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From the transcript of the Connecticut Senate - June 25, 2007 - debate on the budget:

"SEN. LOONEY:

Yes, thank you, Mr. President. I'm rising to speak in support of the bill. Would like to join my commendations* to those of others in talking about the extraordinary hard work and visionary work of Senator Harp and Representative Merrill and Senator Daily and Representative Staples in this process."

*Note from Barbara Richards:  The official transcript has the word "accommodations" but  on the CT-N video it sounds like "commendations".
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From the debate on a bill to allow children of immigrants who attend Connecticut high schools for four years and then graduate to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities - transcript of the Connecticut Senate - June 1, 2007:

"SEN. HARP:

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise to support this bill. And I do it for a couple of reasons, and the one reason that I'm going to say, which is probably just philosophical, is that in America we have amnesia.

I bet you each one of us could look back into the history of our families and find someone who did not come here legally. But ultimately the family became a legal or documented family, so we have amnesia when it is convenient for us to have amnesia.

But the real reason, I'm not going to speak about the amnesia because it's convenient sometimes. We can forget about the realities of what it was like to build this country, this country of immigrants some documented and some undocumented.

But what I want to tell you about is a young woman who I met because she was a waitress at a café that I attend sometimes, and she was very [inaudible] liked to talk a lot.

And when I met her, she was in high school at Wilber Cross High School in New Haven, and she was a real hard working student. And one of the things that she would do is show us her grades and tell us about all of the things that she was learning in school.

I was a little jealous because she flirted with my husband a little bit, but she was someone who really enjoyed education and did very well.

She was about to graduate when we first met her, and she told us she was going to graduate number two in her class. And by the time that spring had rolled around, she had gotten into Boston College, she had gotten into UConn, she had gotten into NYU. She had gotten a number of scholarships, and this was a few years ago. The federal laws have changed.

Now this young woman didn't think she was going to have a problem, but when she went to fill the federal aid application, she had to document her citizenship, that was something that was new.

It was at that particular moment that she learned that she was not a citizen of the United States. She had no idea. And so she came to me and she asked me if I could help her because she knew that I was a State Senator.

Well, it took us about four years for her to get her citizenship. Now what happened to those opportunities that that young woman had? She couldn't go to any of those private schools because she couldn't afford to go to those schools.

She ultimately ended up going to Gateway Community and Technical College and had to be a foreign student. She couldn't get in-state tuition.

Now she did it because she worked hard. Now this young woman went to school and then she worked every night in a restaurant until 10: 00 at night.

And now you might ask yourself how could she have not ever known that she was not a citizen of the United States. She was brought here by her parents when she was about four years old. They never told her.

She knew that her mother didn't speak English, but the reality was that [inaudible]."

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From the debate about a bill that would require that some employers give sick days to their workers - transcript of the Connecticut Senate, May 29, 2007:

"SEN. HARP:

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise to support this bill. I actually think that most employers of 50 or more in our state probably already have a sick time policy that is far more generous than this benefit would be.

The reason they have it is because it's for morale reasons, for one reason, and because it helps them, because of morale, to keep employees.

The other thing we need to remember is this is about sick time. I happen to work for an organization and supervise folks, and the last thing you want is for someone to come to work sick because they won't get paid for a sick day.

If you think about some of the communicable diseases that folks might feel like they'll try to come to work through, one of which is really a serious case of the flu, that can spread through an organization and affect productivity, because folks are sick.

A lot of times, I know there are fears that people abuse sick time, but individual agencies or businesses can use sick time, really, as a way to assure that folks don't abuse it, if they go beyond what this bill recommends, and allow people to book it and keep it for when they leave the business.

I ultimately believe that this bill will not be the straw that breaks the camel's back or send employers running from our state. I believe it is a bill that reinforces what good businesses know.

If you have good policies for good employees, you will keep them. Ultimately, you will have a thriving business, full of happy employees. I urge your support."

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From the transcript of the Connecticut Senate, June 5, 2007:

"THE CHAIR:

Thank you, Senator Handley. Senator Harp, do you accept the yield?

SEN. HARP:

Thank you, Mr. President, I do. I am so excited about this particular bill. For many years, we, in Connecticut, have had, on paper, one of the best programs in the United States when it comes to the SCHIP program, or what we call the HUSKY program.

But we have been afflicted with some of the problems that other states and, as a matter of fact, this country has been afflicted with, and that is the whole question of health disparities.

In our Medicaid program, currently, there are about 22,000 individuals who do not have any English proficiency, or very limited English proficiency.

And if you think about the commercial that I think all of us have seen on television, where there is a young man pouring his heart out to someone who is clearly his psychiatrist and telling him all of his deep emotional pain.

And then the psychiatrist responds to him in a language that none of us understands. It really brings to the point how critically important it is to be able to communicate with your healthcare provider. It is clearly a part of the overall healthcare method.

And so what this bill does is basically make healthcare interpreters available to the Medicaid population."