Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumental and Attorney General William Tong are backing legislation that would ensure the ability to sue or prosecute federal agents under Connecticut law.
Senate Bill 397 says that anyone, including federal agents and supervisors and state officers, who commit an offense “shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law or other proper proceeding for redress.” There is a partner bill, HB 5448, in the house.
Tong and Blumenthal held a press conference on March 23, to explain why they were supporting the bill. Tong said in the press conference that Connecticut would enforce its laws as a sovereign state.
“As Connecticut’s chief legal officer, I want it to be clear to everybody in this state, in this building, across Connecticut, that it is the policy and the law of the state of Connecticut to respect, honor and protect immigrants and immigrant families. Period,” Tong said.
Tong said that the bill is an “unremarkable proposition” because it is reemphasizing the way law and order should already work.
“If you are a federal agent or state official, you don’t have the right, without justification, to hurt somebody or kill somebody, and Connecticut law will be enforced against you if you do,” he said.
State Sen. Martin Looney, the senate president pro tempore, said the bill was in the “spirit of the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” which hands all powers not explicitly given to the federal government to states.
“We all know that many Republicans and some others treat the Bill of Rights as if it were only one amendment, the 2nd amendment, and just about ignore anything else in it,” he said.
Looney said it was important to hold federal officials to the same standard as state officials when it came to use of force.
“Why should they be treated any differently than the rigorous standards we apply to our own law enforcement?” he said. “That’s critically important to hold people accountable and to give our citizens confidence that those with badges are not going to be just enabled to be lawless.”
Looney also said this was relevant in a time where “our consciences are shocked almost every week by something new that happens with ICE agents, who we know are often not trained to the level that local and state law enforcement are trained.”
State Sen. Bob Duffy, the senate majority leader, said we should not live in a world where citizens are scared of their government.
“This is the United States of America, and it is a place where our government should be here to help us and support us, not be a place where we’re worried about masked goons coming in and shooting us for peaceful protest, for carrying out our constitutional rights, for expressing ourselves as we have for hundreds of years as Americans,” Duffy said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal said reform was necessary, practical and just to address “violations of people’s civil rights without redress.”
“Now, I want to be very clear-eyed here: this message today will, I think, reverberate in United States Congress among my colleagues to say states are moving ahead,” he said. “But at the same time, we know this law is going to be challenged.”
He said that although he thinks it will hold up against a challenge, we need a federal law to reinforce the protection it provides.
He gave examples of people who suffered violence and unfair detention at the hands of federal agents, saying bills like these, and hopefully a federal bill in the same vein, could provide redress.
“It is absolutely necessary, and again, I’m proud to stand here and thankful for the leadership we see here today,” he said.