Connecticut lawmakers are pushing to expand unemployment benefits to striking workers, regulate self-checkout machines, and create a climate “superfund” to extract billions from fossil fuel companies.
Bold ideas — except California already tried all of them. And even Gov. Gavin Newsom said no.
For years, California has served as the nation’s policy laboratory. Other states often watch to see which progressive experiments succeed, and which quietly collapse under fiscal pressure, legal uncertainty, or political reality.
Now Hartford appears ready to rerun several of those failed experiments.
California has nearly 40 million residents, a Democratic supermajority, and a governor who has built his national profile on ambitious progressive policy. If legislation can’t survive there, it’s rarely because the politics weren’t favorable. More often, it’s because the math didn’t work — or the consequences proved harder to defend than the slogans.
Connecticut lawmakers are now attempting to revive those same proposals.
Unemployment Benefits for Striking Workers
The clearest example is unemployment insurance.
Under current law, workers who go on strike are ineligible for unemployment benefits. The reasoning is straightforward: unemployment insurance is designed to support workers who lose their jobs involuntarily and are actively seeking new work. Striking workers still have jobs — they have chosen to withhold their labor as a bargaining strategy.
Connecticut’s SB 440 would change that by allowing workers on strike for at least two weeks to collect unemployment benefits.
This isn’t new territory. A similar bill passed the Connecticut legislature last year before Gov. Ned Lamont vetoed it in June 2025, citing concerns about economic impact and job growth. He vetoed a nearly identical proposal the year before.
California tried the same thing in 2023. Lawmakers passed SB 799, which would have allowed striking workers to collect benefits after a two-week waiting period. Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected it, warning that the state’s unemployment insurance system — nearly $20 billion in debt to the federal government — could not sustain the expansion.
Connecticut’s unemployment system has faced its own financial pressures in recent years. The fiscal concerns that stopped the policy in California apply here as well.
The Self-Checkout Fight
Then there’s the grocery store bill.
Connecticut’s SB 438c would limit the number of self-checkout machines a single employee can oversee, cap total machines at eight per store, and impose minimum staffing requirements whenever automated checkout is in use.
The intent is to preserve cashier jobs. The effect would be to regulate how private retailers deploy technology inside their own stores.
California considered a nearly identical measure in 2024. It moved through committee but stalled before reaching the governor’s desk. Even in a state known for aggressive regulation of business, lawmakers ultimately declined to push it across the finish line.
The Climate Superfund Debate
Connecticut is also considering a climate “superfund” bill that would require large fossil fuel companies to pay for climate-related damages based on their share of historical global emissions.
The pitch is simple: make polluters pay instead of taxpayers.
California has been trying to pass the same idea for years. It keeps failing.
California has attempted the same idea repeatedly. Each time, it stalled in the legislature. Lawmakers ran into the same questions: How do you calculate one company’s share of global emissions going back decades? How do you assign dollar amounts to hurricanes or floods? And how does such a law survive constitutional challenges?
New York and Vermont passed similar measures and are now defending them in federal court. Neither has collected a dollar.
If California’s Democratic supermajority couldn’t translate the concept into durable law, Hartford’s enthusiasm is not a solution — it’s a wager.
Policy Borrowing — Without the Lessons
Looking west for policy inspiration isn’t unusual. States routinely study each other’s legislation.
But copying ideas that never worked is a different matter.
These California proposals didn’t fail because they lacked progressive support. They failed because governors and lawmakers concluded the fiscal risks, legal exposure, or economic consequences were too high.
That’s the question Connecticut has yet to answer: If California couldn’t make these policies work, why does Hartford think the outcome will be different?
Policy experimentation can be healthy. Repeating other states’ failed experiments is not.
And if Connecticut is going to borrow from California, lawmakers should at least borrow the caution that stopped these bills the first time.
