As the Republican Party in Connecticut becomes ever more like the national party, Republicans running for office here must play an ever more delicate game. They must convince what John McCain’s former campaign manager called “low information voters” that they are not at all like those other Republicans, while acting precisely like those other Republicans when it really matters to the corporations and autocrats that own the party. In the highly gerrymandered districts in other parts of the country, Republicans can let their freak flag fly, but that happy state of affairs has not yet arrived for our locals, which sometimes makes life difficult for them.
Case in point is Heather Somers, the state Senator from the district in which I have the misfortune to reside. Judging just by her actions, Heather is quite ready to sell herself to the Koch Brothers at the earliest opportunity. The first thing she did when she got elected was to propose two bills: one to end the estate tax in Connecticut, and one to end the public financing system for our elections. But as I say, if she wants to keep herself on offer to the Brothers, she has to convince her constituents that she is actually a reasonable person, so she must walk a fine line indeed. It’s not easy. She tried to duck the question during the 2016 campaign, but ultimately had to explain that she voted for Trump, because: 1) while she didn’t like what he said, what Hillary had donewas even worse, and 2) local elections such as the 18th Senatorial District in Connecticut are far more important than presidential elections anyway, so the whole question is trivial. As to the first, we’ve seen how that’s worked out; as to the second, well, no comment necessary.
During her term Heather has taken up the challenge of trying to appear to be all things to all people while, in fact, being nothing but a typical Republican. She has made nice to the local open space folks, but hasn’t done a thing for them, and she’s even tried to curry favor with the Resist groups, from whom, I suspect, she heard complaints about the end of net neutrality. Very likely knowing nothing about the issue, or its importance to her corporate masters, she stepped into a trap.
Heather signed on as a sponsor to a bill to require net neutrality here in Connecticut, yet when push came to shove, she voted against the bill she had sponsored. My wife pointed this out on our local Democratic Facebook page, and got a number of responses from Heather’s Republican apologists. Heather, they said, no doubt giving us a preview of Heather’s own talking points, had voted against the bill because George Jepsen had written a letter saying it was unconstitutional, …and should she simply ignore the opinion of the Democratic Attorney General!!! What self respecting Republican would ever do that???
Well, that seemed odd, because if Jepsen had written such a letter it would be very surprising if not a single Democrat had taken such a warning to heart while all 18 Republicans cast their votes in sorrow in deference to the opinion of a Democrat. So, we did a bit of digging, and not at all to our surprise, Jepsen did no such thing. What he did do was say that if the bill passed, it would likely be challenged in the courts, and he would be happy to defend it. Not only that, he made that statement in December (that would be 2017), while the bill Heather sponsored bears a 2018 bill number, so she knew or should have known about his opinion when she signed on.
So, it seems fairly clear that someone explained to Senator Heather that she could not vote for this bill, as it displeased the constituency of the Republican Party, in this case the telecom companies who want to squeeze ever more money out of us. It speaks volumes about Heather’s incompetence that she did not see this coming. It also speaks volumes that she fell right into line, but that’s only to be expected. The “moderate Republican” oxymoron still plays well around here, so Heather may be tough to beat, even if the blue wave reaches the shores of Southeastern Connecticut. But we won’t let her forget this vote, and we’ll be calling her out on it.
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