Fasano: If Gov. Malloy truly cares about helping the poor he should drop ‘raise the age’

Hartford – Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano (R-North Haven) released the following statement regarding Gov. Malloy’s Second Chance 2.0 proposal and statements made today about helping the poor.

“Republicans and Democrats agree that the poor should not be kept in jail simply because they are poor. If Gov. Malloy truly cared about helping the poor who get stuck in jail because they can’t afford to pay small bonds, he would drop the ‘raise the age’ portion of his proposal which has raised serious concerns amongst Republicans and Democrats alike. He would talk to Republicans about working together to reform the bail system and would be open to considering a Republican proposal to eliminate bond requirements for non-violent, victimless, non-selling misdemeanor drug offenses.

“However, by coupling bond reform with ‘raise the age’ the governor is gambling his chances to actually get legislation passed that helps the poor he claims are his primary concern. He’s risking his chances of getting anything passed all because of his desire to make national political headlines by making Connecticut the first state in the country to raise the age to consider offenders up to age 20 as juveniles. This portion of the proposal is not only opposed by Republicans, it’s opposed by Democrats as well; otherwise there would have already been a vote on it by now. But lawmakers don’t want to vote in favor of something that will allow violent sexual predators to erase their records.

“In the governor’s efforts to convince lawmakers to sign on, he seems to have dropped talking about raise the age today. So why not drop it from the bill? If his true goal is to help the poor who are unfairly kept in jail, kept away from their families and their jobs, simply because they don’t have a small amount of money, then why not make that the one and only focus of the bill?

“Let’s also be clear about the savings associated with ‘Second Chance 2.0.’ The raise the age portion of the bill has absolutely zero savings for fiscal year 2017, because that policy would not be implemented until fiscal year 2018 under the current bill. The governor is wrong to suggest otherwise. While some savings can be attributed to bail changes, the $15 million the governor brings up is tied to the closure of a prison. According to the Office of Fiscal Analysis, bond reform contained in Second Chance 2.0 could help the state close a facility, but ‘those changes alone will not result in the closure of a prison.’ Any statements that misrepresent the savings in order to gain support for the bill are disingenuous.”