Politics & Government
Biographer of ‘Ella,’ state organizer for Kamala
Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz also has become a liaison for municipal officials
By Scott Benjamin
HARTFORD – As a Yale undergraduate she wrote a book on the nation’s first female governor.
As secretary of the state she insisted that if you want more women in high government positions, “you need to have a minor league system.”
Find out what's happening in Brookfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Now as Connecticut’s lieutenant governor she is organizing women in the Nutmeg State to put the first woman in the White House.
Has the female minor league system grown over the last generation?
Find out what's happening in Brookfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
“I think it has,” Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz (D-Middletown) said in an interview with Patch.com.
She noted that 37 percent of the Connecticut state legislators are female and nearly half of the state commissioners.
“I’ve noticed more women running for local office,” Bysiewicz, 62, added.
What do women bring to government?
“They are often mothers raising children and are used to multi-tasking,” she remarked. “There are a lot of working moms out there that are very efficient. They’re used to getting people to get along and share and clean up after themselves.”
Bysiewicz helped lead a virtual rally of 2,100 Connecticut women July 31 supporting Vice President Kamala Harris, the apparent Democratic presidential nominee. Bysiewicz will be in Chicago later this month at the national convention.
On her Facebook Page, Bysiewicz stated, “Vice President Harris is best poised to prosecute the case against Donald Trump because she has dedicated her career to standing up to criminals, fraudsters, and those trying to take advantage of vulnerable people.”
She wrote a biography on former Connecticut Gov. Ella Grasso (D-Windsor Locks) in 1983 when she was senior at Yale. It was published while she was a Duke law school student. Grasso was initially elected governor 50 years ago in a landslide.
It was the first, but not the last biography on the first woman to be elected governor in her own right.
In 2012 Southern Connecticut State University History Professor Emeritas Jon Purmont wrote his biography on Grasso. He had served as an executive assistant during her last two years in office.
Bysiewicz praised that book, saying, “He was able to research Ella Grasso’s career when it really started at Mount Holyoke [one of the prestigious Seven Sisters colleges] and she was a government student and got a master’s degree. He provided research on the activities that she did. She was at Mount Holyoke during FDR’s administration. There were a lot of economic experiments going on to get the national economy going. Those years at Mount Holyoke were the start of her political activism.”
Are there similarities between Gov. Grasso and Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich), whom Bysiewicz has been serving with since January 2019?
“I think there are,” Bysiewicz said. “However, they could not have come from more different backgrounds.”
She said that Lamont spent his developing years in New York and Greenwich and Grasso “was a child of immigrants.”
“However, they both – she was – and he is – very fiscally responsible and conservative,” Bysiewicz explained. “Gov. Lamont likes to say that he wants more taxpayers, not more taxes. Gov. Grasso was not a fan of the income tax. She was aligned with [Gov. Lamont] in that she wanted more taxpayers, not more taxes.”
Connecticut had an income tax for 42 days in 1971 under Republican former Gov. Thomas Meskill (R-New Britain) before it was repealed. An income tax was signed into law in 1991 by former Gov. Lowell Weicker (ACP-Greenwich) and has remained in place. In 2023 Lamont signed a reduction in income tax rates for the middle income and the lower income taxpayers.
On another topic, municipal officials have been impressed with Bysiewicz’s accessibility.
Brookfield Democratic First Selectman Steve Dunn said that since last December when he started his second tenure in office he has spoken with Bysiewicz in person or by phone “a dozen times.”
He said that she was “instrumental in getting an appointment” to speak with officials at the state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection about the proposed increase in the size of the Iroquois natural gas compressor station in Brookfield, an issue that has raised concern because of its proximity to Whisconier Middle School and a neighborhood.
Bysiewicz said the municipal leaders provide valuable feedback.
“When you talk to them, they will tell you what issues keep them up at night,” she remarked. “They’ll tell you what we’re doing well and not so well. They’ll ask for help. They’ll advocate for things they need.”
Additionally, since taking office, she has held 105 recognition events for Korean War veterans and 96 for Vietnam War veterans.
Reports indicate that the Millennial generation – those in their late 20s to early 40s – have often had to accept low-paying jobs as they struggle to pay off their college student loan debt.
Daniel Miressi, 34, of Norwalk was the Republican nominee for the state Senate in the 25th District in 2022 and made a bid for the GOP nomination earlier this year in the Fourth Congressional District. In May, he told Patch.com that “the American Dream keeps slipping away. It is about how you can’t buy a house in the town you grew up in. My friends say that they’re cash poor. They say, ‘I don’t know how much longer I can live here.’ ”
Bysiewicz said, “We have 90,000 open jobs” in Connecticut. “So there is a lot of opportunity. Right now in Connecticut it is a really good time to get jobs.”
She said that she attends the Jobs Fair each year at the University of Connecticut at Storrs, where “200 to 300 companies” do recruiting.
Additionally, Bysiewicz said that the building trades are looking for welders, plumbers, heating ventilation and air conditioning specialists, pipefitters and carpenters.
In 2019, Lamont launched the Governor’s Workforce Council to facilitate improved job-training programs.
Bysiewicz remarked that the state’s “biggest employers and small and medium businesses meet with the public and private colleges to decide what we need and what can we do to develop training programs.”
She said it also has provided training for people “coming out of our corrections system.”
Government Professor Gary Rose of Sacred Heart University has said that the success of Connecticut’s economy will largely depend on the Pentagon budget with three major defense contractors – General Dynamics at Electric Boat in Groton, Raytheon at Francis Pratt & Amos Whitney in East Hartford and Lockheed Martin at Igor Sikorsky in Stratford.
Bysiewicz said manufacturing is vibrant at all three sites, noting that U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney (D-2) of Vernon has helped secure additional submarine projects at Electric Boat and the company is scheduled to add at least 5,000 positions over 2024. She said she expects that Connecticut’s defense industry will remain strong over the coming years.
Is the lack of housing an obstacle in getting more positions filled?
“We have 90,000 open jobs and we need about 100,000 units,” Bysiewicz remarked.” It is not a surprise that those numbers are similar.”
Patch.com reported during the 2018 gubernatorial campaign that Lamont has said that he wanted to develop more affordable and market-rate housing
She said that under Lamont the state has invested $900 million in new housing initiatives.
Bysiewicz said that, for example, in Meriden housing has been developed near the train station and some residents can get to work a distance way without having to drive a car. She added that other projects, such as the ones in West Hartford and Middletown, have fit the “transit-oriented” model that Lamont discussed with Patch.com during his 2018 campaign.
She said she supports a proposal by state Senate candidate Justin Potter (D-30) of Kent to provide state incentives for homeowners who want to build affordable accessory dwelling units. She said both older couples and young people would be interested in renting them.
Potter also is seeking to have more rental housing be made available in central business districts of small towns with more affordable rates if the occupants agree to volunteer a certain number of hours to the town each week.
Bysiewicz commented, “I like the idea. We are looking for more firefighters and other volunteers.”
Democratic State Central Committee member Audrey Blondin of Goshen said that she believes that if Lamont opts not to run for a third term in 2026, Bysiewicz would be the favorite to get the Democratic nomination to succeed him.
“I think any other candidate would really struggle to get any traction,” she said.
However, Bill Curry, the former two-time Democratic gubernatorial nominee, said, “I think if it is an open seat there will be a number of Democratic candidates with excellent skill sets in the race and it will be determined in a primary.”
“Susan is one of my favorite people,” said state Rep. Bob Godfrey (D-110) of Danbury, the deputy speaker pro tempore.
“When people ask me what I do for a living, I say that I ‘schmooze,’ he remarked. “Susan is very good at that. People in both chambers like her and what she stands for. No one is mumbling under their breath about Susan.”
Is she an asset for Lamont?
State Senate Republican Leader Stephen Harding (R-30) of Brookfield said, “She certainly works hard for him and the administration. She is everywhere. Whenever there is an event, Susan is there. She obviously is an asset in doing that. People want to see their elected officials.”
However, in 2014 CT Mirror Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Pazniokas wrote that Bysiewicz made “ a dizzying series of missteps that took her from a Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner to a political onlooker in 2010 and then a defeated candidate in 2012.”
A November 2009 Quinnipiac University poll had her in first place for the Democratic nomination for governor, ahead of Lamont and Dannel Malloy (D-Essex) who each would go on to be elected governor.
Bysiewicz chose instead to run for attorney general. However, a state Supreme Court ruling indicated that she did not meet the requirement of having been a practicing attorney for at least the previous 10 years. Her campaign ended three days before the nominating convention opened.
In 2012 she lost decisively to then-U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy, the convention-endorsed candidate, in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary. In 2006, 2010 and 2018 she at least had exploratory committees for governor but all of those bids ended before the convention.
Godfrey said, “In party politics there is an expected succession of people going up the ladder. It is not that ‘we don’t like you,' it is a case that ‘it is someone else’s turn.’ “
He said he is not surprised that Bysiewicz rebounded to become lieutenant governor. Godfrey and other friends of Bysiewicz describe her as being “persistent.”
During a speech in February Lamont “floated” a ban on student iPhone use in schools, by saying that they should be put in a classroom pouches.
Fox 61 has reported that Torrington and Manchester already had bans and Patch.com has since reported that Brookfield has been among the school districts that has taken a similar step.
Bysiewicz commented, “Interestingly, we have found that you will have parents that definitely support the idea. There are other parents that think of it as a safety resource, allowing kids to have iPhones in the classroom is good if there is an active shooter, which is a very scary thought. But it shows you what parents are thinking about. It also is why I and the governor have been huge proponents of gun safety.”
In June U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for placing warning labels on social media platforms, which would require congressional approval.
“I would support that,” Bysiewicz said. “However, I don’t think that a warning label is enough. Unfortunately, social media is addictive just like cigarettes. You can put all the warning labels you want on vaping products or alcohol and people will use it. That is why I think parent monitoring is important too.”
“I think parents have to be very vigilant and closely monitor what their kids are doing online,” she added. “Unfortunately you see cases of teens who are lured to meet people who they think are their own age and they’re actually much older.”
During her tenure, Bysiewicz has traveled the state to hold roundtable discussions on the opioid crisis.
“I have met so many parents who have lost kids,” she said. ”It is a public health emergency that is effecting all ages,” noting that older people with ailments have “gotten addicted to opioids as painkillers.”
“For a while doctors were routinely prescribing them[the pain-killers], perhaps not realizing how addictive they are,” Bysiewicz commented. “We’re continuing to fight that battle.”
She added that, “A lot of young people start by taking drugs found around homes.”
Bysiewicz said that to combat the crisis, she has tried to get communities “to participate in drug take-back days so that people can get rid of their prescription drugs.”
Resources:
Interview with Susan Bysiewicz, Patch.com, on Tuesday, July 30, 2024.
Phone interview with Audrey Blondin, Patch.com, on Tuesday, July 30, 2024.
Susan Bysiewicz, Facebook Post, on Monday, July 22, 2024.
Phone interview with Bob Godfrey, Patch.com, on Thursday, August 1, 2024.
Phone interview with Bill Curry, Patch.com, on Thursday, August 1, 2024.
Phone interview with Steve Dunn, Patch.com, on Friday, August 2, 2024.
Interview with Stephen Harding, Patch.com, on Sunday, August 4, 2024.
https://ctmirror.org/2014/06/17/bysiewicz-explores-unlikely-comeback-a-run-for-state-senate/
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/lamont-wants-train-workers-existing-jobs
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/lamont-wants-address-connecticuts-affordable-housing-crisis
“Ella,” Susan Bysiewicz, 1984, Peregrine
“Ella Grasso,” Jon Purmont, 2012, Wesleyan University Press.
https://patch.com/connecticut/...
https://ctmirror.org/2019/10/29/want-to-read-ned-lamonts-playbook-start-here/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/17/opinion/social-media-health-warning.html
