Tim Knotts on Corruption, Taxes & the Fight for Homeschool Freedom in Connecticut

Timothy Knotts (0:00)

The former deputy state budget manager was convicted for bribery and taking kickbacks and just fled to Greece while he was out on bail, on bond. So a Department of Economic Development was unable to provide receipts and paperwork for $35 million worth of grants that went out the door last year.

Department of Children and Families, the auditor just found $1.2 million in overpayments, just straight up overpayments last year. There's a lot of ways that we can start to address this leakage problem without actually having to get in and cut programs. I think that's a great place to start because those are glaring, just broken problems.

SPEAKER_2 (0:52)

Your organization is known worldwide and we certainly appreciate every facet that you do.

Timothy Knotts (0:56)

I do believe in what you're doing because I've seen it in my family.

SPEAKER_3 (1:00)

I'm so excited about all the things that Robert, you guys do with Classical Conversations. It's been a huge blessing for our family.

Timothy Knotts (1:06)

Grateful for the work at Classical Conversations.

Robert Bortins (1:08)

You're a leader and you have been in this movement for a long time.

SPEAKER_5 (1:12)

We love Classical Conversations.

SPEAKER_3 (1:13)

I do feel like I have a debt of gratitude to you, your family, all of CC for just the fruit that has come from CC.

SPEAKER_2 (1:23)

I appreciate all that you guys do, both through this wonderful podcast and also through Classical Conversations, which I am convinced is the best education resource out there. Thank you very much for all that you do for the cause of Christ and for our families and for our children. Really, really appreciate it.

Robert Bortins (1:39)

Hey everyone and welcome to a very special edition of Refining Rhetoric. I'm super excited to have Tim Knotts with us. He is the director of the Challenge Development Program for Classical Conversations Multimedia.

He may be a familiar face to those who have been on Refining Rhetoric for a while now, as he's been on before to talk about our philosophy book. But this time, we're going to talk to Tim because he is running for Connecticut's 2nd Senatorial District representing Hartford, Bloomingfield, and Windsor. He lives in Windsor on a platform of local control, honest affordability, parental rights and education, and government transparency. He's a father of four, long-time Windsor resident, homeschooling dad, lawyer, and classical educator. So Tim isn't running because of some desire to be in control of anyone else. He's running to serve the people of Connecticut and serve Americans the way they ought to be served. So Tim, welcome to the show.

Timothy Knotts (2:39)

Thanks, Robert.

Robert Bortins (2:41)

Hey, so just to catch up, you know, Connecticut, for those who may not pay attention to politics outside your state, it's usually a pretty solid Democrat state. But this year, they were the first state in history, or at least the last 70 years or 75 years now, to actually make homeschooling harder in this state. So tell us a little bit about that experience, what you tried to do, and what ultimately was the outcome of that law.

Timothy Knotts (3:12)

Yeah, here in Connecticut, we had previously been really the lone bastion of homeschool freedoms up in the Northeast, surrounded by some of the highest regulation states in America. And we're thankful for that. We had a homeschool, an education law that dated back 275 years. So before founding of our country, before modern constitutions. And this isn't, of course, the first time that that's sort of come under attack. We've had instances in the past where we've, you know, our opponents of freedom have come after the law. But this year, they were particularly well organized. They capitalized on some terrible tragedies that were in the news and managed to push through what's a pretty unpopular bill.

You know, we had people go down to the state capital by the hundreds to testify against it. Thousands of people submitted written testimonies against the bill. Overall, the testimonial balance was 98.5% against the bill. But the Democrat supermajority here went ahead and did what they wanted to do and pushed the bill through.

Pretty travesty against the will of the people and, of course, totally opposed to the way that we believe that our government is set up.

Robert Bortins (4:45)

And I'm here in North Carolina, so I'm kind of watching this from afar. But my understanding was even the public schools were against this bill because of the additional paperwork that they're now going to have to take on, as well as some medical laws that I think are being challenged in court that violate HIPAA, among others, allegedly. So yeah, tell us a little bit about like, was this really like just the Republicans or the weird homeschoolers coming out against this law, or is this really something the people of Connecticut saw no benefit of doing?