Duff says he tries to get opponents to embrace 'good ideas'

By Scott Benjamin

BETHEL – Will Duff says to be effective in government you have to hob nob with the opposition.

“You don’t beat up your opponent,” he said in an interview. “If you have a good idea you try to get your opponent to understand it.”

Duff, who is running in the Republican primary in the 26th state Senate District on August 11, said when he was on the Board of Selectmen in Bethel he co-authored an ethics code with the Democrats on the board.

He said as a state representative (R-2) he helped build support for the 2017 bipartisan budget that established a defined spending cap, eliminated the tax on Social Security and pensions and didn’t increase taxes.

Remarked Duff, “I had a reputation for being one of the more Republican Republicans. But I got into the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, and the reason for that was to build relationships with people on the other side of the aisle.”

He said he has the best resume in a field that includes Wilton certified public accountant Kim Healy, the convention-endorsed candidate whom he will face in the GOP primary, and Sen. Will Haskell (D-New Canaan), who will oppose the winner in the November 3 general election. In 2018 Haskell, who had just graduated months earlier from Georgetown University, became the first Democrat to win an election in the district since 1970.

The district includes Redding, Ridgefield and Wilton, most of Westport, and parts of Bethel, New Canaan and Weston. Since it includes part of the Fairfield County Gold Coast, it is one of the wealthier state Senate districts in Connecticut.

In addition to his one term in the state House, Duff has served on the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Education in Bethel, was the GOP nominee twice in races for first selectman in that town and is currently one of the two members from the 26th District on the Republican State Central Committee.

Regarding the $2.2 trillion federal Cares Act that was approved on March 27 to address the pandemic, Duff said it could have been better but members of Congress and Republican President Donald Trump didn’t have “six or seven months” to figure out how to avoid an “economic collapse.”

He said small businesses are struggling, noting that movie theaters and catering halls, for example, have been virtually dark since March.

Duff said the negotiations over a second federal stimulus package should consider “who should get that and who shouldn’t. It should not be businesses that have $3 billion in revenue.”

Duff also called for an overhaul of the state’s unfunded liabilities.

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2015 that the state government’s pension liabilities had doubled over the previous decade. Then-state Sen. Scott Frantz, who was a member of the state Bond Commission, told The Wall Street Journal at the time that the pension costs were “a ticking time bomb.”

In 2018 the state Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Competitiveness reported that the state employees’ pensions were only 29 percent funded.

Duff said, “We have a system that we cannot afford.”

He said pensions need to be converted from a defined benefits program to less expensive defined contributions program.

CT Hearst political columnist Ken Dixon has stated that the 2017 agreement with the state employees put the pensions for the new hires into a hybrid system that would be less expensive than the defined benefits program for the veteran state workers but more expensive than a strict defined contributions program.

Duff said he questions the viability of Gov. Ned Lamont’s (D-Greenwich) pledge to go on a “debt diet” and trim $700 million a year in bond appropriations.

“Their party [the Democrats] has no interest in going on a debt diet,” he said.

On another topic, he said Connecticut should “absolutely not” have highway tolls of any kind.

Lamont tried to get toll packages approved on all vehicles and then large trucks during his first year in office without success. He announced in February that he would seek bond appropriations to improve the state’s infrastructure.

Said Duff, “Connecticut has it right. As a private citizen you can travel for free on your roads.” He said that state residents are overburdened with taxes.

“The questions should be: Why is the cost of building new roads or repairing existing roads three to four times higher than the national average?” he added.

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate David Stemerman of Greenwich told Patch.com in 2018 that, "The national average to build roads is $180,000 per mile and in Connecticut the cost is $425,000 per mile."

Duff said the state’s 30-year-old Affordable Housing Appeals Act in which there is an avenue for developers to circumvent municipal zoning laws, should be revised.

Duff declared, “We must have local control of zoning. “The members of the local zoning commissions are elected. They are more accountable than someone sitting in an office in Hartford.”

“Right now we have a population decline,” he added. “There is no reason to create these affordable housing units in the suburbs.”

Sacred Heart University Government Department Chairman Gary Rose, who has written several books on Connecticut politics said Trump’s low approval ratings in Connecticut were partly responsible for the suffering losses in the 2018 election when the tide should have been moving in their direction.

Patch.com has reported that shortly after the campaign, Rose indicated that it was a factor in 10-year incumbent Republican Toni Boucher of Wilton losing to Haskell in the 26th District.

He said it was difficult for Republican candidates in Fairfield County to generate support because former New Fairfield First Selectman Susan Chapman was the only candidate from the county on the statewide GOP ticket.

Rose and other sources have said that the Fight Back CT organization that was assembled by U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) had an impact on the results, since, according to CT Mirror, it made one million phone calls and canvassed 250,000 homes.

Duff was defeated in 2018 by Democrat Raghib Allie-Brennan of Bethel in the Second District of the state House – a district in which the GOP had amassed four consecutive victories dating to the victory by Dan Carter of Bethel in 2010. Duff had defeated Allie-Brennan in 2016 when it was an open seat.

“[Allie-Brennan] won – not because of Donald Trump,” said Duff. “He won because the Republicans stayed home.”