Politics & Government
Potter carries Democratic banner in 30th State Senate district
Says residents are struggling to pay for housing in largest state Senate district in Connecticut as prices soar and inventory is sparse
By Scott Benjamin
KENT – Can a Democrat capture the Two-Faced District?
The 30th state Senate District has one face looking toward the Massachusetts Berkshires and the other face pointing in the direction of the Danbury Fair Mall.
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If you live in North Canaan you need Advanced GPS to find Brookfield in an 18-municipality configuration that has so many winding roads that Rand-McNally can’t keep track.
A Democrat hasn’t taken the seat in the large, diverse district since 1978 – when U.S. Senate candidate Steve Garvey was playing first base for the Dodgers and Mel Allen said on “This Week In Baseball” that he was, “As dependable as California sunshine.”
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The last Democrat to win was Litchfield attorney Joe Ruggiero, who served for one term.
Businessman Harold Hansen, a Democrat who lived in Sherman and then New Milford, told the Hartford Courant in 1996 that when he won the seat in 1974, then-state Democratic Party Chairman John Bailey said, ‘Double check that, it’s impossible that a Democrat won that seat.’ “
Since 1980, voters in the 30th District have elected five Republicans.
The current occupant, Stephen Harding of Brookfield, was elevated in February to the leadership position in the GOP caucus.
He won an open seat two years ago with 53.8 percent of the vote against Democrat Eva Bermudez Zimmerman of New Milford, a labor organizer, child care advocate who made a bid in 2018 for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor.
Justin Potter - who recently launched his campaign, and will likely garner the Democratic nomination at the convention in May - noted, though, that U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Greenwich) prevailed by two percent in the district in 2022.
“It is not voting as reliably Republican as it once did,” commented Matt Grimes, a 2023 candidate for the Republican nomination for first selectman in Brookfield who worked as a volunteer on Harding’s 2022 campaign.
He added, “I thought that Steve’s margin would have been higher” two years ago.
The Democrats are winning in much of the Northwest Corner of Litchfield County, but need to attract more votes in New Milford and the section of Brookfield, which combined make up about 40 percent of the district. They also need to improve in Torrington and Winsted.
Brookfield Democratic Town Committee Chairman Aaron Zimmer said, “It is not going to be an easy thing to do because Sen. Harding is well-liked and well-respected in [New Milford and Brookfield].”
In Brookfield, Harding, who served in the state House for four terms before ascending to the state Senate, appears to have a five-star rating from Yelp. Since 2013 when he was initially elected to the local Board of Education he has won more elections and collected more votes than anyone in that town.
In New Milford, Republican Mayor Pete Bass has said that Harding is on the phone with him at least twice a month and he is a frequent attendee at town events. Harding held his re-election kick-off event at Housatonic River Brewing on the Kent Road in February and got the loudest ovation this side of Peaches & Herb at the Beacon Theater.
Grimes said that while driving Harding through the district during the 2022 campaign he was impressed with how he easily interacted with voters in all sections.
He commented, “It is obvious that during his time in the state House he had learned lessons from Clark Chapin and Craig Miner,” the two Republicans that had held the seat immediately before Harding.
However, Grimes cautioned that, “The Republicans face a lot of headwinds in Connecticut this year. “
“I don’t expect the presidential race to be competitive in Connecticut,” he commented, making an apparent reference to the apparent limited support for former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee.
Grimes noted that U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Hartford) will be seeking a third term this fall and during his 2018 race he established the Fight Back CT operation which ambitiously canvassed neighborhoods across the state.
“Chris Murphy was such a big factor in that election,” Grimes remarked.
Democratic State Central Committee member Audrey Blondin of Goshen said that she is “100 percent” certain that Murphy will have a similar organization this year.
Sharon Democratic Town Committee Chairman Jill Drew said that canvassing was “crucial” when she managed state Rep. Maria Horn’s (D-64) initial campaign in 2018.
“People start to feel a personal connection to the candidate,” she explained.
Potter calls himself, “A Practical Democrat.”
“I’m focused on solutions,” he said in an interview with Patch.com.
“Justin is the kind of candidate who has broad range of appeal,” Blondin said. “The Democrat in Winsted or Torrington is different from the Democrat in Cornwall or some of the other towns in the Northwest Corner.”
Potter, 44, grew up in Washington, graduated Phi Betta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Cornell University and now operates a small business.
He also is the president of Kent Affordable Housing.
A news release for the forthcoming book, "Escaping The Housing Trap” – by Charles L. Marohn Jr. and Daniel Herriges - stated, “America, we’re trapped in a housing paradox. In the same breath, we demand housing be ‘a good investment’ and ‘broadly affordable.’ And yet, it can’t be both.”
“Sounds spot-on to me,” Potter said.
He said that housing is both an investment and shelter, and since investment prices must go up, people experience distress.
There appears to be this conflict in Connecticut: Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) says the state needs more economic development, yet part of the attraction of Connecticut is that it still feels revolutionary. The houses are farther apart than in other parts of the Northeast. Four of the largest towns in the state in land are in the 30th District – New Milford, Sharon, Salisbury and Litchfield. Sharon, with about 58.8 square miles of land and a population of 2,680 has one of the lowest population densities in the state.
It is not just that Connecticut is a small state with limited land, but that there is a lot of land that is not available for housing or economic development.
“We have built far too little housing over the last few decades,” Potter exclaimed. “You talk to any of the small businesses in town and one of their top concerns is housing.”
Said Potter “In our town [Kent] the [housing] prices shot up in a few short years. That is completely unsustainable.” He said that a survey indicates that 78 homeowner households in Kent “pay more than 50 percent of their income on housing.”
“They’re stuck in these big homes that they can’t afford to live in but they also can’t afford to move out of,” he remarked. “People who live and work in Kent are being priced out.”
Potter said that the state has a “great opportunity to figure out how do we help folks like that” without threatening local control.
Drew said that housing is “the hub of the wheel of a lot of other issues that we’re dealing with,” such as declining school enrollments and volunteers for municipal boards and commissions and emergency services.
She praised Potter for proposing that more rental housing be made available in central business districts of the small towns and at more affordable rates if the occupants agree to volunteer a certain number of hours to the town each week.
Potter said that without the state Affordable Housing Appeals Act the amount of affordable housing would be less than it is now, 35 years after it was initially established. Under the Act, a developer can circumvent municipal zoning regulations if the municipality does not have at least 10 percent of its housing listed as affordable.
Regarding the provisions in the Affordable Housing Appeals Act, Harding said, “It is a law that I do not support. It takes away local control. I don’t support that when it comes down to zoning.”
Potter contends, “We need to have a significant stick [at the state level], but also provide more carrots as incentives.”
Harding countered, “We already provide incentives for communities to implement housing.”
The senator said that he believes in “allowing the municipalities and the residents to make their own decisions.” He said he agreed with state Sen. Tony Hwang (R-28) of Fairfield who recently testified at a legislative hearing that the 1989 legislation has “not met its goal.”
Jamil Ragland of CT News Junkie has reported that state Sen. Ryan Fazio (R-36) of Greenwich recently said at that same state legislative hearing that the number of units deemed affordable should be a strict figure and not a percentage.
Countered Potter, “Keeping it as a percentage makes all the sense in the world.”
“Housing needs change as towns grow,” he said. “It has had a positive impact in terms of pushing towns toward having the affordable housing that we need.”
Potter said he supports making modifications to the state law. He said that if a municipality makes a greater commitment to affordable housing, the percentage can be slightly reduced below the 10 percent in the state legislation.
He remarked, “The Republicans are supposed to be the party of business. What have the Republicans done to get housing built? I think the answer is ‘Nothing.’ “
Harding disagreed, saying, “We have worked in conjunction with our local communities. You see examples on that all across the state. You see examples on that in the 30th District.”
Harding said that some of the towns in the 30th District “do not have the infrastructure or anything close to take on 10 percent affordable housing as defined in the statute.”
Regarding fiscal issues, Potter said that he supports the fiscal guardrails that were established in 2017 and that “they need to stay right where they are.”
There has been discussion in the General Assembly regarding adjusting the guardrails – which include a spending cap and volatility cap.
The state has had budget surpluses each fiscal year since they were established and has paid down a notable part of its pension debt.
Potter said the state should seek to “lower taxes for low-income earners.” He added that legislators may have been “a little too cautious” in their efforts to increase taxes on the wealthy.
On another subject, Christine Stuart of CT News Junkie has reported that Lamont has a tentative agreement with the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) for a 2.5-percent salary increase and a step hike, which typically is usually about two percent. The agreement would cover about 45,000 state employees.
“They’re a very powerful group,” Potter said of SEBAC. “I think those contracts definitely deserve scrutiny.”
In a prepared statement along with state House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora (R-North Branford), Harding related, “State government, under one-party Democrat rule, has found even more taxpayer money – and a lot of it – to appease the state employee unions. . . Why are we increasing fixed costs in the state budget and thereby crowding out funding for other essential services?”
On another topic, Lamont announced in his State of the State address in February that he wanted to limit smart phone usage in schools.
Vincent Gabrielle of CT Insider has reported that Lamont has said, "Increasingly kids on the smart phones are tuning out each other, tuning out learning and tuning into unfiltered images which can be fun or disturbing,"
Potter remarked, “As a parent, I would love the smart phone to not be in the schools.”
Regarding the governor’s efforts last fall to mandate electric cars by 2035, Potter exclaimed: “We should not be basing policy on wishful thinking. There is not enough infrastructure” in place to make the conversion.
On a separate topic, Nick Troiano, the founding executive director of Unite America, wrote in his recent book, “The Primary Solution,” that under the current primary systems “only a small fraction of voters wind up deciding the vast majority of elections.”
Kirkus Reviews has stated that Troiano, ”Argues forcefully for abolishing partisan primaries that allow participation only by voters registered as Republican or Democrat.”
Is it time for Connecticut to adopt open primaries?
“The largest voting bloc in the district are unaffiliated voters,” Potter said. “I think they should have a voice in the primaries.”
Resources:
Interview with Justin Potter, Patch.com, Wednesday, March 6, 2024.
Phone interview with Justin Potter, Patch.com, Saturday, March 16, 2024.
Phone interview with Stephen Harding, Patch.com, Thursday, March 7, 2024.
Phone interview with Aaron Zimmer, Patch.com, Thursday, March 7, 2024.
Phone interview with Matt Grimes, Patch.com, Thursday, March 7, 2024.
Phone interview with Audrey Blondin, Patch.com, Saturday, March 9, 2024.
Phone interview with Jill Drew, Patch.com, Friday, March 15, 2024.
https://www.courant.com/1996/10/22/hansen-after-seat-he-held-in-1970s/
