Harding strikes out first time at bat.

State Senator Stephen Harding (R-30) began the day vowing tough questions would be asked at Tuesday’s Appropriation Committee hearing on higher education. He even provided a preview.

Harding was quoted at length in a Tuesday morning statement issued shortly before the hearing began:

“There are many questions that demand answers. With regard to the Office of Higher Education, for example, why were former Stone Academy students told to sign a waiver of their rights against the State of Connecticut in exchange for payment of just a small fraction of the damages they incurred?”  

The new leader, elected in a Friday afternoon coup, appears to have lost his six followers in only four days. No Senate Republican on the committee posed a question to beleaguered Office of Higher Education Executive Director Timothy Larson, a Democrat and former member of the Senate.

Larson’s appearance was scheduled to coincide with the launch of the state’s scheme to require abandoned Stone Academy students to waive all rights of recovery in exchange for small recoveries based on the flawed audit of their transcripts.

There are only a dozen Senate Republicans. Three of them serve on the 53 member budget committee. Two of the three backed Harding in his quiet campaign to oust Kelly. It should not have required much effort to arrange for one or both of Harding’s supporters to raise the issues their new leader posed in his defiant there’s-a-new-sheriff-in-town statement.

Bravado married to silence is not the way forward to success.

Published February 20, 2024.