CT Patch Candidate Profile: James Maroney For State Senator In 14th District

MILFORD, CT — On Nov. 3, residents cast their votes for several key federal and state positions, including the office of governor, Congress, state representative and state senate.

There are 151 seats in the state House of Representatives and 36 in the state Senate. Democrats currently hold majorities in both chambers.

Connecticut Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles as election day draws near.

James Maroney is running for state Senate in the 14th District.

Age:

52

Party:

Democrat

Campaign website:

https://maroneyforus.com

Occupation:

State Senator, Small Business Person

Family:

Son, Jay, age 20

Does anyone in your family work in government?

Not currently. My mother previously worked as the Welfare Director in Milford in the 80's, and for DMHAS prior to her retirement.

Previous public office:

Milford Board of Education, 2011, State Representative 2012-2014. State Senator, 2018 to present.

Why are you seeking this office?

Representing our community has been the honor of a lifetime. I want to continue to serve because it is the opportunity to make a positive impact on other people’s lives. We are in the position to point people to resources, and create policy that improves peoples’ lives. I focus all of my legislation through the lens of innovation and opportunity. What can we do to promote innovation in our state and within our government? And how can we provide the best opportunities for residents? I tend to focus on tech legislation and workforce development policy, and finding ways to both protect residents from online harms and help them learn and adapt to the changing AI Economy through programs like the Connecticut AI Academy.

What do you believe is the No. 1 issue facing Connecticut, and how do you plan to address it?

Affordability is the top issue facing our community. Everything seems to be increasing in price. While we have made some progress, we still have work to do. We need to provide more funding to municipalities to lower property taxes. Much of that funding should come from adjustments to the Educational Cost Sharing and Excess Cost Reimbursement formulas. Changing the formulas isn’t enough, we need to dedicate more funding to schools as well. We also need to work on energy costs by creating more renewable energy and grid scale battery storage, as well as utilizing Grid Enhancing Technologies to alleviate congestion on the grid. Finally, we need to find ways to provide some tax relief to seniors and create a child-tax credit to help families.

Energy costs have been soaring in Connecticut. What are your plans to help address this issue?

While we have already done some work, we still have more to do. SB 8 of 2025 resulted in Connecticut being one of the only states in the country to actually reduce energy costs this past year. However, we know there is more work to do. Unfortunately, as a state we do not have access to natural resources such as natural gas, which would help to make energy generation cheaper. For us to reduce generation costs, we need to do a combined effort of investing in more renewable energy, combined with investing in grid scale battery storage. The positive of wind and solar energy is that once the system is built, there are no additional costs for energy generation. However, the negative is that they are not always generating as wind speeds vary and solar doesn’t generate at night. That is where grid-scale battery helps. It saves energy generated at lower cost times and excess renewable energy that can be released when demand is higher or when renewables aren’t generating to smooth out energy production. This has been proven to help reduce costs in states like Nevada and Illinois, that have invested heavily. We also started to invest in Grid Enhancing Technologies, but we need to do more as we see success from pilot programs.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

As a State Senator, I have been fortunate enough to pass many major pieces of legislation, several of which have become national models. I passed the Connecticut Data Privacy Act (2022 SB 6, amended several times since), Children's Data Privacy (SB 3 2023), State Government Use of AI, Banned Surveillance Pricing, regulated Facial Recognition, banned the sales of precise geolocation data, created a data broker registry and one stop deletion mechanism, regulated use of AI in employment decisions, regulated Chatbots, created the Connecticut AI Academy and Health AI Olympics, along with other AI safeguards (SB 4 and 5 of 2026).