Democrats haven't won in 30th state Senate, 107th state House districts since Grasso landslides

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD – The base of the grass bowl which is within a softball toss of the Kids Kingdom playground is decorated with every campaign lawn sign in the Brookfield Democrat galaxy.

Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz (D-Middletown) is at the microphone on the municipal bandstand – where such acts as Bock & Blu have performed in the Friday night concert series.

Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas (D-Norwalk), another of the VIP guests at the Brookfield Democrat Summer Picnic, is standing behind her, accompanied by the local party’s two legislative candidates.

In 1982 as an undergraduate at Yale, Bysiewicz began research on a senior project. In 1984, that project, a biography on Connecticut’s Ella Grasso – the first woman in the country to be elected as governor in her own right – was published.

Aaron Zimmer, the former Brookfield Democratic Town Committee chairman, is the party’s nominee in the 30^th state Senate District, which travels from Brookfield to North Canaan.

No Democrats has won there since 1978, when Grasso annexed about 59 percent of the vote statewide.

Mother Ella had to win a primary that year over her lieutenant governor, Bob Killian of Hartford. She captured 167 of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities in that primary.

Bysiewicz is running for a third term with Gov. Ned Lamont, who on August 11, garnered 166 of the 169 municipalities over state Rep. Josh Elliott (D-88) of Hamden.

Bysiewicz has said there are similarities between Grasso and Lamont. In the 1970s, Grasso was strongly opposed to enacting a state income tax. Bysiewicz noted that in 2023 Lamont signed the largest reduction to the income tax since it was enacted in 1991.

“The results of the Democratic primary show that people support our administration’s fiscal leadership,” says Bysiewicz.

She notes that the tax reduction for the middle class and the lower class has benefitted 1.1 million taxpayers, and since 2019 the state also has reduced its pension debt by $11 billion.

Reportedly the pensions are now 70 percent funded, after being only at 35 percent when Lamont took office. Financial officials consider 80 percent to be in the “good category.

Zimmer faces state Senate Republican Leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield in the November 3 election. Harding was first elected to the General Assembly as a state representative in 2015.

Grasso also won 59 percent of the vote when she was initially elected in 1974.

That was the last time a Democrat annexed the state House seat in the 107^th District – which now encompasses all of Brookfield, the Stony Hill section of Bethel and a slice of northern Newtown.

Real estate associate Julie Kerton, the chairman of Brookfield’s Board of Assessment Appeals., is running against Republican Marty Foncello, who is seeking a third term and served as Brookfield’s first selectman from 1999 to 2003.

Democrats have been adding seeks over the recent elections. For example, the state Senate was even at 18 seats between the Republicans and Democrats following the 2016 election. Now the Democrats hold 25 of the 36 seats.

Yet, the 30^th state Senate and 107^th state House districts have remained out of reach.

Zimmer had the best showing in many years in 2024 in the 107^th when he canvassed using a motor-scooter.

Lamont and Bysiewicz received about 56 percent of the vote four years ago, the best showing for a Democratic ticket since Bill O’Neill of East Hampton and Joe Fauliso of Hartford had 59 percent in 1986.

The cover price on Bysiewicz’s 42-year-old biography of Grasso reads $8.95. That was apparently before the minimum wage started rising.

It was at $10.10 per hour when Lamont took office in 2019. It now stands at $16.94 and will increase in January to $17.48 an hour.

After filming a campaign video with Zimmer, Bysiewicz said, “When you uplift minimum wage workers then they have more money to spend on their families, housing, groceries, utilities. It puts more money into the economy. Connecticut is one of the fastest growing economies in the Northeast and we moved up since 2019, when we took office.”

State Sen. Ryan Fazio of Greenwich, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, has called for a cap of two percent on municipal property taxes, or pegging it to the rate of inflation. Those figures could be exceeded through a supermajority vote of the residents in a municipality.

He has said it could be accomplished by slashing many of the state mandates placed on the towns and cities.

“It’s one thing to say that you’re going to do it,” Bysiewicz commented. “It is another thing to show how you’ll do it. We haven’t seen his plan on how to fund property tax cuts.”

Bysiewicz said she and Lamont “want to make education costs less burdensome for municipalities- particularly special education costs, which have skyrocketed. That makes for a lesser burden on property taxpayers.”

The Democratic Socialists of America have emerged as a political force over the last year following the victory by Zohran Mandami as mayor of New York City last fall.

Former Chicago mayor and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a centrist and potential 2028 presidential contender, recently told ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ that “they should be a separate party.”

Bysieiwicz disagreed, saying, “We are a big tent, and you’re seeing it now.”

Thomas said that she was disappointed with a meager 23 percent turnout in the recent Democratic gubernatorial primary, which was six percent lower than the participation in the 2018 Democratic primary between Lamont and Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim.

“That is quite a dip,” said Thomas.

Particularly considering that this is the first gubernatorial election since Connecticut adopted early voting.

“We do know with the first election [of early voting] in 2024 – 40 percent of all voters voted early,” Thomas commented. “It is still very popular.”

She said for the Democratic primary there were 50,000 early votes and only 12,000 by absentee ballot.

Thomas said that over the last two years there has been “a slow trickle during the day, One trend that I did see was not many people were going in the evenings when it was open to 8 o’clock.”

She said there may be efforts during the 2027 legislative session to amend the hours slightly.

Denise Merrill, a former secretary of the state who was initially elected in 2010 and served for more than 11 years, had said in 2013 that she was concerned about the number of voters eligible to vote that had never registered.

Thomas indicated those figures have improved.

“Compared to many states, many of our eligible voters are actually registered,” she explained.

She said that there are about 150,000 “who could be registered that weren’t.”

“I feel we have more of a turnout problem than a registration problem,” Thomas said.

“Before I was Secretary of the State, I thought that apathy was the cause of people not showing up: They don’t care etc.,” she commented.

“Since I have been Secretary of the State and as I talk to people all the reasons I hear are very mundane: ‘I didn’t know the election was happening.’ ‘I didn’t know what was on the ballot.’ I wasn’t quite sure where to go for help.’ I didn’t know if they could speak my language,’ “ she remarked.

“All of these are questions that would actually be solved with a voters’ guide mail out,” Thomas asserted. “Connecticut has had a statute on the books for over a decade enabling us to put out a voters’ guide with available appropriations.”

“They have never appropriated the money for us to mail it out,” she commented. “I think that would have a big impact on election turnout.”

Miles Rapoport – who was Connecticut’s Secretary of the State form 1995-1999, immediately preceding Bysiewicz – co-authored a book with E. J. Dionne, the New York Times columnist, in 2022 calling for mandatory voting, a system that is in place in at least 25 countries.

Democrat former President Barack Obama endorsed the concept 11 years ago, saying that it would do more than anything to transform America’s elections.

Rapoport is now executive director of 100 Percent Democracy, which is encouraging mandatory voting.

For example, Australia has about a 90 percent turnout for its national elections. Those who don’t vote receive a letter in the mail indicating that they have to pay a $20 fine. That action can be appealed.

Remarked Thomas, “I support compulsory voting. But there is the side that there should be robust civic education, K-12. Much like in Australia, you can’t mandate people to vote and levy fines if you don’t teach them about the system and why it is so important.”