Chris Powell: Daring to bring them back to the office?

The Connecticut State Capitol, in downtown Hartford.

Ragesoss photo

MANCHESTER, Conn.

Interviewed this week by WTIC-AM1080 morning host Brian Shactman, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont remarked that state government is in good condition. But as the conversation turned to the loss of vibrancy in the cities, with so many former office workers now working from home, the governor noted that he wanted office workers, including state-government employees, to return to their workplaces. In regard to the state employees, he added, "I lost in arbitration."

So how good can the condition of state government be when its chief executive lacks the authority even to get its employees to return to their workplaces?

While the governor seemed to shrug off the situation, his expression of haplessness should have mortified people in the radio audience who want their government to work for the public and not the public to work for their government.

The leader of the Republican minority in the state House of Representatives, Rep. Vincent J. Candelora, of North Branford, has proposed legislation to empower state government agencies to require their employees to work in state government offices. But Democrats overwhelmingly control the General Assembly and its Labor Committee, to which Candelora's bill has been referred, and the state- employee unions overwhelmingly control Democratic legislators generally and those on the Labor Committee particularly.

So does the governor want really want state employees back in their workplaces, to improve both state government's efficiency and the environment of the cities? Or was he just striking a pose? Does the governor really want, instead, the continued support of the state- employee unions during his prospective campaign for re-election next year? 

He will answer the questions by insisting on passage of Candelora's bill -- or by winking as it is discarded.

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Years ago many people who worried about social conditions, including the late Connecticut U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, complained that television programs and movies had gotten too violent and sexually explicit, that children were spending too much time watching them, and that such entertainment was coarsening the culture and inspiring bad and even criminal behavior.

The Oklahoma newspaper publisher and columnist Jenkin Lloyd Jones may have lamented it best. "We are drowning our youngsters in violence, cynicism, and sadism, piped into the living room and even the nursery," Jones wrote. "The grandchildren of the kids who used to weep because the Little Match Girl froze to death now feel cheated if she isn't slugged, raped, and thrown into a Bessemer converter."

Jones and Lieberman were right but little came of it, since sex and violence sell, money is hard to resist, and having government fix the problem might have involved unconstitutional censorship. The problem really was for parents to solve, but many parents preferred to use television as a babysitter, whether the kids were watching Sesame Street or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

These days social media are said to be bigger causes of psychological disturbance in children than television. So Connecticut Atty. Gen. William Tong and some state legislators want state government to regulate social media to reduce their appeal to children.

There will be constitutional problems with this too, as well as practical problems, since social-media technology is so advanced . Young people probably will figure out how to evade any regulation, creating an endless cycle of regulation and evasion even as state government already has more than enough to do. 

As with television years ago, the real problem with social media is a lack of parenting. Children have cell phones, computers and Internet service only if their parents provide them. Educators are discovering that the distractions and conflicts caused by social media can be eliminated just by banning cell phones in school.

But the attorney general and the legislators proposing to regulate social media excuse parents from responsibility. While many children these days have only one parent, if that many, regulation of social media by parents would be far more effective and fairer than regulation by government. Parents should  not  be excused. 

But then it's much easier for politicians to scold businesses than their own constituents.

Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).