October 21, 2025 • 42 mins
Andrea Barton Reeves is a former ad litem lawyer, CEO of Harc. Inc - a nonprofit organization supporting people with intellectual disabilities and their families, and the founding CEO of the Connecticut Paid Leave Program - the state’s first new agency in 12 years thanks to which over 200,000 individuals and families have received paid family leave benefits. With over twenty years of experience in advocacy, Barton Reeves has dedicated her career to ensuring accessibility to services and support for thousands of residents throughout the state of Connecticut. Barton Reeves is the current Commissioner for the Department of Social Services in Connecticut, leading an 1,800-person agency which serves 1.2 million residents. Critical services include Medicaid, SNAP, Home and Community-Based Services, supports for elders and health care delivered through Federal Qualified Health Centers. In light of the current threats to public healthcare and social services, Barton Reeves remains grounded in her values of transparency, integrity and service to others
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from iHeart Radio. My guest today holds many titles.
A former lawyer, CEO of the nonprofit organization HARK, founder
and CEO of the Connecticut Paid Leave Authority, and the
current commissioner for the Department of Social Services in Hartford, Connecticut.
(00:25):
Andrea Barton Reeves has been recognized by the NAACP as
one of the quote one hundred most influential Blacks in
the state of Connecticut. She was also named one of
the one hundred Women of Color for her groundbreaking leadership
during the pandemic. Barton Reeves is a lawyer, business owner, entrepreneur,
(00:47):
and now a government official. But above all, Barton Reeves
is an advocate for others.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I've worked in government since twenty twenty. I came in
eleven days before the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
And before that it was all like NGO, would you say?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Or I came out of college and worked at a
large insurance company. I went to law school, I practiced
law for ten years. I ran a not for profit
for people with intellectual disabilities, and then I came to
the state in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
What I wanted to start with, is the work you
did as an ad litem council. You did a lot
of work in terms of representing children in the divorce
custody nexus.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Correct, Yes, I did.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
What was it that drew you to that?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
What drew me to that was my own personal experience.
I'm a childhood divorce.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Ah.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
It was extremely contentious, and throughout all of that, I
felt that my voice and the voices of my two
younger brothers just weren't heard at all. And so when
I had an opportunity to do that kind of work
to help others children's, other children's voices be heard when
their parents were separating or divorcing, or just dismantling of
(01:58):
the family as the children, I just felt very called
to be a voice for them, which is why I
chose to become a guardian at lightem in a attorney
for the minor child, which is why I went to
law school, which is specifically to do that work.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I'm assuming from what I read that that took place.
You lived in New Jersey when you were much younger, Correct?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I did. I grew up in New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
And how old were you when your parents divorced?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I was just sixteen, so you.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Were a grown child. You were not a little kid,
you were grown.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
No, but a sixteen year old girl is very impressionable
at that stage in their lives. It's a turning point
when your family dismantled at that stage.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, well I had a divorce. My first marriage ended
in divorce. My daughter was five years old at the time,
and it was blisteringly contentious and unnecessarily so. And the
reason I mentioned to that to you is because you know,
they didn't have a progressive or overly competent ad lightem
program in New Jersey back then, they did not have that.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
No, they didn't know, they didn't. Children just had to
suffer through whatever happened in the courts, and you would
find yourself, you know, it's really stuck in the middle
of your parents' discontent with one another, and there's a
lot of separation and abandonment and acrimony, an enormous amount
(03:20):
of actrimony which children don't really have the emotional intelligence
to make any sense of. Their lives are just about
pleasing their parents and wanting safety and security, and there's
really not a lot to be had in relationships that
fall apart in that way and where parents can't seem
to bring themselves back together. So a lot of my
work with children really was to be their voice and
(03:41):
then and to really be a voice of reason to
the parents, to say, I understand why you are not
together anymore. You've made that decision, but to really think
about the long term impact of what it means to
have children in the middle of all of that controversy,
because they live with it forever. They just do. It
forms the way they form relationship, It forms the way
they see the world. It just does. And I think
(04:03):
to minimize that is a difficult thing to do from
the perspective of children. And I had a lot of
parents that really got it when I explained that to them,
and could at least figure out a way to make
it work for the kids, even if not for one another.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I wrote a book about my divorce and it was
a screed against the California family law system, which was horrible.
It was just unspeakably bad in terms of the rights
of the father, whereas there's are other states that are
much more balanced. The divorce litigation, financial and custody was
for a man that was a gardener for a job
those divorces were over in twenty minutes in the courtroom
(04:39):
I sat in. Mine took a year and a half.
When they know you got the dough, they pump it
from you. Every there very versed in that. And we
did not have an ADLTEM council that I recall, but
a very close person in my life did and I
went to court with him, and I was stunned by
the fact that the ADLTEM council in and this one
(05:00):
session flipped the whole case on its ear by taking
the girls aside and understanding from them that their mother
was drinking while she was driving. And the moment the
child reported that to the ATLTEM, she walked in and
just lobbed a grenade into the whole thing. And this person,
the guy that I knew, he got full custody of
his kids, and the mother lost all her custody of
her kids. So the power of that position did you have.
(05:23):
I don't want to say what's the worst you saw,
but what's the most common thing you saw? As an
adel item counsel. The kids needed to be protected from what.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Kids needed to be protected from the enormous amount of
acrimony that occurred as a result of the conflict between
their parents. That's really what they needed to be protected from,
and they needed their own voice to be heard in
all of those circumstances and in some of the children.
With some of the children that I represented, the parents
definitely wanted the children to take sides, but children are
(05:53):
not emotionally mature enough to take sides. The only side
that they have is the side of being wanting to
be loved by both of their parents. That's the only
side that they can take. They're really not there to
be the arbiters of the conflict between their parents, and
that's often the position that they find themselves as, which
is why a guardian at lightened and an attorney for
the minor child is so incredibly important. And you do
(06:14):
have an enormous amount of power in those circumstances, and
to the example that you raise, it's most important to
use that extremely responsibly because when you do walk into
the courtroom and you hand in your report because you've
been to the home eight times, sometimes I would go
eight ten times to see children in different circumstances, different
times of the days. Sometimes I'd go to their school,
(06:35):
I talk to their parents separately, I've represented children whose
parents were incarcerated, and I would go up to the
prisons in Connecticut and visit their parents there and really
try to figure out what was going on and what
was really in the best instance of children. And that
means that you have to set aside your own ideas
of what you should think should happen, and you should
do what you think is you should make a recommendation
(06:56):
to the court that would help the children thrive. And
that might not necessarily what you would do in your
own personal circumstance, but it's about the kids that you're representing.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I went to a therapist once who was actually one
of the lights of this whole experience, a very wonderful
woman who said to me, you know, your daughter was
a hostage and she can't do anything to defy the
other party, and she just hopes you understand that she's
doing what she must do. She's been kept as a
hostage because we didn't. Every battle I made to augment
(07:29):
my custody was not successful. And a man, a friend
of mine, who'd said to me, stick with the boilerplate
orders of the court that you have and live with
it for a year. Don't keep coming back. You have
a month or two of positive interaction with the child,
and you want fifty to fifty right away. Don't do that,
he said, sit and let everything heal. Try to let
(07:49):
it heal. If it doesn't heal after a year, then
you know what you're dealing with. And she said, when
you're there's my daughter at this point like seven, And
she said, when your daughter's twenty five, she'll come around
to you and she'll understand. Thinking, Oh, okay, I just
hanging there eighteen years, Okay, yeah, there you go. Yeah years,
hang in there. Yeah, you stopped doing that? Did you know?
I would imagine for many people who work in something
(08:12):
that's involved so much pain and suffering like that, did
you get sick of it? Eventually?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
The reason I stopped is because the last child that
I represented had her mother murdered by her father. And
I remember getting a call from the court that Sunday
that said there's a two year old that needs your representation.
Can you go and see them? And courts don't usually
call on Sunday, so I knew it was bad, and
(08:38):
I went down. I met my client and her family
and they were just taking the accused away at that
point the police are still outside. The mom was still inside,
and the police. There's a lot of police activity. So
I went with the child to another home of another
family member and had an opportunity to just and watch
(09:01):
her be loved and surrounded when protected.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
By two years old.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
She was two. She was too And I came home
and said to my husband, I've been doing this a
long time, but I don't think I can do this anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
What does your husband do?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
He's a lawyer, like I mean, okay, he's a contracts lawyer.
He does not have the stomach for the things that
I would do. I am a very different calling all
my life. I do, and I recognize that, and he's
been extremely supportive of that.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Whatever happened to that two year old Guildiana, where did
she end up going with her?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
She ended up going with her maternal grandparents, who eventually
got custody of her and then tried to work through
some kind of relationship with the dad's family. But you
can imagine that was probably very difficult, and I lost
track of her after that.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
You transition, but you did all this work, and in
these other organizations, you're with some pretty big ticket law
firms there at ninety seven through two thousand and four.
How old were you when you entered law school?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Thirty?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
So you would decide this is a decision you made,
and you were already cruising down the highway career wise,
you decided to get off the highway to go to
law school.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, but I will tell you I knew I wanted
to be a lawyer when I was seven. I had
already made that decision. I know, my parents had no
idea how I knew, but I was precocious and a reader,
and I just knew that that's what I wanted to do.
So I probably waited longer than I would have normally,
but at that point in time, that was the right
time for me to go. So I did leave my
(10:34):
career at Chubb, which is where I was working, and
went to law school full time.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
When you graduated, did you know what you wanted to do?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I did. I wanted to be a guardian atlightem and
represent children. I did. It's not what I ended up
doing directly out of law school, but it ended up
being the bulk of my career.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Now, you went to New York Law did they have Obviously,
in any law school, they have specialty programs for the
ad LTEM work.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
They didn't they didn't know, they did not, but it
was the kind of school and still is. They gave
you a lot of practical experience, so I was able
to get summer internships and jobs during the school year.
It really taught me how to be a good lawyer,
because that's what you really need. You need compassion, need
really sharp legal skills, and you just really need to
understand that being a lawyer is not just about the law,
(11:22):
it's about the whole person as a client. And that's
what they taught me there, and that's what I learned
at the law firms where I worked, and that's what
allowed me to do the work that I did for
so long and hopefully.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Well then you start your own law firm.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
It did.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, why did you want to do what needs weren't
met in another law firm.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yes, the need was an eighteen month old who needed
his mom, that was in need.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
That was flexible schedule.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
A flexible schedule. My husband and I are adoptive parents,
and we had this beautiful he was eight months at
the time, the eight month old boy that needed a
home and through a lot of different circumstances, we are
his parents. We still are to this day, probably much
to his sugar in, but we still are.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Well. I'm sure he's very proud of you.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I think he is. He really needed me to be
home with him. So I started my own law practice
so I could do that, right.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
And so when you leave or not leave your practice,
but were you still practicing privately. I'm assuming there's an
overlaper when you were the program director at Lawyers for
Children in America.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yes, I did both.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
You're doing both.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I did both. I had my private practice and I
taught other lawyers how to represent children whose families were
involved in the child protections.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
So when you told your husband you want to have
a second child, he spit out his coffee in the
kitchen area said, no way, are we doing? No room
for any siblings?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
I yes, Yeah, there was a lot. I would say.
We tried, We thought about adoption again. We thought about
trying again, but at the time just left us and
he was ten and figured well, we'll just raise him
the best.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
You had a big career by then, you were working
all yeah. Describe what is HARK.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
That used to be an acronym that stood for the
Hartford area Association for Retarded Citizens, and we don't use
that name anymore. It's not an acronym. It is an
organization that at Bauptestiz is probably seventy years old, that
supports people with intellectual disabilities in their families.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And how long are you there? One year? Was there
for ten years or ten years? What kind of work
did you do there?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I went in as their general counsel and they're a
head of HR and I left as the CEO.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
And what work did they do? Specifically?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
They supported about two hundred families and people that have
intellectual disability anything for being on the autism inspectrum to
severe intellectual disability in group homes, in day programs and
summer camps, and working in the community through something called
supported employment. So if you know someone who has an
intellectual disability, it's very likely that they're not working. They're
(13:54):
probably still living at home with their parents, and they're
not living a full life. And this program is designed
to make sure that people with disabilities, particularly intellectual disabilities
formally known as mental retortation, we do not use that
term anymore. We're able to live full and complete lives.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Now, when you're there, what is the there's two hundred
families that are under your umbrella.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
There, that's right.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
That seems like a So this is like a what
would you describe as an MNGO or you have to
raise the money privately, correct or you get grants?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Well both, right. So it was funded primarily by the
state of Connecticut through a lot of contracts to provide
services to these families. There was a lot of fundraising.
It is your typical not for profit, always sort of
struggling but making it work and really very mission focused
and mission driven. And I loved it. I loved it.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
My family member of mine a woman, a young woman,
she had two daughters, and when she was pregnant for
her third child, they found that it was Down's syndrome,
and they went ahead and had the baby, and then
right after the baby was born, the husband left. They
took off.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Very common.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Is that very common? It is?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yes, it's common that.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
There are people that just can't deal with it.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
That's right. It puts enormous strain on families because you
were always caring for that child for the rest of
their lives.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Wow. Yeah, I'm assuming that this might be one of
the areas that's the most underserved in our society. Is
that correct, that's right, working with intellectual disabilities.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yes, so your friend's daughter, I always say this probably
encounters a lot of discrimination because of her disability, her
intellectual disability, And people make a lot of assumptions about
people that have intellectual disability. Many of them are just
not good, that the person is really limited in their capabilities,
and in many cases that is just simply not true.
They've just not ever had a chance to prove how
(15:40):
capable they really can be. And that's what HARC did
is really help people live their fullest lives.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
When you left there after quite a while, you were
the CEO, and I'll help you. Didn't get this one wrong?
The Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Authority correct.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yes, yes, what did you do there? I started it.
It was a law that was passed that said people
should be able to get paid when they take family
and medical leave. And that was it. It was the
board of directors and a piece of paper, and my
job was to make it into a full fledged state agency.
And now it is probably have served more than one
(16:18):
hundred and fifty thousand people, probably is, I think the
last number I saw it had one point two billion
dollars in assets and benefits. It's made out to people,
so people won't have to do things like leave their
kids in the NICICQEU to go back to work because
they need a paycheck and they can't afford to take
time and be with their family. That was the whole point.
That really was the whole.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, that Ted talk you did was very powerful, well done.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
That was really good.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
I learned a lot from that.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
But then, of course you arrive where you are now
in twenty twenty three. I believe you're appointed commission of
the department. So is this a position you wanted? No,
you didn't.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I didn't seek it. Let me just put it that way.
And I was just talking to my husband about this,
and I remember getting the call from the governor's chief
of staff saying would you like this job? And I
had to stop for a moment and say, are you
sure the Medicaid Agency and they said, yeah, we want you.
And so within a matter of days, that was the
decision that I made that I would come and do
(17:12):
this work. It's critical.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So I'm assuming because I see at one point here
in my notes that there's a number that people are
worried you may lose. That's in the three hundred to
four hundred million dollar mark for the state.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Correct, That is the estimate all of the things together.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, this comes from the FEDS, that's right. Has the
federal funding of these programs, whether it was preceded you
or not, has the federal funding for these programs been
anemic all along? And was it bad and now it's
just going to get worse or was a period where
you were well funded?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah? No, I don't think there was ever a period
we were well funded. I don't think any medicaid director
or anybody who has my job across the country will
tell you that it's always a struggle to try to
meet the needs of all the people and to try
to do that adequately because states have limited budgets. Those
the budgets that you get from the federal government is
really based on a lot of formulas. Some most of
(18:06):
its population and need and income based, So it's really
a hard thing to do. And then when you're starting
to look at the kinds of changes that HR one brings,
it puts even more financial pressure on states that already
have financial pressures in their medicaid programs. And their staff programs.
So it's a harder thing to do. And the third
(18:27):
of our state here in Connecticut, they're on Medicaid a
third a third.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
The total population in Connecticut is what it's three million
less than Brooklyn, that's right. So when you're up there,
what's the tax situation up there? It's not that you
have no tax, but you have a rather low state
income tax.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Correct, we have, you know, I would say a pretty
adequate and robust state income tax, right, I don't remember
the rate is adequate. But we have pockets of enormous
wealth here and lots of pockets of poverty. So, you know,
the wealth has kind of concentrated closer to New York
City in the water, you know, Stanford right day, in
(19:08):
the places where people get to the city and make
their living, and then closer to where I am in
the middle of the state, that's a very different circumstance.
We have some pretty significant pockets of urban and rural
poverty that we struggle with.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Commissioner for the Department of Social Services in Connecticut, Andrea
Barton Williams. If you enjoy conversations about politics and current events,
check out my episode with Becca Heller founder of the
International Refugee Assistance Project. Heller organized a network of lawyers
working pro bono at airports across the United States during
(19:47):
the first Trump Administration's Muslim Man The.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Thing that was amazing about Airport Weekend is that, like,
we organize the lawyers, but nobody organized the protesters. Totally spontaneous.
Thousands of America went out and freezing shitty January weather
to just be like, this is not cool. The Executive
Order was rescinded before the lawsuit. The lawsuit we won
said that they can't hold people. But the one that
(20:13):
we won right away wasn't about sort of the legality
of the order on its face. It was the public
pressure that got the administration to rescind the executive Order
and the so called chaos at the airports, which I
will forever be proud of.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
To hear more of my conversation with Becca Heller, go
to Here's Thething dot org. After the break, Barton Reeves
discusses the changes she anticipates in Connecticut and nationwide with
President Trump's new policies and how this will affect health
insurance in her state. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening
(21:00):
to here is the thing. Andrea Barton Reeves built a
legal career in both private practice and nonprofit organizations. Her
appointment as Commissioner for the Department of Social Services marks
her first foray into government work. I was curious about
her experience thus far if she found her colleagues in
(21:22):
the Connecticut State House as well intentioned and motivated as
the nonprofit world.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
In the job that I have now, My committees of
cognizances you described in that way are the Human Services Committee,
the Children's Committee, aging, and they're all led by really
incredible people who do I think, very difficult work under
very difficult circumstances. We're a blue state, so in some
instances it's easier to do the work here. But we
(21:49):
have a lot of people that are aging quickly. We
have a lot of kids that are need you know,
we have a five percent unensured health rate in this state.
There's a lot of things that need to get done here,
so you need to have people that really candmitted to
getting that to happen. We have more bipartisanship here in
Connecticut than I hear that happens in other states, so
we don't really have sort of what I would call
sort of a Tammany Hall situation going on here at all. No,
(22:12):
but it's still political. It still takes a lot of
talking and walking around in the hallways and building relationships
to get things to work. That's anywhere you go. But
I think I'm lucky to be here.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
So Trump comes in the first round, you are not
in that job in the first round, and then Trump's
in the second round. What are you seeing? What's the
situation now? You've expect the Trump budget and the Trump
policies to result in what for your program and.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Your state, and it's a nationwide I would say we
expect that a number of people will go without health
insurance because the rules for getting health insurance have changed
dramatically under this bill for a particular population, which is
known in the as expansion population. So those are people
that we were able to to add to the Medicaid
(23:01):
roles because of changes to the federal rules that allowed
us to add about in our state, about three hundred
and fifty thousand more people who normally wouldn't be qualified
for Medicaid because of their income. We were able to
add them. They are now specifically targeted under the passage
of HR one, so they now have work requirements that
they have to meet that they're very strict and rather
(23:24):
draconian and the description of the way that some people
would think about it. And if you don't meet those requirements,
then you are dropped away the way that it's defined
and designed now. And when you fall off of those roles,
you're then not able to go on to what's known
as commonly known as Obamacare, because if you can't qualify
for the Medicaid, then you're automatically disqualified for the Obamacare,
(23:47):
which means then you go without any coverage whatsoever for
a pretty significant period of time, and then the only
thing available to you after that would be emergency medical coverage,
which is costly. It's very expensive, and people usually go
there as a last resort.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So we're kind of we're kind of hurting ourselves by
not having these other more comprehensive programs, because when you
push people into a corner, their ultimate choice is a
very expensive one.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
It really is, and it becomes expensive because people will
wait till the last minute and when they're very, very sick,
so they're going to end up getting the most expensive
medical interventions. So it's kind of counterintuitive to trying to
save money because eventually you have to pay for health
care in some way, shape or form. There's no way
to get around doing that. It does, so this means
that we'll have those that group of people really at risk.
(24:33):
Then the other side of it is a snap which
most people know is food stamps. Food stamps, but it's
a supplemental nutrition assistance program that has it's always had
work requirements, but it's moved up from age fifty four
to sixty four. So now we're going to have people,
you know, fifty five up to sixty four. They're going
to have to find some kind of job in order
for them to be able to keep their food benefit.
(24:54):
I don't know how that's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
So they have to find a job at fifty five.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
You have to find a job at fifty five that
meets these new work requirements. And if you don't in
this economy, that's right, and we won't be able to
provide you with food anymore. And food insecurity around people
who are fifty five and older is an epidemic that
people don't talk about. It really is. And so now
I'm thinking, I don't know how this is going to happen.
(25:21):
And this is the same kind of thinking that my
colleagues have across the country, which is we are just
very afraid and almost you know, in a state of
panic and devastation around what's going to happen to people.
Our goal here, and I think it's it's the goal
around the country is to have a few people as
possible adversely impacted by what's happening. So we're doing a
lot of planning, a lot of you know, thoughtful work
(25:42):
around how we can get people to comply with the law.
Because it is the law, there's not really much we
can do about that. And it only passed by four votes.
You know, there's four votes that have just changed the
trajectory of the way people get access to healthcare and
access to food. And when you think about that, it's
mind boggling and devastating when you think about it in
(26:03):
the larger context of what democracy is supposed to.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
But it reminds me also of the housing thing I
heard about in New York, where they're saying, well, you know,
homeless advocates and so forth that I worked with off
and on over the year's Coalition for the homeless and
so forth. They were saying, how, you know, just give
them the cash for the rent to keep them in
the building. Just give them the rent money so that
they can stay, because once they get kicked out of it,
that's when the problems really really multiply, and that's when
(26:27):
things made you, you know, give them the money to
have health insurance because you're only going to end up
paying more potentially. Give them the money for the rent
because you're only going to end up pay more potentially.
And I think that, I mean, I love that idea
that we're going to find housing for people, whether it's
in the city itself or not.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So that what you're describing is called the housing first model,
which is that you get people housed first, and it's
that foundation that allows people to get access to other benefits.
And we know that the housing first model works. We
have statistical proof that shows that it works. Happened though
with the last the most recent executive order that President
Trump just issued around housing. It meant that people who
(27:07):
are now currently on house could sort of be rounded
up and institutionalized, which is the antithesis of the housing
first model. It's because homelessness is not criminal homelessness really
is a societal issue that we need to embrace, and
so I think sticking with this idea of funding the
housing first model is how we get to do the
right thing for people so that they're not out on
(27:27):
the street, that we can get them to access healthcare.
They can then have stability and be able to work.
And there are solutions for this if we're willing to
do it as a country, and I think there just
needs to be more of a political will to make
that happen. But that most recent I would say edict
through this executive order doesn't send us in that direction
(27:49):
at all.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Now, you are a spectacularly and powerfully educated woman and
accomplished woman, and I'm wondering if the work you do
is affected by you being a woman and you being
a black woman, Like, do you see we're in a
social services system that there are certain groups that are
more disadvantage than others. And here you are with a
law degree from New York Law and everything, and you're
(28:10):
there to try to help these people. Are you affected
by that fact at all? Does that play into your
consciousness about it?
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It absolutely does. Yes, I am extremely fortunate to be
where I am right and I know that. But my
parents came from nothing. They were immigrants that came from
Guyana with absolutely nothing and came here to have my
brothers and I and to create a life for us,
and unfortunately they were able to do that. So I've
walked this journey and I understand it. And you know,
(28:39):
even though you know my dad ended up being a
doctor and my mother ended up being a psychiatric nurse,
we were raised while they were getting those educations, so
we didn't have anything. We didn't grow up the way
that doctors childrens grow up. We had a lot of poverty,
a lot of struggle, So we understand that. And then
when my parents divorced, it was just my mom and
my brothers and I and she didn't really have any money.
(29:00):
She got paid what nurses get paid, which wasn't very much.
So we had snap, we had food stamps, we had
government cheese, we had all of those things. We had
the lights turned off, we had the water turned off.
I've lived this journey. I've lived it. But she passed
away last September. But she was a person of extraordinary
strength that never made any excuses, and she would just
(29:22):
say we go on those are her words, it's tough.
We go on and I learned from her to be
the person that I am, and she taught us that
we have an obligation to do more and do better.
And she did not make all the sacrifices that she
made for me to feel like I'm privileged and don't
have an obligation to do for others. This is in
(29:42):
my blood, this is what I do. I am absolutely
built to be an advocate.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
And it's amazing how people like yourself, who are mentored
by a mother like that or a parents like that,
you see their success rate, and then you see the
success rate is less for those who don't have that.
They don't have a parent who can teach them where
they can go, what they can do, how they can
spread their wings and fly. I mean, I've got I'm
(30:08):
sixty seven years old, i have a two year old baby.
I got seven kids. And the number one thing is
when they reach these transitional ages. When you see a
child move from two to three, three to four, and
then they get to be like seven, they cross the
line of maybe six is my recollection now with my
one child, and they start to be much more curious
about the world. How do you teach your kids to
(30:29):
face things. That's the challenge for me every day.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
You know, gradually there's a lot of joy I see
that you have with your family, and that's a beautiful
thing and a gift. We have, as I mentioned, our
one son, and we've poured everything that we have into him.
But the one thing that we've taught him is that
he lives in an enormous amount of privilege because his
dad and I made a lot of sacrifices to make
that happen. Because my husband is also the same way,
(30:51):
grew up in Newark, New Jersey, food stamps, not a
lot of money, working class family. We understand that we
have a lot of privilege, and we have taught our
son that it's about character, it's about the kind of
person that you are. It's using your privilege and your
access to do good and make a better life for
other people. We do not indulge him, and we never have,
(31:13):
and we've said to him, you owe others because you
have had so much, and you've had a lot more
than we ever had. So we've done that through example
and through overt teaching, through raising him in religious communities,
sending him to mission trips, and making sure that he
sees us volunteer and show up in the community. And
that's the example you want to be. You need to
(31:34):
be a global citizen, and you need to be a responsible
citizen with the gifts that you've been given.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
So Trump comes in the second time, and I'm not
someone who I've lost my appetite for the Trump bashing thing,
but it is stark. It is heartbreaking for me to
see a society that has all this money and is
willing to give all these tax breaks to people and
to put us further in debt when we're Bavie was
a crisis level of debt federally as it is, and
(32:03):
to cut all this money to just give people hand
up to be a part of this society we have.
We don't want to give them a ceiling and say
well you have to have this much, but they have
to have a floor. They have to have food, education, medicine,
housing and beyond. And I'm thinking, are you are people
in your office? Are they scared?
Speaker 2 (32:25):
They are extraordinarily concerned. I think when we first started,
we were frightened about how dracone these changes would be
and how fundamentally different the programs that we administer would
become as a result of of whatever we thought the
final bill. There were many iterations of this bill and
we had a lot of sleepless nights following it, back
and forth from the House to the Senate, that different
(32:46):
visions in the House, different versions in the Senate, and
what we ended up with, we think was pretty close
to what we anticipated we would end up with. So
we had anticipated some of the changes, but some of
them we did not, because you just didn't know what
was going to happen at the end. This is what's
happening right now. This is not new, and I think
this is what people really need to understand. This has
happened to us as a nation for decades. There's always
(33:10):
been this fundamental misapprehension about why poor people are poor,
and that is because there's an understanding that they are
lesser than others that are not that being poor is
in many ways perceived to be by other's a self
inflicted wound that if you were to just work harder
and if you were more industrious, that somehow you wouldn't
find yourself in these circumstances, and then somehow you would
(33:33):
have the same access to resources as everyone else. Does, Well,
we know that that thinking is very deeply flawed because
we have so many foundations of discrimination in this nation,
whether it's against women, people of color, people who are poor,
people who are immigrants, that there really was no way
there for anyone to be on an equal playing field
with others, for us not to be where we are,
(33:55):
even during the New Deal, right with the Roosevelt administration
that came about because of the destitution that people were experiencing,
because it was happening during the Depression. But even in
his own thinking, if you were to read some of
the works that in some of the work around Roosevelt
and his thinking at the time, even he was reluctant
to be as expansive in the New Deal as he
(34:15):
was because he believed that people really needed to bring
themselves up by their bootstraps. But that assumes that there's
an equal footing that everyone can take hold of and
look forward, and in this nation that has never been
the case. It's never been true. You asked me earlier
about being a black person and being a woman, Well,
you know, that intersection of identity was one that just
(34:36):
didn't I would have had no rights even two hundred
years ago right that I would not I couldn't vote,
and I wasn't even a whole person, but I was
even considered a full human being in the foundational documents
of this nation. So under those circumstances, there is no
way for me to have equal footing with others, for
me to not be poor, to not have access to
(34:57):
the same kinds of things that people have. But if
you want to talk your self into believing that that's
the narrative, then it gives you the license to make
the kinds of decisions that are that were being made.
But back in the Reagan administration, this is how decisions
were made to cut food programs, to cut back on foodstamps,
to create block brands for heating assistance. It was the
same kind of thinking. Poor people are poor because of
(35:17):
what they do and what they haven't done. This is
just a new iteration of that same kind of thinking
that we're more cognizant of because it's just so much
more dramatic and it's cut. But it's not a new
way of thinking for this country at all.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Andrea Barton reeves, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to follow. Here's the thing on
the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts
when we come back. Barton Reeves on whether she would
consider running for public office in Connecticut. I'm Alec Baldwin
(36:07):
and you're listening to hear the thing. Andrea Barton Reeves's
career has taken an unpredictable path from ad litem law
to CEO of HARK, which provides support to the intellectually
and developmentally disabled, to creating Connecticut's paid Family and Medical
Lead program, with her focus always on advocating for others.
(36:28):
I was curious whether or not she would consider running
for office. One day.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Oh my goodness, have you been talking to my friends?
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Maybe I have. You'll never know.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
I would never know. No, I have not considered that.
I think I would stay in state service. I would
love to be able to continue to do the work
that I'm doing, or something else that helps people who
are disadvantage, for low income disabled. This is what I
think I was born to do. I think it's why
I'm here, and I feel like I do this work
(37:01):
exceptionally well because it is in my DNA. It is
what I was destined to do.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Now, talk about this other Masters of Arts and Religion program.
What is a Master of Arts in Religion program? And
you're going where to Yale? I am going to Yale?
What is it? What are you going there for?
Speaker 2 (37:19):
So I'm getting a Master of Arts and Religion and ethics.
So my goal once I leave is to be able
to help other leaders who work in the spaces that
I work in in advocacy and not for profit and government,
to really be able to have more of a stronger
intersection between their own personal beliefs. They don't have to
be religious beliefs, they just have to be, you know,
(37:39):
their own personal philosophy and the work that they're being
called to do, because often you're asked to separate those things.
You're either working in an environment where you sort of
set aside your morals and your values, or you're working
in environment that you're completely immersed in your morals and
your values, and it's really hard to make those things integrated.
You really have an opportunity to do that. My goal
is to really help leaders figure out how to do that,
(38:01):
because I feel fortunate that I've been able to figure
out how to do that, which is why I get
so much joy from the work that I do. Even
under the circumstances and that we're talking about today, I
still feel like there's a chance for me to help
people live a better life. I can take the circumstances
that have been handed to us through this bill and
still try to find a way to make access to
(38:23):
healthcare and access to food possible for people by using
my imagination and my experience and my education. And I
want other leaders to feel just as hopeful, even when
the circumstances are prevented with they're presented with may seem untenable.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
So it's not about you either having people in the workspace,
regardless of what it is, embrace the moral components of
the work they do, or asking them to face the
moral components of the work that they do. It's not
about that, is it.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Kindly about that? Is?
Speaker 1 (38:55):
It is not that compelling.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
It's about being unafraid to face the moral decisions that
you need to make right. It's really it's taking in
the entire circumstance of what it means to make a
life changing decision. That's what I do every day, right
for a million people. When we have a budget of
nine billion dollars for our medicaid budget, every single one
of those dollars represents a decision about who gets what
(39:18):
and when and the quality of the care that they get.
So if I sat back and thought about it, I
would say, oh, you know, this is a huge responsibility.
You know who would voluntarily take it. But if you
have a chance to make that kind of change in
a person's life, I believe that it's really your moral
obligation and your responsibility to embrace it, because who else
but you who's thinking about the intersection of what you
(39:41):
can do morally and what you can do in a
more expansive way for lots of people so they can
all be lifted and live a better life. We very
rarely get a chance to do that kind of work
in our lives, we really do. We can do it
in small places, we can do it, you know, intermittently,
But when you get a chance to do it on
a large scale. I did with paid family and medical
(40:01):
eve and I'm doing now. You have to embrace it.
But many people are afraid to embrace it because they're
afraid of all the moral hazards that come with it.
My role now is to say you need to embrace
those moral hazards, not be afraid of them, but equip
yourself to deal with them so that you can lead
exceptionally and really help people to live fully as they're
intended to. And you can do that, and I hope
(40:23):
I'm an example of that in some ways, and I'd
like to teach other people how to do that.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
I want to ask you in the last couple of
minutes we have here, which is, what does someone who
is immersed in many of life's most difficult problems? What
do you do to escape and unwind? What do you
do and your husband do? Where do you go?
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Well? We're big moviegoers, but okay, okay, we are.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
The Hallmark channel might have something soothing.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Well, they have a little bit more to do that.
We're more sort of Maravel movie You are you are?
Reallys Yes, We're more along those lines because I think
you're right for him, it's less of an issue for me.
I do struggle with the moral of the normalization of
violence in media in general, not just movies, So I
personally struggle with that, and he respects that. We take
(41:09):
a lot of long walks, We spend a lot of good,
great quality time together. We're both voracious readers.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Do you like to get out of town. You like
to go away anywhere I do.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
We just got back from Bermuda, which did nice love. Yeah,
we just love these long vacations.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
It was beautiful and you get to decompress and unwind, Yes,
from your tough, tough, Quotitian chores there.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yes that I love. As I say, I believe that
I am built for this and all to do this work.
So it's it's a for me. There's a strange joy
that comes to being able to share what I've learned
throughout my life to help make things better.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Well, the state of Connecticut is lucky to have you.
They're lucky to have you. You're a very substantial human being.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Thank you. It's my pleasure to speak with you. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Connecticut Commissioner for the Department of Social Services, Andrea Barton Reeves.
This episode was recorded at c d M Studios in
New York City. Were produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice,
and Victoria De Martin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our
social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's
(42:16):
the thing, as brought to you by iHeart Radio.
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from iHeart Radio. My guest today holds many titles.
A former lawyer, CEO of the nonprofit organization HARK, founder
and CEO of the Connecticut Paid Leave Authority, and the
current commissioner for the Department of Social Services in Hartford, Connecticut.
(00:25):
Andrea Barton Reeves has been recognized by the NAACP as
one of the quote one hundred most influential Blacks in
the state of Connecticut. She was also named one of
the one hundred Women of Color for her groundbreaking leadership
during the pandemic. Barton Reeves is a lawyer, business owner, entrepreneur,
(00:47):
and now a government official. But above all, Barton Reeves
is an advocate for others.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I've worked in government since twenty twenty. I came in
eleven days before the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
And before that it was all like NGO, would you say?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Or I came out of college and worked at a
large insurance company. I went to law school, I practiced
law for ten years. I ran a not for profit
for people with intellectual disabilities, and then I came to
the state in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
What I wanted to start with, is the work you
did as an ad litem council. You did a lot
of work in terms of representing children in the divorce
custody nexus.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Correct, Yes, I did.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
What was it that drew you to that?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
What drew me to that was my own personal experience.
I'm a childhood divorce.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Ah.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
It was extremely contentious, and throughout all of that, I
felt that my voice and the voices of my two
younger brothers just weren't heard at all. And so when
I had an opportunity to do that kind of work
to help others children's, other children's voices be heard when
their parents were separating or divorcing, or just dismantling of
(01:58):
the family as the children, I just felt very called
to be a voice for them, which is why I
chose to become a guardian at lightem in a attorney
for the minor child, which is why I went to
law school, which is specifically to do that work.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I'm assuming from what I read that that took place.
You lived in New Jersey when you were much younger, Correct?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I did. I grew up in New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
And how old were you when your parents divorced?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I was just sixteen, so you.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Were a grown child. You were not a little kid,
you were grown.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
No, but a sixteen year old girl is very impressionable
at that stage in their lives. It's a turning point
when your family dismantled at that stage.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, well I had a divorce. My first marriage ended
in divorce. My daughter was five years old at the time,
and it was blisteringly contentious and unnecessarily so. And the
reason I mentioned to that to you is because you know,
they didn't have a progressive or overly competent ad lightem
program in New Jersey back then, they did not have that.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
No, they didn't know, they didn't. Children just had to
suffer through whatever happened in the courts, and you would
find yourself, you know, it's really stuck in the middle
of your parents' discontent with one another, and there's a
lot of separation and abandonment and acrimony, an enormous amount
(03:20):
of actrimony which children don't really have the emotional intelligence
to make any sense of. Their lives are just about
pleasing their parents and wanting safety and security, and there's
really not a lot to be had in relationships that
fall apart in that way and where parents can't seem
to bring themselves back together. So a lot of my
work with children really was to be their voice and
(03:41):
then and to really be a voice of reason to
the parents, to say, I understand why you are not
together anymore. You've made that decision, but to really think
about the long term impact of what it means to
have children in the middle of all of that controversy,
because they live with it forever. They just do. It
forms the way they form relationship, It forms the way
they see the world. It just does. And I think
(04:03):
to minimize that is a difficult thing to do from
the perspective of children. And I had a lot of
parents that really got it when I explained that to them,
and could at least figure out a way to make
it work for the kids, even if not for one another.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I wrote a book about my divorce and it was
a screed against the California family law system, which was horrible.
It was just unspeakably bad in terms of the rights
of the father, whereas there's are other states that are
much more balanced. The divorce litigation, financial and custody was
for a man that was a gardener for a job
those divorces were over in twenty minutes in the courtroom
(04:39):
I sat in. Mine took a year and a half.
When they know you got the dough, they pump it
from you. Every there very versed in that. And we
did not have an ADLTEM council that I recall, but
a very close person in my life did and I
went to court with him, and I was stunned by
the fact that the ADLTEM council in and this one
(05:00):
session flipped the whole case on its ear by taking
the girls aside and understanding from them that their mother
was drinking while she was driving. And the moment the
child reported that to the ATLTEM, she walked in and
just lobbed a grenade into the whole thing. And this person,
the guy that I knew, he got full custody of
his kids, and the mother lost all her custody of
her kids. So the power of that position did you have.
(05:23):
I don't want to say what's the worst you saw,
but what's the most common thing you saw? As an
adel item counsel. The kids needed to be protected from what.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Kids needed to be protected from the enormous amount of
acrimony that occurred as a result of the conflict between
their parents. That's really what they needed to be protected from,
and they needed their own voice to be heard in
all of those circumstances and in some of the children.
With some of the children that I represented, the parents
definitely wanted the children to take sides, but children are
(05:53):
not emotionally mature enough to take sides. The only side
that they have is the side of being wanting to
be loved by both of their parents. That's the only
side that they can take. They're really not there to
be the arbiters of the conflict between their parents, and
that's often the position that they find themselves as, which
is why a guardian at lightened and an attorney for
the minor child is so incredibly important. And you do
(06:14):
have an enormous amount of power in those circumstances, and
to the example that you raise, it's most important to
use that extremely responsibly because when you do walk into
the courtroom and you hand in your report because you've
been to the home eight times, sometimes I would go
eight ten times to see children in different circumstances, different
times of the days. Sometimes I'd go to their school,
(06:35):
I talk to their parents separately, I've represented children whose
parents were incarcerated, and I would go up to the
prisons in Connecticut and visit their parents there and really
try to figure out what was going on and what
was really in the best instance of children. And that
means that you have to set aside your own ideas
of what you should think should happen, and you should
do what you think is you should make a recommendation
(06:56):
to the court that would help the children thrive. And
that might not necessarily what you would do in your
own personal circumstance, but it's about the kids that you're representing.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I went to a therapist once who was actually one
of the lights of this whole experience, a very wonderful
woman who said to me, you know, your daughter was
a hostage and she can't do anything to defy the
other party, and she just hopes you understand that she's
doing what she must do. She's been kept as a
hostage because we didn't. Every battle I made to augment
(07:29):
my custody was not successful. And a man, a friend
of mine, who'd said to me, stick with the boilerplate
orders of the court that you have and live with
it for a year. Don't keep coming back. You have
a month or two of positive interaction with the child,
and you want fifty to fifty right away. Don't do that,
he said, sit and let everything heal. Try to let
(07:49):
it heal. If it doesn't heal after a year, then
you know what you're dealing with. And she said, when
you're there's my daughter at this point like seven, And
she said, when your daughter's twenty five, she'll come around
to you and she'll understand. Thinking, Oh, okay, I just
hanging there eighteen years, Okay, yeah, there you go. Yeah years,
hang in there. Yeah, you stopped doing that? Did you know?
I would imagine for many people who work in something
(08:12):
that's involved so much pain and suffering like that, did
you get sick of it? Eventually?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
The reason I stopped is because the last child that
I represented had her mother murdered by her father. And
I remember getting a call from the court that Sunday
that said there's a two year old that needs your representation.
Can you go and see them? And courts don't usually
call on Sunday, so I knew it was bad, and
(08:38):
I went down. I met my client and her family
and they were just taking the accused away at that
point the police are still outside. The mom was still inside,
and the police. There's a lot of police activity. So
I went with the child to another home of another
family member and had an opportunity to just and watch
(09:01):
her be loved and surrounded when protected.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
By two years old.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
She was two. She was too And I came home
and said to my husband, I've been doing this a
long time, but I don't think I can do this anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
What does your husband do?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
He's a lawyer, like I mean, okay, he's a contracts lawyer.
He does not have the stomach for the things that
I would do. I am a very different calling all
my life. I do, and I recognize that, and he's
been extremely supportive of that.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Whatever happened to that two year old Guildiana, where did
she end up going with her?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
She ended up going with her maternal grandparents, who eventually
got custody of her and then tried to work through
some kind of relationship with the dad's family. But you
can imagine that was probably very difficult, and I lost
track of her after that.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
You transition, but you did all this work, and in
these other organizations, you're with some pretty big ticket law
firms there at ninety seven through two thousand and four.
How old were you when you entered law school?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Thirty?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
So you would decide this is a decision you made,
and you were already cruising down the highway career wise,
you decided to get off the highway to go to
law school.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, but I will tell you I knew I wanted
to be a lawyer when I was seven. I had
already made that decision. I know, my parents had no
idea how I knew, but I was precocious and a reader,
and I just knew that that's what I wanted to do.
So I probably waited longer than I would have normally,
but at that point in time, that was the right
time for me to go. So I did leave my
(10:34):
career at Chubb, which is where I was working, and
went to law school full time.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
When you graduated, did you know what you wanted to do?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I did. I wanted to be a guardian atlightem and
represent children. I did. It's not what I ended up
doing directly out of law school, but it ended up
being the bulk of my career.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Now, you went to New York Law did they have Obviously,
in any law school, they have specialty programs for the
ad LTEM work.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
They didn't they didn't know, they did not, but it
was the kind of school and still is. They gave
you a lot of practical experience, so I was able
to get summer internships and jobs during the school year.
It really taught me how to be a good lawyer,
because that's what you really need. You need compassion, need
really sharp legal skills, and you just really need to
understand that being a lawyer is not just about the law,
(11:22):
it's about the whole person as a client. And that's
what they taught me there, and that's what I learned
at the law firms where I worked, and that's what
allowed me to do the work that I did for
so long and hopefully.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Well then you start your own law firm.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
It did.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, why did you want to do what needs weren't
met in another law firm.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yes, the need was an eighteen month old who needed
his mom, that was in need.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
That was flexible schedule.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
A flexible schedule. My husband and I are adoptive parents,
and we had this beautiful he was eight months at
the time, the eight month old boy that needed a
home and through a lot of different circumstances, we are
his parents. We still are to this day, probably much
to his sugar in, but we still are.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Well. I'm sure he's very proud of you.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I think he is. He really needed me to be
home with him. So I started my own law practice
so I could do that, right.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
And so when you leave or not leave your practice,
but were you still practicing privately. I'm assuming there's an
overlaper when you were the program director at Lawyers for
Children in America.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yes, I did both.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
You're doing both.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I did both. I had my private practice and I
taught other lawyers how to represent children whose families were
involved in the child protections.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
So when you told your husband you want to have
a second child, he spit out his coffee in the
kitchen area said, no way, are we doing? No room
for any siblings?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
I yes, Yeah, there was a lot. I would say.
We tried, We thought about adoption again. We thought about
trying again, but at the time just left us and
he was ten and figured well, we'll just raise him
the best.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
You had a big career by then, you were working
all yeah. Describe what is HARK.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
That used to be an acronym that stood for the
Hartford area Association for Retarded Citizens, and we don't use
that name anymore. It's not an acronym. It is an
organization that at Bauptestiz is probably seventy years old, that
supports people with intellectual disabilities in their families.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And how long are you there? One year? Was there
for ten years or ten years? What kind of work
did you do there?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I went in as their general counsel and they're a
head of HR and I left as the CEO.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
And what work did they do? Specifically?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
They supported about two hundred families and people that have
intellectual disability anything for being on the autism inspectrum to
severe intellectual disability in group homes, in day programs and
summer camps, and working in the community through something called
supported employment. So if you know someone who has an
intellectual disability, it's very likely that they're not working. They're
(13:54):
probably still living at home with their parents, and they're
not living a full life. And this program is designed
to make sure that people with disabilities, particularly intellectual disabilities
formally known as mental retortation, we do not use that
term anymore. We're able to live full and complete lives.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Now, when you're there, what is the there's two hundred
families that are under your umbrella.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
There, that's right.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
That seems like a So this is like a what
would you describe as an MNGO or you have to
raise the money privately, correct or you get grants?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Well both, right. So it was funded primarily by the
state of Connecticut through a lot of contracts to provide
services to these families. There was a lot of fundraising.
It is your typical not for profit, always sort of
struggling but making it work and really very mission focused
and mission driven. And I loved it. I loved it.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
My family member of mine a woman, a young woman,
she had two daughters, and when she was pregnant for
her third child, they found that it was Down's syndrome,
and they went ahead and had the baby, and then
right after the baby was born, the husband left. They
took off.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Very common.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Is that very common? It is?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yes, it's common that.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
There are people that just can't deal with it.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
That's right. It puts enormous strain on families because you
were always caring for that child for the rest of
their lives.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Wow. Yeah, I'm assuming that this might be one of
the areas that's the most underserved in our society. Is
that correct, that's right, working with intellectual disabilities.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yes, so your friend's daughter, I always say this probably
encounters a lot of discrimination because of her disability, her
intellectual disability, And people make a lot of assumptions about
people that have intellectual disability. Many of them are just
not good, that the person is really limited in their capabilities,
and in many cases that is just simply not true.
They've just not ever had a chance to prove how
(15:40):
capable they really can be. And that's what HARC did
is really help people live their fullest lives.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
When you left there after quite a while, you were
the CEO, and I'll help you. Didn't get this one wrong?
The Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Authority correct.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yes, yes, what did you do there? I started it.
It was a law that was passed that said people
should be able to get paid when they take family
and medical leave. And that was it. It was the
board of directors and a piece of paper, and my
job was to make it into a full fledged state agency.
And now it is probably have served more than one
(16:18):
hundred and fifty thousand people, probably is, I think the
last number I saw it had one point two billion
dollars in assets and benefits. It's made out to people,
so people won't have to do things like leave their
kids in the NICICQEU to go back to work because
they need a paycheck and they can't afford to take
time and be with their family. That was the whole point.
That really was the whole.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, that Ted talk you did was very powerful, well done.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
That was really good.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
I learned a lot from that.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
But then, of course you arrive where you are now
in twenty twenty three. I believe you're appointed commission of
the department. So is this a position you wanted? No,
you didn't.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I didn't seek it. Let me just put it that way.
And I was just talking to my husband about this,
and I remember getting the call from the governor's chief
of staff saying would you like this job? And I
had to stop for a moment and say, are you
sure the Medicaid Agency and they said, yeah, we want you.
And so within a matter of days, that was the
decision that I made that I would come and do
(17:12):
this work. It's critical.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So I'm assuming because I see at one point here
in my notes that there's a number that people are
worried you may lose. That's in the three hundred to
four hundred million dollar mark for the state.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Correct, That is the estimate all of the things together.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Yeah, this comes from the FEDS, that's right. Has the
federal funding of these programs, whether it was preceded you
or not, has the federal funding for these programs been
anemic all along? And was it bad and now it's
just going to get worse or was a period where
you were well funded?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah? No, I don't think there was ever a period
we were well funded. I don't think any medicaid director
or anybody who has my job across the country will
tell you that it's always a struggle to try to
meet the needs of all the people and to try
to do that adequately because states have limited budgets. Those
the budgets that you get from the federal government is
really based on a lot of formulas. Some most of
(18:06):
its population and need and income based, So it's really
a hard thing to do. And then when you're starting
to look at the kinds of changes that HR one brings,
it puts even more financial pressure on states that already
have financial pressures in their medicaid programs. And their staff programs.
So it's a harder thing to do. And the third
(18:27):
of our state here in Connecticut, they're on Medicaid a
third a third.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
The total population in Connecticut is what it's three million
less than Brooklyn, that's right. So when you're up there,
what's the tax situation up there? It's not that you
have no tax, but you have a rather low state
income tax.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Correct, we have, you know, I would say a pretty
adequate and robust state income tax, right, I don't remember
the rate is adequate. But we have pockets of enormous
wealth here and lots of pockets of poverty. So, you know,
the wealth has kind of concentrated closer to New York
City in the water, you know, Stanford right day, in
(19:08):
the places where people get to the city and make
their living, and then closer to where I am in
the middle of the state, that's a very different circumstance.
We have some pretty significant pockets of urban and rural
poverty that we struggle with.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Commissioner for the Department of Social Services in Connecticut, Andrea
Barton Williams. If you enjoy conversations about politics and current events,
check out my episode with Becca Heller founder of the
International Refugee Assistance Project. Heller organized a network of lawyers
working pro bono at airports across the United States during
(19:47):
the first Trump Administration's Muslim Man The.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Thing that was amazing about Airport Weekend is that, like,
we organize the lawyers, but nobody organized the protesters. Totally spontaneous.
Thousands of America went out and freezing shitty January weather
to just be like, this is not cool. The Executive
Order was rescinded before the lawsuit. The lawsuit we won
said that they can't hold people. But the one that
(20:13):
we won right away wasn't about sort of the legality
of the order on its face. It was the public
pressure that got the administration to rescind the executive Order
and the so called chaos at the airports, which I
will forever be proud of.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
To hear more of my conversation with Becca Heller, go
to Here's Thething dot org. After the break, Barton Reeves
discusses the changes she anticipates in Connecticut and nationwide with
President Trump's new policies and how this will affect health
insurance in her state. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening
(21:00):
to here is the thing. Andrea Barton Reeves built a
legal career in both private practice and nonprofit organizations. Her
appointment as Commissioner for the Department of Social Services marks
her first foray into government work. I was curious about
her experience thus far if she found her colleagues in
(21:22):
the Connecticut State House as well intentioned and motivated as
the nonprofit world.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
In the job that I have now, My committees of
cognizances you described in that way are the Human Services Committee,
the Children's Committee, aging, and they're all led by really
incredible people who do I think, very difficult work under
very difficult circumstances. We're a blue state, so in some
instances it's easier to do the work here. But we
(21:49):
have a lot of people that are aging quickly. We
have a lot of kids that are need you know,
we have a five percent unensured health rate in this state.
There's a lot of things that need to get done here,
so you need to have people that really candmitted to
getting that to happen. We have more bipartisanship here in
Connecticut than I hear that happens in other states, so
we don't really have sort of what I would call
sort of a Tammany Hall situation going on here at all. No,
(22:12):
but it's still political. It still takes a lot of
talking and walking around in the hallways and building relationships
to get things to work. That's anywhere you go. But
I think I'm lucky to be here.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
So Trump comes in the first round, you are not
in that job in the first round, and then Trump's
in the second round. What are you seeing? What's the
situation now? You've expect the Trump budget and the Trump
policies to result in what for your program and.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Your state, and it's a nationwide I would say we
expect that a number of people will go without health
insurance because the rules for getting health insurance have changed
dramatically under this bill for a particular population, which is
known in the as expansion population. So those are people
that we were able to to add to the Medicaid
(23:01):
roles because of changes to the federal rules that allowed
us to add about in our state, about three hundred
and fifty thousand more people who normally wouldn't be qualified
for Medicaid because of their income. We were able to
add them. They are now specifically targeted under the passage
of HR one, so they now have work requirements that
they have to meet that they're very strict and rather
(23:24):
draconian and the description of the way that some people
would think about it. And if you don't meet those requirements,
then you are dropped away the way that it's defined
and designed now. And when you fall off of those roles,
you're then not able to go on to what's known
as commonly known as Obamacare, because if you can't qualify
for the Medicaid, then you're automatically disqualified for the Obamacare,
(23:47):
which means then you go without any coverage whatsoever for
a pretty significant period of time, and then the only
thing available to you after that would be emergency medical coverage,
which is costly. It's very expensive, and people usually go
there as a last resort.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So we're kind of we're kind of hurting ourselves by
not having these other more comprehensive programs, because when you
push people into a corner, their ultimate choice is a
very expensive one.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
It really is, and it becomes expensive because people will
wait till the last minute and when they're very, very sick,
so they're going to end up getting the most expensive
medical interventions. So it's kind of counterintuitive to trying to
save money because eventually you have to pay for health
care in some way, shape or form. There's no way
to get around doing that. It does, so this means
that we'll have those that group of people really at risk.
(24:33):
Then the other side of it is a snap which
most people know is food stamps. Food stamps, but it's
a supplemental nutrition assistance program that has it's always had
work requirements, but it's moved up from age fifty four
to sixty four. So now we're going to have people,
you know, fifty five up to sixty four. They're going
to have to find some kind of job in order
for them to be able to keep their food benefit.
(24:54):
I don't know how that's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
So they have to find a job at fifty five.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
You have to find a job at fifty five that
meets these new work requirements. And if you don't in
this economy, that's right, and we won't be able to
provide you with food anymore. And food insecurity around people
who are fifty five and older is an epidemic that
people don't talk about. It really is. And so now
I'm thinking, I don't know how this is going to happen.
(25:21):
And this is the same kind of thinking that my
colleagues have across the country, which is we are just
very afraid and almost you know, in a state of
panic and devastation around what's going to happen to people.
Our goal here, and I think it's it's the goal
around the country is to have a few people as
possible adversely impacted by what's happening. So we're doing a
lot of planning, a lot of you know, thoughtful work
(25:42):
around how we can get people to comply with the law.
Because it is the law, there's not really much we
can do about that. And it only passed by four votes.
You know, there's four votes that have just changed the
trajectory of the way people get access to healthcare and
access to food. And when you think about that, it's
mind boggling and devastating when you think about it in
(26:03):
the larger context of what democracy is supposed to.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
But it reminds me also of the housing thing I
heard about in New York, where they're saying, well, you know,
homeless advocates and so forth that I worked with off
and on over the year's Coalition for the homeless and
so forth. They were saying, how, you know, just give
them the cash for the rent to keep them in
the building. Just give them the rent money so that
they can stay, because once they get kicked out of it,
that's when the problems really really multiply, and that's when
(26:27):
things made you, you know, give them the money to
have health insurance because you're only going to end up
paying more potentially. Give them the money for the rent
because you're only going to end up pay more potentially.
And I think that, I mean, I love that idea
that we're going to find housing for people, whether it's
in the city itself or not.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So that what you're describing is called the housing first model,
which is that you get people housed first, and it's
that foundation that allows people to get access to other benefits.
And we know that the housing first model works. We
have statistical proof that shows that it works. Happened though
with the last the most recent executive order that President
Trump just issued around housing. It meant that people who
(27:07):
are now currently on house could sort of be rounded
up and institutionalized, which is the antithesis of the housing
first model. It's because homelessness is not criminal homelessness really
is a societal issue that we need to embrace, and
so I think sticking with this idea of funding the
housing first model is how we get to do the
right thing for people so that they're not out on
(27:27):
the street, that we can get them to access healthcare.
They can then have stability and be able to work.
And there are solutions for this if we're willing to
do it as a country, and I think there just
needs to be more of a political will to make
that happen. But that most recent I would say edict
through this executive order doesn't send us in that direction
(27:49):
at all.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Now, you are a spectacularly and powerfully educated woman and
accomplished woman, and I'm wondering if the work you do
is affected by you being a woman and you being
a black woman, Like, do you see we're in a
social services system that there are certain groups that are
more disadvantage than others. And here you are with a
law degree from New York Law and everything, and you're
(28:10):
there to try to help these people. Are you affected
by that fact at all? Does that play into your
consciousness about it?
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It absolutely does. Yes, I am extremely fortunate to be
where I am right and I know that. But my
parents came from nothing. They were immigrants that came from
Guyana with absolutely nothing and came here to have my
brothers and I and to create a life for us,
and unfortunately they were able to do that. So I've
walked this journey and I understand it. And you know,
(28:39):
even though you know my dad ended up being a
doctor and my mother ended up being a psychiatric nurse,
we were raised while they were getting those educations, so
we didn't have anything. We didn't grow up the way
that doctors childrens grow up. We had a lot of poverty,
a lot of struggle, So we understand that. And then
when my parents divorced, it was just my mom and
my brothers and I and she didn't really have any money.
(29:00):
She got paid what nurses get paid, which wasn't very much.
So we had snap, we had food stamps, we had
government cheese, we had all of those things. We had
the lights turned off, we had the water turned off.
I've lived this journey. I've lived it. But she passed
away last September. But she was a person of extraordinary
strength that never made any excuses, and she would just
(29:22):
say we go on those are her words, it's tough.
We go on and I learned from her to be
the person that I am, and she taught us that
we have an obligation to do more and do better.
And she did not make all the sacrifices that she
made for me to feel like I'm privileged and don't
have an obligation to do for others. This is in
(29:42):
my blood, this is what I do. I am absolutely
built to be an advocate.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
And it's amazing how people like yourself, who are mentored
by a mother like that or a parents like that,
you see their success rate, and then you see the
success rate is less for those who don't have that.
They don't have a parent who can teach them where
they can go, what they can do, how they can
spread their wings and fly. I mean, I've got I'm
(30:08):
sixty seven years old, i have a two year old baby.
I got seven kids. And the number one thing is
when they reach these transitional ages. When you see a
child move from two to three, three to four, and
then they get to be like seven, they cross the
line of maybe six is my recollection now with my
one child, and they start to be much more curious
about the world. How do you teach your kids to
(30:29):
face things. That's the challenge for me every day.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
You know, gradually there's a lot of joy I see
that you have with your family, and that's a beautiful
thing and a gift. We have, as I mentioned, our
one son, and we've poured everything that we have into him.
But the one thing that we've taught him is that
he lives in an enormous amount of privilege because his
dad and I made a lot of sacrifices to make
that happen. Because my husband is also the same way,
(30:51):
grew up in Newark, New Jersey, food stamps, not a
lot of money, working class family. We understand that we
have a lot of privilege, and we have taught our
son that it's about character, it's about the kind of
person that you are. It's using your privilege and your
access to do good and make a better life for
other people. We do not indulge him, and we never have,
(31:13):
and we've said to him, you owe others because you
have had so much, and you've had a lot more
than we ever had. So we've done that through example
and through overt teaching, through raising him in religious communities,
sending him to mission trips, and making sure that he
sees us volunteer and show up in the community. And
that's the example you want to be. You need to
(31:34):
be a global citizen, and you need to be a responsible
citizen with the gifts that you've been given.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
So Trump comes in the second time, and I'm not
someone who I've lost my appetite for the Trump bashing thing,
but it is stark. It is heartbreaking for me to
see a society that has all this money and is
willing to give all these tax breaks to people and
to put us further in debt when we're Bavie was
a crisis level of debt federally as it is, and
(32:03):
to cut all this money to just give people hand
up to be a part of this society we have.
We don't want to give them a ceiling and say
well you have to have this much, but they have
to have a floor. They have to have food, education, medicine,
housing and beyond. And I'm thinking, are you are people
in your office? Are they scared?
Speaker 2 (32:25):
They are extraordinarily concerned. I think when we first started,
we were frightened about how dracone these changes would be
and how fundamentally different the programs that we administer would
become as a result of of whatever we thought the
final bill. There were many iterations of this bill and
we had a lot of sleepless nights following it, back
and forth from the House to the Senate, that different
(32:46):
visions in the House, different versions in the Senate, and
what we ended up with, we think was pretty close
to what we anticipated we would end up with. So
we had anticipated some of the changes, but some of
them we did not, because you just didn't know what
was going to happen at the end. This is what's
happening right now. This is not new, and I think
this is what people really need to understand. This has
happened to us as a nation for decades. There's always
(33:10):
been this fundamental misapprehension about why poor people are poor,
and that is because there's an understanding that they are
lesser than others that are not that being poor is
in many ways perceived to be by other's a self
inflicted wound that if you were to just work harder
and if you were more industrious, that somehow you wouldn't
find yourself in these circumstances, and then somehow you would
(33:33):
have the same access to resources as everyone else. Does, Well,
we know that that thinking is very deeply flawed because
we have so many foundations of discrimination in this nation,
whether it's against women, people of color, people who are poor,
people who are immigrants, that there really was no way
there for anyone to be on an equal playing field
with others, for us not to be where we are,
(33:55):
even during the New Deal, right with the Roosevelt administration
that came about because of the destitution that people were experiencing,
because it was happening during the Depression. But even in
his own thinking, if you were to read some of
the works that in some of the work around Roosevelt
and his thinking at the time, even he was reluctant
to be as expansive in the New Deal as he
(34:15):
was because he believed that people really needed to bring
themselves up by their bootstraps. But that assumes that there's
an equal footing that everyone can take hold of and
look forward, and in this nation that has never been
the case. It's never been true. You asked me earlier
about being a black person and being a woman, Well,
you know, that intersection of identity was one that just
(34:36):
didn't I would have had no rights even two hundred
years ago right that I would not I couldn't vote,
and I wasn't even a whole person, but I was
even considered a full human being in the foundational documents
of this nation. So under those circumstances, there is no
way for me to have equal footing with others, for
me to not be poor, to not have access to
(34:57):
the same kinds of things that people have. But if
you want to talk your self into believing that that's
the narrative, then it gives you the license to make
the kinds of decisions that are that were being made.
But back in the Reagan administration, this is how decisions
were made to cut food programs, to cut back on foodstamps,
to create block brands for heating assistance. It was the
same kind of thinking. Poor people are poor because of
(35:17):
what they do and what they haven't done. This is
just a new iteration of that same kind of thinking
that we're more cognizant of because it's just so much
more dramatic and it's cut. But it's not a new
way of thinking for this country at all.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Andrea Barton reeves, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to follow. Here's the thing on
the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts
when we come back. Barton Reeves on whether she would
consider running for public office in Connecticut. I'm Alec Baldwin
(36:07):
and you're listening to hear the thing. Andrea Barton Reeves's
career has taken an unpredictable path from ad litem law
to CEO of HARK, which provides support to the intellectually
and developmentally disabled, to creating Connecticut's paid Family and Medical
Lead program, with her focus always on advocating for others.
(36:28):
I was curious whether or not she would consider running
for office. One day.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Oh my goodness, have you been talking to my friends?
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Maybe I have. You'll never know.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
I would never know. No, I have not considered that.
I think I would stay in state service. I would
love to be able to continue to do the work
that I'm doing, or something else that helps people who
are disadvantage, for low income disabled. This is what I
think I was born to do. I think it's why
I'm here, and I feel like I do this work
(37:01):
exceptionally well because it is in my DNA. It is
what I was destined to do.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Now, talk about this other Masters of Arts and Religion program.
What is a Master of Arts in Religion program? And
you're going where to Yale? I am going to Yale?
What is it? What are you going there for?
Speaker 2 (37:19):
So I'm getting a Master of Arts and Religion and ethics.
So my goal once I leave is to be able
to help other leaders who work in the spaces that
I work in in advocacy and not for profit and government,
to really be able to have more of a stronger
intersection between their own personal beliefs. They don't have to
be religious beliefs, they just have to be, you know,
(37:39):
their own personal philosophy and the work that they're being
called to do, because often you're asked to separate those things.
You're either working in an environment where you sort of
set aside your morals and your values, or you're working
in environment that you're completely immersed in your morals and
your values, and it's really hard to make those things integrated.
You really have an opportunity to do that. My goal
is to really help leaders figure out how to do that,
(38:01):
because I feel fortunate that I've been able to figure
out how to do that, which is why I get
so much joy from the work that I do. Even
under the circumstances and that we're talking about today, I
still feel like there's a chance for me to help
people live a better life. I can take the circumstances
that have been handed to us through this bill and
still try to find a way to make access to
(38:23):
healthcare and access to food possible for people by using
my imagination and my experience and my education. And I
want other leaders to feel just as hopeful, even when
the circumstances are prevented with they're presented with may seem untenable.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
So it's not about you either having people in the workspace,
regardless of what it is, embrace the moral components of
the work they do, or asking them to face the
moral components of the work that they do. It's not
about that, is it.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Kindly about that? Is?
Speaker 1 (38:55):
It is not that compelling.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
It's about being unafraid to face the moral decisions that
you need to make right. It's really it's taking in
the entire circumstance of what it means to make a
life changing decision. That's what I do every day, right
for a million people. When we have a budget of
nine billion dollars for our medicaid budget, every single one
of those dollars represents a decision about who gets what
(39:18):
and when and the quality of the care that they get.
So if I sat back and thought about it, I
would say, oh, you know, this is a huge responsibility.
You know who would voluntarily take it. But if you
have a chance to make that kind of change in
a person's life, I believe that it's really your moral
obligation and your responsibility to embrace it, because who else
but you who's thinking about the intersection of what you
(39:41):
can do morally and what you can do in a
more expansive way for lots of people so they can
all be lifted and live a better life. We very
rarely get a chance to do that kind of work
in our lives, we really do. We can do it
in small places, we can do it, you know, intermittently,
But when you get a chance to do it on
a large scale. I did with paid family and medical
(40:01):
eve and I'm doing now. You have to embrace it.
But many people are afraid to embrace it because they're
afraid of all the moral hazards that come with it.
My role now is to say you need to embrace
those moral hazards, not be afraid of them, but equip
yourself to deal with them so that you can lead
exceptionally and really help people to live fully as they're
intended to. And you can do that, and I hope
(40:23):
I'm an example of that in some ways, and I'd
like to teach other people how to do that.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
I want to ask you in the last couple of
minutes we have here, which is, what does someone who
is immersed in many of life's most difficult problems? What
do you do to escape and unwind? What do you
do and your husband do? Where do you go?
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Well? We're big moviegoers, but okay, okay, we are.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
The Hallmark channel might have something soothing.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Well, they have a little bit more to do that.
We're more sort of Maravel movie You are you are?
Reallys Yes, We're more along those lines because I think
you're right for him, it's less of an issue for me.
I do struggle with the moral of the normalization of
violence in media in general, not just movies, So I
personally struggle with that, and he respects that. We take
(41:09):
a lot of long walks, We spend a lot of good,
great quality time together. We're both voracious readers.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Do you like to get out of town. You like
to go away anywhere I do.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
We just got back from Bermuda, which did nice love. Yeah,
we just love these long vacations.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
It was beautiful and you get to decompress and unwind, Yes,
from your tough, tough, Quotitian chores there.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yes that I love. As I say, I believe that
I am built for this and all to do this work.
So it's it's a for me. There's a strange joy
that comes to being able to share what I've learned
throughout my life to help make things better.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Well, the state of Connecticut is lucky to have you.
They're lucky to have you. You're a very substantial human being.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Thank you. It's my pleasure to speak with you. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Connecticut Commissioner for the Department of Social Services, Andrea Barton Reeves.
This episode was recorded at c d M Studios in
New York City. Were produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice,
and Victoria De Martin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our
social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's
(42:16):
the thing, as brought to you by iHeart Radio.
Host
Alec Baldwin
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