialogue is usually substantive. CT has a lot of which to be proud. And yet, we are not immune. Taking votes on the CT House floor is not easy, even in the best political climate. The issues are often nuanced; one might support parts, but not all of a bill; one might support the purpose of a program wholeheartedly, but the state cannot afford it. Legislators must often balance competing priorities. The problem with today’s politics, even in Connecticut, is that sometimes the substance of these complex policies is distilled down to a one-dimensional cudgel that either party uses to hit the other over the head. Even hot button words in the title of a bill can become political grenades. If a bill title contains the words “Reproductive Rights” and a legislator votes against it, I have seen it used as “proof” that this legislator is not pro-choice, regardless of what the underlying bill says. If a legislator supports a bill with “Gun Control,” that alone can be used as “proof” that such person opposes the Second Amendment. The title words “Trust Act,” “Transgender,” “Women’s Sports,” “Voting Equity,” “Voting Security,” even “Freedom” can all carry political risk - regardless of what the underlying bill says . This sounds like an exaggeration, but sadly, it is not. I heard one House member say to another on the House floor this year: “I can’t vote ‘no’ on this Bill. The title says ‘Elderly.’ If I vote no, next election my opponent will say on a campaign mailer that I hate the elderly.’” At the Special Session in November, I voted against establishing a temporary $500 million “side-fund” created for the Governor to use largely at his discretion. The fund was originally intended to make up for shortfalls in SNAP and other important funding due to the federal government shutdown which had begun on October 1. The “side-fund” would last only until February 4, 2026, until the legislature reconvened and could appropriate funds in the normal budget process. I supported that proposal. However, by the time the bill went to a vote, the shutdown emergency for which the bill was originally created - was over. Yet, the bill proceeded. At the time of the vote, the bill’s proponents could not demonstrate any specific monetary deficit, any program terminating, any quantifiable decrease in SNAP benefits before February 4, which would justify a “side-fund,” departure from our standard budgeting practices. The “side-fund” was also in my view, a clear violation of the fiscal guardrails which I had promised to uphold. I voted no, along with other legislators. I recently read a partisan shorthand attack which obfuscated the issues underlying this vote, calling it simply a vote “against SNAP benefits.” The problems with this dynamic are obvious. Policy involves tradeoffs, and one-liners don’t explain those. Knee-jerk reactivity gets in the way of simply asking questions, getting the facts and understanding the issues. Finally, the dumbing down dynamic is a race to the bottom – who can be angrier, who can make the content of a bill seem more extreme, and who can make the “other side” look worse. So, what is the solution to this “dumbing down” of our state democracy? I welcome your input. I believe that part of the solution is to resist the trend. I am committed to doing that. As a State Representative, I believe this means asking questions, casting votes on the substance, providing full information to the people I serve, and trusting them to digest it. It is a privilege in all respects to represent the 149 th District, including the fact that its citizens care, read, engage, and generally digest the issues at a very high level. Thank you for the privilege of serving you. We should cultivate this ability to look deeper than the latest partisan attack, both in our community and in any and every district in our state, thereby resisting the race to the bottom. If the alternative is the continued “dumbing down” of our democracy, we have no choice but to resist.

CT's Unfunded Pensions - PART II

Albert Einstein (credited with this quote), Warren Buffet, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Graham, the ancient Chinese and many others have recognized the game-changing power of compounding. Compounding grows an asset or a liability by increasingly larger amounts over time, as interest is added to the principal creating a larger base every year. If you invest $100 today at 10% interest, at the end of the year, you will have earned $10 (100 x.10). Your new (larger) balance of $110 now invested for a year will earn $11 ($110 x.1). Now you have $121. That even larger balance now invested for a year yields $12.10, and so on. As stated in Part I, “ CT’s 800-Pound Financial Gorilla” CT has over $103 billion of pension liabilities and only $49.5 billion of pension assets to pay those liabilities. (1) We therefore have unfunded pension liabilities ($103-$49.5) of $54 billion. This unfunded liability functions like debt and one of the reasons why CT has the highest debt burden per taxpayer of any state in the country (tied for last with NJ). (2) Because CT’s pension liabilities are more than twice our assets, and because our assets sometimes grow but liabilities have always grown , compounding can work against CT’s financial future and the taxpayer. Connecticut’s pension assets have grown at a compounded rate – in some years. CT’s $49.5 billion in pension assets are invested by the State Treasurer and projected to earn returns of 6.9% per year, compounded. (3) While that is a reasonable projection, it is not a sure thing. In fiscal year 2022, CT’s pension plans earned a (-10.8)% annual return, (yes a negative return) (4) and for the 5 years ending 2022, our returns ranked 49 th among 50 states. The state has improved its rate of return in recent years. These have been banner stock market years, however, and banner years do not last forever. Connecticut’s pension liabilities have grown at a compounded rate – every year. Every year that a current CT state employee works, he/she accrues a pension liability - what the state will owe once he/she retires. In addition, because people are living longer, pension liabilities for already-retired persons are also growing. Finally, the state of CT has applied a cost-of-living increase (COLA) to our state pension liabilities every year since 1972. Any year the CPI is positive, that compounded growth of our pension liabilities will also continue. Why Should We All Care? The pension issue is significant because pension expenditures represent such a large part of CT’s annual state budget – almost 25% of our General Fund or $6 billion in 2024. We debate the merits of many worthy expenditures in the legislature – e.g., $40 million for special education, $200 million to fund preschool – but our pension expenditures dwarf those numbers. Pensions are an enormous drain on our state budget, and ultimately – the taxpayer. What Can We Do? Since 2020 and thanks to the Fiscal Guardrails, CT has paid in $8.7 billion to reduce our unfunded pension liability. Because of compounding, that $8.7 billion has freed up $737 million in CT’s General Fund spending for every year going forward. (5) In other words, the more and the sooner CT pays down its pension debt, the more compounding can work in our favor. In 2025, the Legislature made a drastic departure from this positive path by amending the Guardrails and diverting approximately $1.2 billion of funds away from our pension assets. That $1.2 billion would have been compounding for us and shrinking the annual payment required from the state’s budget. I voted against this diversion of funds, along with all other Republicans and two Democrats. (6) Compounding is powerful. The Fiscal Guardrails work for CT’s taxpayers. In 2025, the Legislature lost its resolve to stick to them, and this set CT’s financial progress back. Let’s get back on track in the 2026 legislative session. Sources: (1) Figures are most current available figures provided by State of Connecticut’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis on 9/26/25 and represent totals for FY2023. Please contact Rep. Courpas for any backup needed. (2) Financial State of the States, Truth in Accounting, 2025. Click here . (3) State Treasurer News Release, Click Here. Click here. (4) Click here. (5) Click here . (6) Changes to Volatility Cap: Click here

CT's Unfunded Pensions - PART I

Unfunded pensions are Connecticut’s 800-pound gorilla and arguably the most important financial issue facing our state. I am virtually certain that when citizens are fully aware of the magnitude of this issue, they will agree: Connecticut must stay the course on which it embarked in 2017 when the Fiscal Guardrails were implemented and fix the state’s unfunded pension problem as soon as possible. Every year, CT makes approximately $6 billion in cash payments to retired state employees, which represents a higher percentage of our annual budget than pension payments represent for any other state. So, while unfunded pension liabilities seem like a can we can “kick down the road” and hope for a resolution at some fictitious future date, they are not. These unfunded liabilities take a big bite out of our state budget every year. That is a reason for all of us to care, now. KEY POINTS ON PENSIONS: State retiree pensions and benefits are legally guaranteed cash payments to state employees who have retired. State employees (government workers, state troopers, teachers, etc.) earn a paycheck and receive health benefits while they are employed. When they retire, they receive a (reduced) paycheck and health benefits until death. Some states have put aside enough pension assets to fund these fixed pension liabilities. CT has not. At the end of FY2023, the state had approximately $103 billion of total projected pension liabilities (this number grows every year!) and only approximately $50 billion in pension assets to support them. Because of this large disparity, it is almost impossible for our pension assets to generate enough income to fund the annual payments of approximately $6 billion made to state retirees every year. Each year, taxpayers must make up the shortfall. Fully funded pension plans (plans for which plan assets>= plan liabilities) basically “support themselves” as earnings on plan assets pay for annual payments to retirees; CT’s pension plan does not. (1) Retiree pensions and benefits represent approx. 25% of our annual state general fund every year.... 25%. The state made approx. $6 billion in cash payments to retirees in 2024, and our General Fund (pays most of the state’s ongoing expenses) was $23 billion. Relative to its budget, CT spends more on pensions than any other state according to the National Association of Retirement Administrators. We rank #1 out of 50 states. This is a contest where you want to place #50. (2)(3) Shouldn’t state employees receive adequate compensation and pension for work well done? ABSOLUTELY. That’s why we must fix the unfunded problem, so we have enough money to pay pensioners what they are rightly due. We must also examine how Connecticut is growing the problem. Connecticut’s state employee salaries have outpaced private sector wages in Connecticut since 2019. Public salaries during that time are up 33%, while private salaries are up 23%. Higher salaries result in higher pensions. We cannot keep growing the state’s pension liability faster than the taxpayers’ ability to pay for it. (4) Because of CT’s Fiscal Guardrails, we have made progress, but not as much as people might think. Due in large part to our bipartisan Fiscal Guardrails, CT has added $11 billion to our pension assets since 2019. Thanks to those payments, CT’s “funded ratio” (pension assets/pension liabilities) for the largest state employee retirement plan (SERS) has improved from 36% to 55% over the last eight years. (5) This is great progress. However, between 2019-2024, it is reported that we have also added $ 9 billion to our liabilities. So, we have been bailing ourselves out of a leaky boat with one hand ($11 billion increase in assets) while adding more water to the boat with the other ($9 billion increase in liabilities) for a net improvement of $2 billion. (6) The 2025 Budget departed from the path of paying down the unfunded pension debt on which CT had embarked. In June of this year, the majority party passed a budget (every Republican and two Democrats voted no) which raised the “Volatility Cap” by $150 million in FY25, $600 million in FY26, and $632 million in FY27. Cutting through the “government budget speak,” raising the Volatility Cap allowed the legislature to spend an additional $1.2 billion of funds that would normally have gone towards funding the state’s pension plan under the Fiscal Guardrails. This diversion of funds will cost the state much more in the long run. (7) In my opinion, this departure from the spirit and progress of the Guardrails was a big mistake. Unfunded Pension Liabilities are CT’s 800-pound financial gorilla . The magnitude of the dollars involved dwarfs CT’s other fiscal considerations and puts a strain on every year’s budget. We must stay the course on the Fiscal Guardrails and restore fiscal discipline in the 2026 legislative session. SOURCES: (1) Figures are most current available figures provided by State of Connecticut’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis on 9/26/25 and represent totals for FY2023. Please contact Rep. Courpas for any backup needed. (2) General Fund Balance: Click here . (3) State and local government contributions to pensions as a percentage of all state and local government direct general spending, by state, FY 13 to FY 22. Click here . (4) Employee wages: Click here (5) Funded Ratio: Click here (6) Net benefit to Pension Fund: Click here (7) Changes to Volatility Cap: Click here

Why the Structure and Processes of Our State Government Affect Us All

<p>Representing the 149^th District has been the privilege of a lifetime. Thank you to the citizens of the district for electing me to represent you in Hartford.</p> <p>The legislative session in Hartford ended on June 4. The work of the legislature is substantive policy issues, and I will continue this work unabated. One thing I saw firsthand in Hartford in the 2025 session, however which I did not expect is how profoundly the <strong><em>structure and proc</em>ess<em>es</em></strong> of our CT Legislature affect policy outcomes. We have sound structures and processes in CT, but party imbalance (the supermajority) in CT severely undermines those structures, processes, and our state democracy.</p> <p><strong>A supermajority breeds lack of respect for tenets as fundamental as Constitutional questions. </strong></p> <p>In CT, as in many states, most laws are required to pass the legislature with a simple majority (51%) of both houses. However, decisions which have more gravity may require more. For example, an amendment to the CT Constitution requires a 3/4 (75%) vote, and a change to the spending cap requires a 3/5 (60%) vote, in both houses.</p> <p>In March, the Education Committee on which I sit, considered a Bill for universal preschool, a worthy goal and $2-300 million expenditure requiring a diversion of funds away from paying down pension debt. Our CT Constitution states that such a diversion requires a 3/5 (60%) vote of each house. I asked in the Education Committee whether this bill would require a 3/5 vote and was told by the Chairman, no. The Office of Fiscal Analysis (a nonpartisan government office) stated that he was wrong &#8211; a 3/5 vote was required. In May when the amended bill reached the House floor, I asked the same question twice and twice was told, no. Finally, on the third ask, the Speaker of the House called for a recess of the chamber, consulted with legal counsel and confirmed that a 3/5 vote was indeed required. I appreciated Speaker Matt Ritter’s fair and accurate final conclusion.</p> <p>When one party has the votes to pass any bill regardless of whether a 51% or 3/5 (60%) vote is required, it breeds disregard, intentional or unintentional, for even the most basic tenets of our government, such as what our CT Constitution clearly requires for major votes.</p> <p><strong>A supermajority can use the process to undermine the minority’s ability to review Bills.</strong></p> <p>On June 2, our 693-page state budget was posted (at 3:54 am) with 12 hours for the minority to review it before a vote. HB 5002, the omnibus housing Bill, which started as one page, went to 93, and then 160 pages, was similarly “dropped” with inadequate time to review. The supermajority controls this process.</p> <p>There used to be no such 12-hour required review window – obtaining even this was a hard-fought win by the minority. The minority proposed additional reforms including requiring a 24-hour review window of any bill over 50 pages; that was rejected.</p> <p>What is the result of this practice of “dropping” hundreds of pages of legislation with insufficient time to review it? Sometimes legislators are forced to vote on bills they have not even read or digested. When this happens, the people have lost their right to representation.</p> <p><strong>A supermajority can undermine the committee process through “aircraft carrier” bills. </strong></p> <p>The committee process is the legislature’s deep dive into subject matter areas. The committee drafts the bill, holds a public hearing, and votes on whether to recommend the bill to the full legislature. When a bill is voted out of committee, it is supposed to mean that the committee’s work is complete.</p> <p>However, it is a frequent practice that a committee (controlled by the supermajority) is required to vote on a bill which contains nothing more than a title. The bill is like an “aircraft carrier” with no cargo on it. Later, multiple smaller bills are added to it and the now full aircraft carrier is brought to the floor for a vote. The final aircraft carrier has little relationship to the bill the committee passed, subverting the committee process.</p> <p>The structure of our state government matters a lot, and our lopsided legislature undermines that structure. This could be true regardless of which party holds the supermajority. A legislature with party balance has a healthy amount of tension to keep these problems in check. Bipartisan balance is key not only to lasting policy, but to the very structures of our democracy.</p>

EVENT: Stamford Legislative Update

<p>You&#8217;re invited to join me, State Senator Ryan Fazio, and State Representative Tom O&#8217;Dea on Thursday, July 10th at 6:30 p.m. at the Long Ridge Fire Co., Station 1 Hall (366 Old Long Ridge Rd, Stamford, CT) for a chance to share your questions, ideas, and concerns about the legislative session and more.</p> <p>All residents of the 149th Assembly District (Greenwich &amp; North Stamford) are invited to attend. Please feel free to contact me with any concerns at Tina.Courpas@housegop.ct.gov if you are unable to join us.</p>