Harding launches retail campaign tour

By Scott Benjamin

NEW MILFORD – The guy table-hopping at the local Republican Town Committee’s St. Paddy’s Day Celebration looks boyish.

The sign outside the Housatonic River Brewing states that you have to be 21 years old to enter.

However, this guy, the one who hob nobs and has his picture taken with the party regulars, is young, but yet still old enough to order a Miller Lite.

Wasn’t it last summer – and not 20 years ago – that he was sitting in the right field stands with his dad at Old Timers Day at Yankee Stadium when George Steinbrenner chose to honor Reggie Jackson and flew in Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Ernie Banks to walk on the field, pay homage to Reggie, and tell him that he really is the straw that stirs the drink?

Could it be 10 years ago – and not just two months ago – that he was working on state Sen. Andrew Roraback’s congressional campaign in the Fifth District and walked into a classroom at Western Connecticut State University to video track Roraback’s opponent who was giving a guest presentation?

And wasn’t it just a month ago – and not nine years past – that he was elected to the Brookfield Board of Education - just a year out of law school?

It seems that it was just last week – and not seven years ago - that he captured the special election as the state representative in the 107th state House District, running against Brookfield Democratic former Selectman Howard Lasser, who has children older than Republican Stephen Harding.

Democratic former Brookfield Selectman John Osborne once said that when Lowell Weicker was still a U.S. senator and a Republican, he told him that if you want to have a long, successful career in elected office, do something significant by the time you’re 35 years old.

Harding, who will turn 35 this summer, is aiming to go from one of 151 to one of 36. He is running for the seat in the 30th state Senate District, which Republican Craig Miner of Litchfield is vacating after six years. The boundaries stretch from Brookfield to Salisbury.

Twenty-two years ago, Roraback, who just days earlier had just announced his entry into the race in the 30th state Senate District at the Goshentte, a diner in his native Goshen, told someone on the phone that he was coming to Bank Street in New Milford so he could go to Archway News, shake hands and chit chat with Pete Bass, the local Republican Town Committee chairman, and ask for his endorsement.

Bass won a third term as New Milford’s mayor last November with 73 percent of the vote.

He already has endorsed Harding’s bid in a race in which the opponent will likely be Democrat Eva Bermudez Zimmerman, a labor organizer from New Milford, who ran for her party’s nomination for lieutenant governor in 2018.

Apparently, Bass sees qualities in Harding that are similar to those of Roraback, who held the seat for 12 years and lost the 2012 congressional race by about 8,000 votes, the best the Republicans have done in the district since the venerable Nancy Johnson of New Britain won a 12th term in 2004.

Remarked Bass, “He’s passionate.”

Osborne – who moved to Florida about 19 years ago, is a Democrat, but his nephew, Republican David Scribner, was elected in 1999 and held the seat in the 107th District – which encompasses all of Brookfield, the Stony Hill section of Bethel and a slice of northern Danbury – until immediately before Harding.

Scribner has been praised for being the author of the graduated licensing legislation that took effect in 2008 and reportedly has resulted in fewer highway deaths among teen-agers.

What are Harding’s proudest accomplishments of the last seven years?

First, the bipartisan budget agreement of 2017 that established a spending cap and a volatility cap.

“I think we’re starting to see some of the benefits of that,” Harding said, making an apparent reference to the record amount of money in the state’s rainy day fund.

Second, as a member of the General Assembly’s Environment Committee he has worked to establish “a continuous revenue stream to address aquatic species,” which is important for the maintenance of Candlewood Lake and Lake Lillinonah.

Third, Harding says he was able to help provide state funds to pay for the construction of the Candlewood Lake Elementary School (CLES), which should open in 2023 in Brookfield, and recent improvements to the Johnson and Rockwell elementary schools in Bethel.

Harding’s wife, Kelly, formerly taught in Bethel and is now at the Sarah Noble Intermediate School in New Milford. They have a son and a daughter who will be students in the coming years at CLES.

At present, Bass says the top issue among voters is affordability.

“People are very fearful of the quality of life,” he explained. “The rise of gas [prices]to the cost at stores to entertainment to their child care.”

Retired Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson has stated that the 1964 Kennedy tax cut, which was signed by Democratic former President Lyndon Johnson, was largely responsible for soaring inflation some years later and four recessions between 1969 and 1982.

Is the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act that Democratic President Joe Biden signed last year the main reason that inflation is at its highest peak in 40 years?

Said Harding, “I’m not an economist.”

He added that the “pandemic” the “spending packages” and “some natural aspects of the economy” are responsible for the price surge.

What can the state do to ease the burden?

“At least a temporary suspension of the gas tax, based on what we’ve seen,” said Harding. “It is costing some people $85 to fill up their gas tank.”

“I would say let’s look at six months,” Harding remarked. “The people in this district cannot afford another increase.”

However, New York Times economics columnist Peter Coy recently wrote that suspending gasoline taxes is not the most effective solution.

He stated that “there are better ways to help people squeezed by inflation than suspending gas taxes. California and New Jersey are on the right track: They’re looking at sending checks to state residents that can be used as people wish. For heavy drivers, the checks would help cover gasoline, which is up 38 percent in the 12 months through February. For others the money might be more useful for, say, college tuition (up 2 percent), rent (up 5 percent), milk (up 11 percent) or meat (up 14 percent).”

But, Harding said he also supports a Republican initiative to trim the state sales tax from 6.35 percent to 5.99 percent for the remainder of the calendar year.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote some years ago that there was a notable increase in hybrid car sales in 2008 when gasoline prices first climbed beyond $4 a gallon.

“I don’t see that that’s a short-term solution to the problem,” Harding exclaimed. “A lot of the electric cars in the state are not affordable. It’s a $60,000 car.”

Since taking office more than four years ago, Bass has made municipal road improvements a priority.

Former Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Essex) appointed an ad-hoc committee in 2015. The panel recommended $100 billion in infrastructure repairs and improvements. Gary Rose, the chairman of the Government Department at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, wrote in “Connecticut In Crisis,” his 2019 book, that a 2017 engineering study indicated that the current roads in Connecticut were the worst of any state in the country.

Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) proposed a tolls plan in 2019 that never got to a vote.

Will the $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan that Biden signed last fall at least help to partly fill the bill?

Harding remarked, “I think it’s a critical aspect; that we make sure that the roads are taken care of.”

Said Bass, “I hope the state really embraces those federal funds. We’ve got about 62 miles of roads in New Milford. I’m hoping we can leverage some federal funding to get Route 7 done, Route 67 done and Route 202.”

On another subject, the Lamont Administration reportedly has a tentative contract agreement with the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC).

CT Mirror budget reporter Keith Phaneuf reported recently that, “More than 40,000 unionized state employees would receive $3,500 each in special bonuses by mid-July under tentative contract agreements .”

They also call “for 2.5% general wage hikes this fiscal year and in each of the next two,” according to CT Mirror.

Harding said the state employees “deserve fair compensation.”

“However, I’m going to have to review it," he added. "I have concerns.”

If Harding prevails in November, he not only would he be the fifth consecutive Republican to hold the seat – dating to the late Dell Eads of Kent, who initially was elected in 1980 – but the fifth consecutive to immediately graduate from the state House. Eads, Roraback Clark Chapin of New Milford and Miner all were in the state House when they annexed the seat.

Dave Lindsay - who coached track & field at Housatonic High School in Falls Village for 40 years once said of the Region # 1 school district, which encompasses six towns – “A lot of land, but not a lot of kids.”

There are not a lot of voters either.

New Milford at about 28,000 people and Brookfield with 17,500 comprise combined about 45 percent of the population in the district, which has just under 1000,000 people. There are 18 municipalities – one more than in the Fourth Congressional District, which takes in much of lower Fairfield County.

New Milford ranks first in the state in land. Then in the Northwest Corner of Litchfield County there is Sharon and Salisbury, which rank second and third in Connecticut in land and also have among the lowest population densities in the state.

“I think land preservation is important throughout the district, said Harding. “The difference is that New Milford and Brookfield are closer to economic development. But the Plan of Conservation And Development in those towns also call for preserving and adding open space."

Zimmerman annexed 40 percent of the vote for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor at the convention in 2018 and then 37.8 percent in the primary three months later.

CT News Junkie columnist Susan Bigelow wrote four years ago that despite Zimmerman’s loss, she had support from a wide coalition of Democratic voters.

“Usually there are patterns to voting, different coalitions and interest groups have certain kinds of geographies,” she stated. “But this is new. This is people of color in cities and inner-ring suburbs, but it’s also affluent and/or well-educated rural and suburban whites, especially those in progressive enclaves like West Hartford and the towns surrounding the University of Connecticut.”

“If I had to guess, this is a coalition deeply interested in racial justice and real equality who are appalled by Trump and the ghastly march of white supremacy.,” Bigelow continued. “This coalition could become the driving force in Democratic politics, and the party’s leaders would be foolish to ignore its potential.”

Robert Marconi of Brookfield, a state assistant attorney general and the Democratic nominee in the 30th District in 2002, stated in an e-mail message to Patch.com, “I believe that 30th District Democrats are lucky to have Eva running. She ran an energetic campaign for Lieutenant Governor four years ago and thus has the experience of running a campaign in a large geographic area. While some parts of the district have become friendlier to Democrats, I think she still has an uphill fight. Representative Harding will start off with a strong base of support in Brookfield. Still, he’s an unknown entity in most of this sprawling district and the gubernatorial race will be a factor.”

CT Mirror put the 30th District on its Battleground list in 2016 when Chapin was vacating the seat. Miner won with less than 54 percent of the vote in 2018 and 2020.

According to the unidentified high-ranking government officials – the ones that live across the street from the unnamed White House aides – 77 percent of the likely voters in the November 8 election are Red Sox fans. In fact, some in the northern reaches of the district have framed, autographed photographs in their living rooms of former Red Sox relief pitcher Sam “May Day” Malone.

Would they vote for Harding?

“I will always be a Yankee fan,” Harding remarked. ”That will never change. However, I have found that baseball fandom does seem to transcend politics. Some of my strongest supporters happen to be huge Red Sox fans!”

Apparently, Alex Cora’s endorsement won’t determine this race.

Resources:

ANALYSIS | How Eva Bermudez Zimmerman Lost - And Won | CT News Junkie

CT state workers to get $3,500 bonuses under tentative deal with Lamont (ctmirror.org)

Control of the CT Senate at stake in battleground districts (ctmirror.org)

Opinion | Cut the Gas Tax? No, No, No. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Robert J. Samuelson: JFK policy to blame for economic havoc | The Spokesman-Review

Griebel Supports Tolls To Fund Infrastructure Improvements | Brookfield, CT Patch

Bass reelected for third term in New Milford: ‘The best town in the USA’ (newstimes.com)

Scribner Wants To Resolve State Budget Deficit | Danbury, CT Patch