Policy Archives - Keller Glass

HB 8002

This piece appeared on Citizens for a Thriving Windsor's website on Dec. 10, 2025

Governor Lamont signed House Bill 8002 into law. If you are interested in the details, I would point you to Ginny Monk’s work at the CT Mirror. She has done excellent reporting on this bill throughout its tumultuous history.

While this bill is a milestone for Connecticut, it is less than what is needed. It eliminates the “fair share” portion of the original bill and replaces it with “housing growth plans.” In effect, Lamont vetoed the stick and agreed to the carrot. This is likely to leave zoning unaddressed in many areas of the state with high demand and underutilized capacity for additional housing.

Windsor

The bill is unlikely to have much of an impact on Windsor for two reasons. First is the good news: as a town, we are already making strides towards denser housing near transit. There’s always room for improvement, but Windsor’s political leadership and town staff are making a good-faith effort to address housing in town, and it shows.

Unfortunately, the second reason somewhat counteracts the first. The housing market is not confined to town or state borders. Towns in the same region with strict and permissive zoning suffer the same high housing costs. This bill is a good start, but it doesn’t address the underlying problem: many towns are unwilling to allow housing growth and there is little political will in the state to make them change.

On the plus side, this bill moves the state toward regional and state-wide housing planning. There are still incentives for towns to allow more housing near train and bus stations, “Work, Live, Ride.” There are still provisions for towns participating in Work, Live, Ride to allow conversion of commercial properties to residential. It continues to waive off-street parking requirements for new development up to 16 units. It’s not perfect, it’s not enough, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Anger

Watching the debate in the General Assembly, the anger of the opposition was palpable. Unusually for Connecticut legislative sessions, opponents could not resist casting aspersions on the motives of the bill’s authors. They insisted they were ignored in the process, a pretty jarring claim given that the governor had vetoed a similar bill in response to their criticism.

What’s the disconnect? Why does the number of parking spots in new developments cause such a strong response? Why does the political party of business and cutting red tape bristle at allowing property owners to develop their land with less government intervention? Why the seething anger?

History

Escaping the Depression

It’s worth considering how we got here. The modern housing economy has its roots in the Great Depression. In order to avert a deflationary spiral, the federal government began guaranteeing loans. It didn’t take long for the 30-year mortgage to develop, something that local banks could never have offered previously at a reasonable interest rate. This stabilized the housing market during the Depression by artificially increasing demand through government-backed loans. This process also created a secondary market for the debt of these new mortgages, which began the process of financializing housing. The wealth created from housing debt began to spread throughout the entire economy.

There was real fear after WWII that the country would slide back into the Depression as the country unwound the war economy. To stave off this possibility, and to provide a benefit to vets returning from overseas, new borrowing instruments were created to allow veterans to buy homes with much lower down payments and interest rates. The boom in housing construction in the suburbs fueled private sector growth. Cars enabled low-density suburbs to function and provided a product for industries transitioning from war-time manufacturing. The federal government continued to facilitate this transformation through enormous road construction projects, which helped soften the blow of post-war spending reductions.

Entire neighborhoods were built to a “finished state” with all the amenities of the modern nuclear family could possibly need within a short distance… provided you purchased a self-propelled vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine.

A New Way of Life

It’s hard to overstate how radical a departure this was from the ad hoc way towns and cities had developed for millennia. The effect was the aesthetic of small town republicanism without the actual rural economy. Money had to be made somewhere else and brought home to the suburbs. The newness and uniformity gave a sense of social and economic order that would reify the country’s social hierarchy, maintain the astonishing post-war prosperity, and defeat those godless commie bums through the might of our productivity and consumption. The overarching financial system was largely invisible to most people, in part due to its enormous complexity. Someone taking out a small business loan may well be indirectly borrowing from capital that was backed by their own mortgage debt. All of this was opaque to most people.

The new developments reflected the biases and prejudices of the society that created them. Many of the veteran benefits and financial instruments that helped fund suburban expansion were unavailable to women and minorities. The racial makeup of Hartford and surrounding towns is still heavily influenced by the red lines banks drew on maps denoting areas for “undesirables.” In these areas, loans would be issued at significantly higher interest rates, or denied entirely.

Towns competed for wealthier residents by zoning larger minimum sizes for lots, on the theory that this would increase the value-per-acre of land while also supporting services for fewer residents. The opposite has been the case; less dense development requires more utilities per taxpayer, and especially more services for housing types that attract families with school-aged children. The maintenance on these systems has become ever more expensive. Most towns now balance their budgets via deferred maintenance and external revenue from state and federal funding. Put another way, while most towns maintain a balanced annual budget, they don’t actually have the tax base to maintain the infrastructure they’ve built.

Multiple generations (mine included) grew up under this system with an unquestioning belief in suburban, car-based development as the guarantor of American prosperity. A house and a garage on a half-acre symbolized financial independence, stability, and a store of wealth to pass on to future generations. Cars became the embodiment of American individualism and the triumph of our ingenuity as a free people. The American identity became wrapped up in this development pattern as a way of life. It was, and still is, viewed by many as an unalloyed good.

Reevaluating

However, many people’s faith in this system has been shaken over the past two decades. The 2008 financial crash revealed how fragile the system is, and showed that taxpayers would carry the burden of this fragility. Over time, exclusionary zoning and subsidized credit slowly reduced housing supply and increased demand, thus raising prices. Those higher prices produced more debt as buyers stretched further to meet escalating prices.

Ownership of that debt created wealth that could be leveraged into all facets of the economy. And what if the loans that kept the whole system afloat were bad? We found out in 2008: our leaders decided it was better for the American public to bail out the lenders than to deal with the underlying causes of both the financial crisis and the housing shortage. A drop in housing prices now posed a risk to the entire economy.

But many have not shaken their faith in this system. They are convinced of the inherent goodness of suburban land use, or at least the aesthetics of the time period when the suburbs were built. They view cars and car ownership as drivers of prosperity. And they view any change to this system as deeply threatening. While this reaction can be baffling when the topic is something as seemingly technical as lane widths, if you consider the assumptions that go into the suburban mindset then you begin to see what is at stake for people who believe in this system; this development pattern is viewed as the substratum of the order, prosperity, and socioeconomic status that gives dignity to our lives. If we bear this in mind, we begin to glimpse some people’s deep attachment to the status quo, and their anger at anyone who might try to change it.

Proposed Solutions

What Doesn’t Work

Thus, many policy proposals to address the housing crisis are designed more to save the status quo than to address the underlying problems. A few that come up with some regularity:

Insert money at the point of purchase – Trump’s 50-year mortgage proposal and Kamala Harris’s $25K in downpayment support for first-time homebuyers have something in common: they both increase purchasing power (demand) without increasing supply, thus raising prices. Ironically, this inflationary pressure would be most acutely felt in the types of housing units needed by the types of borrowers these policies target; that is, starter homes and small family units. Put another way, these policies put upward price pressure on exactly the type of housing we need as affordable housing.

Public housing – I have yet to see a public housing proposal that details exactly how this type of housing would be built, where it would be built, and how it would be funded, so it would be unfair to pass judgement on whether a public housing plan could work. However, I do think it’s worth considering the government’s role in the housing market if public housing were to become the main method of dealing with the housing shortage. Public housing absent zoning and finance reforms is essentially the government saying it is going to keep restrictive housing policies while also deciding what and where new housing gets built to make up for the shortfall in supply. This is tiptoeing very close to a command economy. Given the scale of the crisis, I understand the impulse, and I can imagine a role for public housing in specific circumstances. But, in general, I would be hesitant to trust the entity largely responsible for creating the problem with solving it.

Build baby build – Should we continue to sprawl? The argument is tempting; if the problem is low supply, let’s make more. We know how to build greenfield housing, so let’s do it! The problem is the tax density issue I mentioned earlier. Single-family, 1/4 to 1 acre development alone is not financially sustainable in the long run. The infrastructure required to run a town that is developed on this model is more expensive than towns can charge in property taxes, so they rely on state & federal funds to make up the gap. Complete local self-sufficiency is neither practical nor desirable, but there must be financial stability somewhere in the system. If a development model results in the vast majority of towns not being financially solvent in the long term, then the development pattern doesn’t work. We need to build self-sustaining places that can then create the economic activity that sustains the less dense places nearby.

Moving Forward

So, how do we solve these interlocking problems? We can’t start over, and the suburbs aren’t going away. What do we do?

Very smart people have been thinking about this much longer than I have. Strong Towns has compiled a list of housing-ready policies that will help create density in existing neighborhoods, thereby making them more financially sustainable, while creating local jobs in the form of small-scale housing projects.

1. Allow conversions from single-family to duplex or triplex by right.

2. Permit backyard cottages in residential zones.

3. Legalize starter homes in all residential zones.

4. Eliminate minimum lot sizes in existing neighborhoods.

5. Repeal parking mandates for housing

6. Streamline approvals and permitting.

These policies are not a silver bullet, and local variation is likely needed. But they are more likely to work than the previously mentioned proposals because they allow us, homeowners and neighbors, to make decisions with our knowledge of local needs and the local market, all while catalyzing the local economy with small, locally-financed projects that employ local craftspeople.

In addition, Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn makes a compelling case that local government has a role to play in plugging the financing gap for housing projects that traditional banks won’t provide loans for; things like incremental home projects, or building a backyard cottage, or an addition for a relative.

And then there’s the issue of how to talk about these necessary changes. We should be clear about our priorities, the facts, and the history that got us here. We need to remind ourselves that the wider audience does not spend much time thinking about these issues. They are trying to understand these very complex ideas while holding the same assumptions most of us held at one time or another.

These are generational problems that will not be solved with one bill. They require questioning the status quo while simultaneously taking the time to understand its intricacies. There is a way out of the housing crisis, but we need to stare the problem directly in the face. We need both practical optimism and radical common sense.

The Debt Ceiling is Unconstitutional

I’d like to put forward a proposal to stop the recurring manufactured crisis that is the debt ceiling.

Stop pretending it’s legal.

In this era of increased partisanship and stochastic violence, there’s also the pervading sense that our legal institutions are straining under their own weight. If we’re looking for root causes, we should consider the many extra-constitutional features of the nation’s political institutions as currently constituted. For starters, political parties as a legal unit of governance. The framers did not predict the emergence of parties and a few warned us directly of their malevolent influence on the republic once they emerged. George Washington famously called them, “potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people.” Add to this state-wide apportionment of electors in presidential elections, the filibuster, constraining the house membership to an arbitrary number set a hundred years ago, and you start to get a picture of the elements of our current political system that are not in the Constitution and, in fact, are often used to subvert the Constitution’s underlying principles of popular sovereignty and majority rule.

But even these ailments, bad as they may be, are not unconstitutional per se; they are omissions. They are the results of institutions and political parties taking advantage of gaps in our founding documents.

The debt ceiling, on the other hand, violates the Constitution ipso facto.

To understand why, let’s do a quick Constitutional refresher on the relevant sections: In Article I, Congress passes laws. In Article II, the president executes those laws, hence the “executive branch.” The relationship between Congress and the executive is crystal clear in the Constitution. It charges the president with the duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” We may live in strange times. Trump may claim the right to impound funds. Stephen Miller may claim “plenary authority” for the president. But we must remember the framers’ clear intent that the president’s duty is to execute laws passed by Congress. This includes laws concerning spending and debt.

The 14th amendment addresses the public debt directly, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” The current Supreme Court likes to pretend the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments don’t exist, but they are just as binding as the bill of rights. On the question of debt the 14th Amendment provides an explicit directive: it is unconstitutional for the government to refuse to pay public debt. Supreme Court case Perry v. United States affirmed this interpretation of the public debt clause. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Charles Hughes characterized “the expression ‘validity of the public debt’ as embracing whatever concerns the integrity of the public obligations.”

It’s worth noting that the 14th Amendment addressed the concern that former confederates reentering the federal government would refuse to pay the public debt as payback for Congress invalidating Confederate debt or to hold the budget hostage to gain political concessions (sound familiar?)

It’s worth taking a moment to consider the precise chain of legal obligations at work here. The constitution states the president must follow the laws set forth by Congress, and that neither Congress nor the president may question the validity of the public debt. Congress collects taxes and duties to fund the government. Congress passes a budget, which is just a law instructing the executive branch how to spend those funds.

We may not agree with specific policy decisions made along this chain of commitments, but this is how the system is supposed to work. Trump’s illegal acts in office notwithstanding, the president can’t refuse to spend the money specified in the budget, both because of his Constitutional obligation to “take care” that the budget he signed into law is faithfully executed, but also because the 1975 Impoundment Act specifically forbids it. He also can’t raise taxes to fund the budget; that power is granted to Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. (The same section renders Trump tariff-by-executive-order scheme unconstitutional, but that’s a subject for another day). He can’t print more money; Congress vested that power in an independant (for now) agency. The only option is to borrow money within the statutory limits of the budget.

Enter the heel in our melodrama, “The Debt Ceiling.” Congress now passes a different law, separate from the budget. Contrary to much of the rhetoric around the issue, the debt ceiling has nothing to do with spending. It simply forbids the president from borrowing money once the debt reaches an arbitrary threshold. In effect, Congress has spent more than it collected in taxes, borrowed money to cover the difference, and then told the person responsible for writing the checks to stop paying the bills. If this sounds a lot like Congress calling the public debt into question, that’s because that’s exactly what it is.

This puts the president in an impossible position. Congress is, in effect, forcing the President to choose between two different ways to violate the Constitution 1) ignore the debt ceiling to meet the 14th Amendment obligation, thereby violating the budget law 2) accept the debt ceiling and ignore the budget, thereby violating the 14th Amendment. In both cases, Congress has directed the president to break a law, which also forces the president to violate the aforementioned “take care clause.”

In our system, we call laws directing the executive branch to violate the Constitution “Unconstitutional.”

Every president who has had to deal with this legal knot, thus far, has chosen option two in the hopes that there is enough slack in the system that they will not have to actually default on US debt. Both political parties have consented to this state of affairs because it allows them to extract policy concessions when they are in the minority by holding the government hostage.

For Republicans, it’s a win-win. Shutdowns reify Republican’s accusation of government incompetence and chaos, so they either get what they want in the policy negotiations or they get thrown into the proverbial briar patch. The motivations for Congressional Democrats are more complicated. Shutdowns cause major policy headaches when they occupy the Whitehouse, effectively opening a whole new round of budget negotiations. More generally, shutdowns portray the government as dysfunctional (which, in this case, it most certainly is). People are more likely to blame shutdowns on the party advocating governmental competence and the status quo.

In the face of an ever-increasingly authoritarian president, however, Democrats are reluctant to give up any levers to check the executive branch while they are in the minority. Some Democrats may be grateful for the opportunity the debt ceiling affords to stick a thumb in Trump’s eye. Fair enough. But taking a step back, it’s hard to see how assenting to the debt ceiling has been anything less than a disaster for Democrats. Further, it’s hard to see how it will work out any better for them in the future. Yes, the public may blame Republicans for shutdowns occasionally, but shutdowns generally give the public the impression of a political system lurching uncontrollably from one self-inflicted crisis to the next. This makes voters gravitate towards reform/change candidates and away from candidates advocating for basic government functions: e.g. Democrats. Meanwhile Republicans will continue to use this process to extract policy preferences outside of normal legislative and Constitutional processes. This is a fight on Republicans’ turf, and Democrats are fools to continue to fight here.

Trump’s actions during this particular shutdown illustrate the dangerous power vacuum that bad actors can exploit when Congress abandons its Constitutional role. Trump’s decision to pay military personnel with money siphoned from research and development funds may sound like a good-faith effort to support the people who protect us, but it violates a foundational principle of the Constitution. It’s the People’s money and the People choose how to spend it through their representatives. If the executive can spend money the People have not allocated, and pay for it with funds the People set aside for a different purpose, then the president is no longer “executing” the will of the People: he is executing his own will. We kinda’ fought a Revolution over this issue. We shouldn’t be so quick to abandon it.

So, what should Democrats do?

Democrats should state clearly that the debt ceiling is Unconstitutional. They should seize this superseding principle and refuse to get bogged down in the weeds of extra-legislative budget debates. Say it clearly, if any president chooses to shut down the government or honor the nation’s debts, they are violating the law and the Constitution.

Use the occasion to make a simple point on the national debt: Tax. The. Rich. Government shutdowns are unpopular. Austerity measures are unpopular. By refusing to engage in the process that creates these unpopular outcomes for voters, Democrats will leave Republicans holding the bag. They will also set themselves up for a winning platform built on the pillars of Fairness, Reform, and the Constitution.

Police Cameras & the Fugitive Slave Act

This letter was sent to the Town Council of Windsor Connecticut regarding an ongoing debate in the town over the use of video data collected by Windsor police and shared to outside agencies via Flock. FOIA requests to WPD had revealed numerous access incidents by federal immigration departments, and at least one incident of a Texas Sheriff's office accessing the system to search for someone for the stated reason that she had "had an abortion."

Dear Council Members,

I was unable to attend the Council meeting last night, but I did want to take the opportunity to share my concerns about the use of Flock cameras in our community.

There is no doubt that retroactive video data, shared across departments, can help solve crimes more quickly and at lower cost. Public safety is important, but any benefits must be carefully balanced against the rights and security of our residents.

History warns us of the dangers of law enforcement tools being used across state lines in ways that undermine individual rights. To discourage enslaved people from escaping the barbaric laws of slave states, the Fugitive Slave Act co-opted other states’ law enforcement resources. “States rights,” in this case, could only be maintained by forcing other states to act against their own citizens’ conscience and the basic dignity and autonomy of people within their borders. The Fugitive Slave Act was a major factor leading to the Civil War and remains a stain on this nation’s history.

There are strong echoes of this now. Some states have criminalized reproductive health care for erstwhile protected classes of citizens, and have also criminalized providing aid to people trying to access that care. As with slavery, the states’ unequal treatment of people before the law is rationalized by religious belief and extra constitutional claims of “states’ rights.” These states are using technologies like Flock cameras to track their residents who travel elsewhere for legal medical procedures. They are also passing civil laws to extend their reach across state lines. This effectively deputizes their citizens to enforce state laws, akin to the bounty-hunting system that existed throughout the antebellum period.

In addition to this retrograde legal environment, we’ve also seen the emergence of masked federal agents abducting people and moving them between states without extradition, without meaningful accountability to the public, and without accountability to the judicial system. Immigrants, documented and undocumented, already face the constant threat of dislocation, deportation, and family separation. These paramilitary law enforcement resources can easily be refocused to impose unjust state laws across other states like our own. With one executive order, local camera data can be used to locate health care providers in our town and send them to face felony charges in other states.

While I understand the potential crime-solving value of these systems, I urge the Council to prioritize the rights and safety of Windsor’s residents and visitors. A prudent course would be to suspend implementation until the Council can guarantee that these systems will not expose Windsor residents, visitors, or providers to out-of-state legal risks.

Please act now to protect our neighbors and the medical professionals our community depends on.

Respectfully,
Keller Glass