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Politics & Government

Connecticut’s conservative slice

Voters in the 32nd state Senate District largely counter the emerging Democratic trend in state suburbs

Scott Benjamin, Community Contributor

Posted Fri, Apr 12, 2024 at 7:47 am ET|Updated Tue, May 21, 2024 at 5:14 am ET

By Scott Benjamin

Welcome to Connecticut’s Conservative Republican state Senate District.

The 32nd District lawn police officers – the ones who wear their Big League Chew baseball caps while dining at Starbucks in Oxford - cannot confirm if all of the Ronald Reagan lawn signs from the 1984 landslide have been taken down.

Find out what's happening in Brookfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

A poll of the couples who had their first date at the Country Cinema in Watertown indicates that William F. Buckley is the most revered person this side of Rico Brogna.

Go to Panera Bread in Southbury any weekday and you will see at least half of the lunch-hour crowd watching YouTube reruns of Jesse Watters on their lap tops.

Find out what's happening in Brookfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

Granted, in the 1980s the district elected the preppy-attired, Republican moderate Jamie McLaughlin of Woodbury three times. However, all of the soccer parents wore “I Ride With Coach Jamie” T-shirts, since he had been the coach at Lafayette College at age 24.

A Democrat hasn’t won in this compilation of 12 suburbs and rural towns – which cut through three counties and through three congressional districts - since Charles Lymon of Washington in 1891 – around the time that some of the picturesque colonial houses on South Street in Roxbury were built.

In a phone interview with Patch.com, Watertown Republican Eric Berthel, who has held the state Senate seat since February 2017, remarked, “In many of the towns that I represent, you will see Republican turnout at 75 or 80 percent.”

He noted that in his last three races he has won by somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 votes. The Republicans only hold 12 of the 36 seats in the state Senate and four of the incumbents, all of whom are seeking re-election on November 5, captured their current term with 51 percent or less of the vote. Berthel prevailed in 2022 with about 58 percent of the ballots.

Republican 32nd District State Central Committee member Sharon Scarlett of Southbury added, that even though Democrats have made inroads in other suburbs across Connecticut over the recent years, “The 12 towns in our district remain mostly Republican. With people moving in from New York City you have seen some change in Washington.”

She said Brookfield has become a tad more Democratic. The Democrats have captured the first selectman’s office there in six of the last eight municipal elections, but the state senators and the state representative representing Brookfield are all Republicans.

The 32nd District includes all of Bethlehem, Bridgewater, Oxford, Roxbury, Southbury, Washington, Watertown and Woodbury, and parts of Bethel, Brookfield, Middlebury and Seymour.

Two years ago, when he was on his way to a fourth term, Berthel told Patch.com that the district has a high number of elderly residents. The Heritage Village section of Southbury, for example, represents the largest retirement community in Connecticut.

About 60 years ago, the construction of Interstate-84 transformed Brookfield and Southbury.

Per capita, Brookfield grew more than any of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities during the 1960s and Southbury had that distinction in both the 1970s and the 1980s after Interstate-84 made them more accessible.

Berthel, who was a state representative for more than two years before ascending to the state Senate, said that over the recent years the population in the district has stayed about the same.

One exception is Brookfield, which has added considerable rental housing in the 198-acre Brookfield Town Center. From 2010 to 2020 Brookfield, which has less than 20 square miles of land, grew by 6.5 percent, tying in for fifth place in per capita population growth in the state over that span.

Oxford, which has about 33 square miles of land, experienced a 29.1 percent boost in population between 2000 and 2010.

Berthel said that recently, under Republican First Selectman George Temple, Quarry Walk in Oxford has become an economic model with a shopping center, a bank, a hardware store, medical office and nearby housing.

“That property was turned into what is arguably one of the most incredible economic development projects in the last decade in this part of Connecticut,” Berthel commented. “People in Oxford are not going to Waterbury or Danbury to shop.”

He said the result has been, “Opportunities to grow the grand list without [the tax increases] being placed squarely on the shoulders of the homeowners. Oxford is the showcase for that. It is something brilliant that we need to see in more towns in Connecticut.”

This fall Berthel, who is the deputy Republican state Senate leader, will face Watertown Democrat Jeff Desmarais for the third straight election.

Berthel, the senior vice president for Government Affairs at Post University in Waterbury, said he disagrees with Desmarais’ recent remarks that politics has become more national and ticket-splitting is dwindling.

“Voters will vote for the candidate that has their best interests in mind,” he commented.

Matt Grimes, who sought the Republican nomination for first selectman in Brookfield last year, recently told Patch.com that he doesn’t expect the presidential race to be competitive in Connecticut this year and thus the GOP may face significant headwinds.

However, Watertown Republican Town Committee Chairman Dan Divito said he doesn’t think that will be the case in the 32nd District, since former President Donald Trump, the apparent Republican nominee, “has a lot of support.”

“I think [Trump] has made a strong point to work for the working class,” he added. “His actions speak louder than his words.”

Regarding issues before the General Assembly, State Senate Republican Leader Stephen Harding (R-30) of Brookfield said, “Eric has always been a stalwart for fiscal responsibility. He believes we should be finding efficiencies.”

Scarlett added, “The Democrats go out and spend money to help their voters. Eric addresses issues in a financially-responsible way.”

Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) boasted that the tax cut he signed last year, which included income tax reductions for the middle- and lower-class taxpayers was the largest tax cut in Connecticut history.

Berthel said taxes should be cut further.

“The state of Connecticut could lower the sales tax rate [currently at 6.35 percent] to 5.99 percent,” he said. ”We could also reduce the current 7.35% sales tax on restaurant tabs and prepared food items to 5.99 percent.”

“All but three U.S. states collect a sales tax with a range of four to 7.5 percent. Only six states collect a higher sales tax than Connecticut,” Berthel declared.

Harding indicated that little could be done to enact those changes in the current non-budget year short session that concludes in May, but they will be prominent in the discussions for the GOP Senate platform for 2025.

Although they disagree on some issues, Berthel praised Lamont, saying that he “is certainly the most fiscally conservative Democratic governor that we have seen in a lot of years in Connecticut.”

He said that Lamont, who is in his second term, is “very approachable. He has a great personality in interacting with legislators. When he’s in a conversation with you, he actually listens to you. That is a quality that is missing sometimes from people at the local level all the way up to the White House.”

CT Mirror budget reporter Keith Phaneuf has stated that some top legislative Democrats think “that now that the fiscal guardrails are putting the squeeze on core programs it’s time for the rainy-day fund to give something back.”

Phaneuf reported that they “want to shift annual interest earned by the budget reserve outside of the spending cap, a move that could allow an extra $170 million to protect higher education, social services, early childhood development and health care.”

Berthel exclaimed, “I think it sets a terrible precedent” since it would violate the fiscal guardrails that were established in 2017 in which there is a spending cap and a volatility cap, which helps boost the money in the rainy-day fund and places more money toward paying down the state’s pension liabilities.

He declared that in 2023 the General Assembly and Lamont approved a “largely bipartisan” package that “was a good budget. Now. “Less than a year later,” the Democrats are seeking “new and exciting ways to grow the government.”

On a separate subject, CT News Junkie’s Christine Stuart has reported that Lamont and most of Connecticut’s unionized workforce reached a tentative deal in March which would allow for 2.5% wage and step increases starting on July 1. This proposed agreement, which remains subject to consideration by both the General Assembly and bargaining units within the State Employees Bargaining Agents Coalition (SEBAC), is designed to cover almost 45,000 state employees.”

“Under its terms, all employees would receive the 2.5% general increase effective July 1st, with the step hike—typically amounting to approximately 2 percentage points in annual salary—being implemented midway through the fiscal year on January 1st. However, for some employees, the step increase may be larger,” Stuart reported.

Berthel said that he objects.

“What we do at the state level should be comparable to what is done at the private level,” he said. “It doesn’t mirror that. It is much more lucrative.”

If the Republican legislators oppose the tentative contract, shouldn’t they hold rallies across the state as they did in 2019 on the governor’s proposed highways toll plan and in 2022 when they wanted to slash taxes? Isn’t that what the state workers have done at least dating to 1975 when Gov. Ella Grasso (D-Windsor Locks) sought concessions and there were protest signs that read, “Ella, we should have voted for the fella.”

“I don’t know that there needs to be rallies,” Berthel said. “I don’t know how that would impact the change. I think that conversation needs to happen between the governor’s office and the Finance and Appropriations committees.”

In an e-mail interview with Patch.com, Desmarais stated that he generally supports the tentative contract agreement.

“It’s important to remember that with the global increase of inflation, it would stretch everyone’s dollar,” he wrote. “These state workers are our neighbors, our friends, and our families. They work to serve the public. They deserve the opportunity to keep pace with the times.”

Remarked Berthel, “No one is saying that our state employees don’t deserve a fair wage increase. The state employee is making a better salary than the private sector employee and they have much better benefits. These people are being paid with taxpayer money. We need to be a good steward of taxpayer money.”

Resources:

Phone interview with Eric Berthel, Patch.com, on Friday, March 29, 2024.

E-mail interview with Eric Berthel, Patch.com, Friday, April 5, 2024.

Phone interview with Dan Divito, Patch.com, on Sunday, April 7, 2024.

Phone interview with Sharon Scarlett, Patch.com, on Monday, April 8, 2024.

Phone interview with Stephen Harding, Patch.com, on Monday, April 8, 2024.

E-mail interview with Jeff Desmarais, Patch.com, on Tuesday, April 9, 2024.

https://ctmirror.org/2024/03/29/ct-rainy-day-fund-interest-spending-cap/

https://www.courant.com/2024/0...

https://ctnewsjunkie.com/2024/03/06/gov-lamont-reaches-tentative-deal-for-2-5-wage-increase-with-connecticuts-unionized-workforce/

https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/state-senate-candidate-says-voters-can-t-afford-health-care-college

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookfield,_Connecticut