Michael McLachlan and Julie Kushner are the candidates for State Senate District 24

Responses from Julie Kushner

Harassment

There are ongoing issues of discrimination and harassment in the STEM fields (e.g.: Faculty with a history of misconduct honored at Yale - https://goo.gl/RdBTLF and https://goo.gl/Pvvnwb). Recent findings from the National Academies (https://goo.gl/B6jd2d) suggests that harassment of women in academia is second only to the rates experienced by women in the US military. Connecticut boasts a number of large, prominent universities, including Yale and UConn, as well as high profile military bases, including the Coast Guard Academy and Naval Submarine Base New London.

What have you done or plan to do to address these issues should you be elected?

I began my career organizing secretaries - exclusively women - at Columbia University. When they banded together, they were able to win equal pay for equal work, a higher living wage, and protections against sexual harassment in the workplace. In the four decades fighting on behalf of working people since my time at Columbia, I’ve been a fighter to protect women and others who experience harassment in their workplace whether from a colleague or a boss. As Director of UAW Region 9A, I was involved in the negotiation and enforcement of a contract covering 2,200 graduate research and teaching assistants. We were successful in negotiating strong language protecting these workers from sexual harassment and providing an effective avenue to address problems. During the term of the first contract, there a case of sexual harassment. University administrators and the union were able to work together to resolve the problem, resulting in the reinstatement of a researcher who was a victim of sexual harassment.

How have you or will you ensure that CT women have the protections in place that they need, as well as an avenue for reporting and prosecuting offenders?

As the #MeToo movement has shown over the past couple of years, far too many women have faced harassment at their workplaces. Connecticut is not exempt from this issue, and I look forward to working with colleagues in the legislature to find solutions. The first step is electing people who believe that this issue requires serious concern and attention. The #MeToo bill did not pass the Connecticut legislature last year, and I pledge to work with colleagues on protections for women who speak out and stronger reporting, prosecutorial mechanisms for offenders, and training for employers and employees. Additionally, we must expand economic opportunities for all women, whether white, Black, or brown. Being allies means that we pay women equally, we hire women equally, we promote women equally, and we believe women.

Inclusivity

Numerous studies show the benefits gained from organizations building equity and inclusion in their workforce (https://goo.gl/YEMyeK). Lack of inclusivity and equity is an issue particularly in STEM fields and in politics. Connecticut can be considered less inclusive than other states, especially when it comes to education, where many minority students attend largely homogenous schools (https://goo.gl/TYF4bA).

What have you done or what do you plan to do to address this issue?

We need to to achieve equity in school funding, so our schools that are predominately attended by students of color are not continually underfunded and left behind.

What have you done or plan to do to attract a more inclusive workforce to Connecticut?

I am fortunate to have had the experience of working directly for more than forty years with an extremely diverse workforce. I represented more than 50,000 workers in the northeast of the United States and Puerto Rico, working in dozens of occupations, small employers and large institutions, black, brown and white, diverse in gender and sexual preference -- diverse in every way. Through this experience, I have acquired a deep appreciation for the value of an inclusive workforce. Attracting a more inclusive workforce must mean investing in the policies and communities that this workforce wants to live in. Workers, particularly young people, want vibrant cities, a strong public transportation system, and family-and-worker-friendly policies like paid family and medical leave. Today’s diverse workforce needs assistance with tackling their college debt, caring for aging parents, and taking time off to raise a family without getting behind when they return to the workforce. In particular roles, including teachers, we can offer incentives to encourage minorities to pursue a career path. Children are more likely to pursue these career paths when they can see adults who look like them or come from similar backgrounds in those positions - and being paid fair and living wages with strong retirement and paid leave benefits!

What have you done or plan to do to break down the barriers faced by people of color to pursue higher education and access fair wage positions?

Last year’s DREAMers bill in Connecticut (which passed and my organization supported) was a great step in breaking down barriers faced by communities of color to educational opportunity in our state, by allowing undocumented students access to assistance for their college education from a fund that their tuition supported. I’m proud of the work that I did with CT Students For A Dream for years and I look forward to continuing this work, as a state senator. We must continue to expand these types of programs, as well as innovative pre-college opportunities that help students realize that higher education can be an affordable option for themselves and their families.

Through my four decades advocating for workers rights and bringing workers and bosses together at the bargaining table, I’ve learned how to negotiate tough situations and get things done to raise wages and improve conditions for working people. This experience will be crucial in the legislature as we discuss bills to raise wages and ensure that women, people of color, and other communities are paid equally and fairly under the law.

Environmental Stewardship

Connecticut is prone to numerous environmental disasters including pollution, coastal flooding, blizzards, etc. These are predicted to be worsened by the impacts of shifts in Earth's climate patterns (https://goo.gl/PvZQik and https://goo.gl/AEtLb5). Connecticut was also ranked as having the worst air quality of states east of the Mississippi - Fairfield County was ranked the 19th most ozone polluted county in the nation and Hartford-West Hartford the most ozone polluted city - by the American Lung Association's 2018 State of the Air report.

What policies and actions will you take if you enter office to help safeguard our state?

Environmental contamination, degradation, and climate change will be some of the toughest challenges our world faces under a growing population in the 21st century. We must take action on climate change sooner rather than later. I support policies to transition Connecticut’s energy supply to clean and renewable energy like wind and solar power, and away from dirty fossil fuels. I support the protection of land and water, especially freshwater supplies that provide our drinking water. And any policies undertaken to tackle environmental problems must consider the current unequal distribution of impacts on our poorest communities, and on communities of color. We must ensure that they are the first communities to reap the benefits of the clean energy revolution.

What climate and energy policies do you support?

We must transition our economy from dirty fossil fuels to investment in solar and wind power as renewable energy resources. We must protect our public lands and public water supply from auction to the highest bidder. We must invest in institutions like the Green Bank (which has received cuts to funding by the current legislature) to support innovative solutions to the environmental crisis. And in all of these proposals, we must ensure that current workers in the dirty energy sector are offered good jobs, with good benefits and union protections in the new clean energy economy, and that the solutions come first to communities who receive the most negative impacts today.

What have you done or plan to do to improve the air quality of our state?

Fixing Connecticut’s air quality is two-fold. We must focus on clean energy solutions and land protection here at home, and transition to clean and renewable energy. But pollution knows no borders, and much of Connecticut’s air quality comes not from the fossil fuel infrastructure here, but from other states. In Senate District 24, there is serious concern about air pollution that is likely to result from the start up of the Cricket Valley Power Plant located just over the border from Sherman, in New York. CT Dept of Energy and Environmental protection has been slow to act, and has stated that it is too expensive to conduct a baseline study of air quality prior to the plant going operational. This is unacceptable. In addition, with a Washington DC increasingly hostile to environmental and public health protections, Connecticut must work with states near and far to reduce our harmful pollutants and dirty energy usage together before we’ll see real advances in our air quality.

Immigration/Family Separations

We were particularly pained over the past months by the heart-wrenching situation of migrant children being separated from their parents with some of the children reportedly detained in our state. Some of our members are mothers of young children, and as scientists we are aware of an extensive body of research (https://goo.gl/yQrXNg) on how separating children from their parents can cause toxic stress and impair mental and physical development. 500 Women Scientists views this issue as representative of a larger immigration problem. Additionally, many Connecticut scientists are immigrants and have made significant contributions to U.S. excellence in research and development, and current immigration policies put this excellence and the well-being of immigrants at risk.

Tell us about steps you’ve taken or plan to take to reform our immigration system and guarantee human rights are protected.

Danbury, one of the communities in the district that I’m seeking to represent, has a vibrant immigrant population and community. Throughout my career, I’ve worked closely with allied immigrant rights groups and followed their lead on protecting human rights and suggestions for reforming our immigration system. From participating in rallies, speaking out against deportations, or advocating for the DREAMers bill in Hartford, I’ve dedicated a lot of time in my career to protecting my immigrant neighbors.

What have you done or will you do to ensure protections for immigrants seeking visas to study and work in STEM fields in CT?

As we’ve seen increasing racist attacks on immigrants to our country coming out of Washington DC, we must ensure that immigrants seeking to enter our country are able to do so. Connecticut has a strong tradition of immigrants, including folks working or studying in STEM fields, and I will fight to allow these folks to continue coming to our world-class research institutions once elected.

Dreamers

Today, there's a generation of immigrants who have lived in the United States since childhood and only know this country as home, yet they do not have the opportunity to become U.S. citizens and fully join society. Through the DACA program, thousands of Dreamers were able to pursue studies in STEM and succeed in these fields.

What have you done or plan to do to provide a permanent solution for Dreamers?

Most voters I have spoken with express understanding of the difficulties faced by Dreamers. Of course, some of the people I have encountered are focused on illegal immigration -- I suggest to them that if we adopt a sensible immigration policy and a pathway to citizenship, we would be able to unify our communities and welcome new immigrants to Connecticut. I support a pathway to citizenship.

What are your thoughts concerning proposed H.B. No. 6709, proposed S.B. No. 591, and proposed H.B. No. 7000 submitted in 2017 concerning sanctuary state status, establishing an immigrant bill of rights, and access to higher education funds for Dreamers?

I testified in support of the law that now provides access to higher education funds for DREAMers. I have worked with and supported CT Student For A Dream for several years, as have the most prominent education unions and the CT AFL-CIO. We are living in a time of great uncertainty, many of neighbors in the immigrant community are living in fear of ICE and deportation. In order to protect our immigrant communities, Connecticut should become a sanctuary state. An immigrant bill of rights is another bill that I fully support.

Scientific Integrity

Politicians are disputing settled science and firing government scientists for political reasons.

How will you foster a culture that respects scientific evidence and protects scientists?

Scientific inquiry and free scientific and academic discovery must be one of the foundations upon which our democracy continues to rest. I will continue to respect scientists and their research, and work to ensure that scientific data underlines policies that we pass in the Connecticut legislature. Whether we’re discussing climate science, vaccines, agriculture, and more - we must rely on research and science to make these policy decisions.

Can we count on your commitment to support stronger oversight of any efforts to cut science out of public protections and to oppose similar attempts?

Yes. I have always believed that funding education, and specifically scientific research is important, but working directly with research assistants and postdoctoral researchers at our top universities has given me an appreciation for the value of this work. I am proud that my union participated in the Science March in Boston, New York City and Washington, DC. You can count on my commitment on this issue.