WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Wednesday delivered the following remarks at the opening of the third biennial Connecticut in the Capitol Conference. Murphy was joined by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and former Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd.

“I wanted to just add my thanks to everyone for joining us here. We know you have a lot going on in your lives. You are here by virtue of your position of leadership in Connecticut's business, civic, political life. And I hope that you are going to get some additional, important and useful knowledge over the course of the next two days.

“We have this great set of panels. We have a lot of our colleagues coming from both sides of the aisle. I would encourage you to be ready with questions today, again, we'll be talking primarily about technology and trade. Everything from social media regulation, to robocalls, to the future of trade with China and the new free trade agreement in North America.

“I really encourage you to be ready with some questions for our colleagues and the experts who are going to be here. Also encourage you to make sure you connect with our staff. So both Dick’s staff, my staff, as well as over the course of the next two days, the House members’ staffs will be here, as you know, making those connections with folks that work in your areas is very important as well.

“I just got the chance to do for the fourth year in a row my annual walk across the state. A hundred miles in five days, walking across the state of Connecticut is I found a great idea, in theory, a little bit tougher as you get older. But you know listen, I just fall in love with the state that I grew up with over and over again, when I get the chance to do this walk.

“I started in New Milford, I ended up at a beautiful point in Noank, Connecticut. You know, these are days where, you know, unfortunately, you hear a lot of folks in our state grumbling about all of the things that could be better. And there are lots of things that can be better about the state of Connecticut, but there are lots of things that could be better about all 49 other states in our great union.

“There are so many wonderful, unique things about our state that don't exist anywhere else. From the beauty of our state, to the wonderful schools, to growing technology and manufacturing jobs that are spreading all over our state. There's so much to be positive and hopeful about.

“And you're here because you're cheerleaders for Connecticut. And I hope we get to do a little bit of both if we get to talk over the next two days about the things that are already strengths that we can fine tune and then talk about some of the challenges that we have and about how federal policy can try to address those challenges. So again, really, really grateful that you're here.”

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