Candidate Profile: Brian Farnen For Fairfield State Rep.

CONNECTICUT — The 2020 election is heating up in Connecticut and there are plenty of races with candidates eager to serve in elected office. Eyes are primarily focused on the presidential election, but every state representative and senate seat is up for grabs. All five of Connecticut's congressional seats are up for grabs as well.

There are 151 seats in the state House of Representatives and 36 in the state Senate. Democrats currently hold majorities in both chambers with a 91 to 60 lead over Republicans in the House and a 22 to 14 lead in the Senate.

Connecticut Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles as Election Day draws near.

Brian Farnen, a Fairfield resident, is running for House of Representatives District 132.

Age: 45

Party affiliation: Republican Party, Independent Party of Connecticut

Family: Married to Kimberly Farnen, two children — Ella (11) and Chad (9)

Occupation: Clean energy attorney (18 years)

Previous elected experience: Current state representative; Representative Town Meeting, 2011-2020; Former deputy majority leader (2016-2017); Appointed by Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell and approved by the Legislature to the Connecticut Judicial Review Council, 2005-2009

Family members in government: No — one is enough

Campaign website: www.farnenforfairfield.com and @FarnenforFairfield on Facebook

The single most pressing issue facing our state is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Connecticut’s most pressing issue is affordability. We can only address this issue by rebuilding our economy and creating good paying jobs in a post-COVID world. Thirty one years of stagnant job growth in Connecticut has led to higher taxes on the working families, seniors and businesses that have remained in state. While the rest of the U.S. recovered the jobs lost due to the Great Recession, Connecticut still struggled. With COVID, this problem is now at a crisis point. Even with the recent influx of New Yorkers due to COVID, people and businesses are moving out of Connecticut at an alarming rate.

I will be focused on structural spending reform, lowering the regulatory burden on Connecticut’s small businesses, and ensuring we put aside more funds to pay down our unfunded liabilities instead of kicking the can down the road to our children and our children’s children. Only when we show our businesses and residents that we are serious about real reform will they be serious about growing and staying in Connecticut long-term. With a healthier state economy, we can make Connecticut more affordable and lower the crushing tax burden on all of us.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I have a proven track record of working across the political aisle while my opponent’s career as a professional campaign operative pushes us more into a culture of greater political polarization — and away from what is needed now more than ever: compromise and bipartisanship. This is evidenced by the moderate Independent Party’s endorsement of me over my opponent. The Independent Party is the third-largest political party in Connecticut and has a long record of nominating fiscally responsible, socially moderate candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties.

As a Republican (and Independent Party candidate) working in the green energy sector, I work with people across the political spectrum every day to find common ground and compromise for the greater good. As a state legislator, I will continue to work for bipartisan solutions to our budget crisis, police reform and the high cost of electricity.

Hartford needs balance. With a hefty majority in the General Assembly and the governorship, my opponent will not provide the counter-weight needed. She will follow lockstep with the majority one-party rule in Hartford that has been detrimental for our state. We need checks and balances as one-party rule, regardless of the party, is unhealthy to democracy.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

Named Best In-House Counsel In The State of Connecticut

Being awarded the best in-house attorney in Connecticut by the CT Law Tribune last year for my work at the CT Green Bank (Green Bank). The Green Bank is the first of its kind in the U.S. and continues to be a global leader in the fight against climate change. As an officer of the Green Bank and its second hire, I am proud of the organization we built.

Law School, Business School And Graduating Early

Being from a working-class family growing up in the Naugatuck Valley before coming to Fairfield, I am proud to be the first generation that graduated from college and then going on to earn both my law degree and MBA in 3 ½ years while working.

Do you believe Connecticut needs reform when it comes to electric utility oversight? What steps, if any should be taken?

Yes! Our electric utilities must be accountable to the ratepayers, not just their shareholders. Fairfield residents should not lose hundreds of dollars of food and medication because of prolonged outages that could have been mitigated. Both utilities received millions of dollars after Hurricane Sandy to harden the grid so we would not have power outages like this again. They failed.

Pay For Performance

The prolonged outages that occurred after Tropical Storm Isaias are unacceptable. We need immediate reforms to make the utilities accountable. Utilities need to be paid for their performance, we should cap electricity rate increases in the near term and mandate compensation for food and medication loss.

Bury Lines

Our state utility regulator should also work with Eversource and UI to bury new or replaced lines in our state wherever possible, and to do so now. A plan should be developed by working with municipalities to see when and where roads are scheduled to be dug up.

Encourage Clean Energy And Battery Storage

Lastly, we need to ensure that utilities and also the private market continue to make investments in reducing carbon emissions and delivering a more reliable grid. Policies that encourage solar and wind power, battery storage and smart meters need to be part of the solution.

What steps should state government take to bolster economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic for local businesses?

Connecticut needs to get its fiscal house in order so we can make Connecticut more competitive, lower property taxes and end the continued flight to affordable states. We need to (1) rollback burdensome regulation, which disproportionately harms small businesses, (2) hold the state’s public utilities accountable and demand better reliability and lower prices as high electricity costs hurt a company's bottom line, (3) push for ways to keep young people in state through increased job training opportunities to stop the state’s brain drain. By creating a more competitive CT and getting our fiscal house in order, local business will have a better chance to succeed.

List other issues that define your campaign platform:

Transportation

Much of Connecticut’s infrastructure is beyond its intended life and in need of repair or replacement. Investing in infrastructure will foster opportunities for our economy to grow and improve the quality of life of our citizens. My main priority is rail between New Haven and New York City and our highways. Before we consider tolls, we need to adopt structural spending reforms first. Otherwise, we will just enable the majority party that controls both the Legislature and the governorship to continue to tax and spend, raid the state’s Transportation Fund and use it for non-transportation purposes.

To summarize my plan to improve our infrastructure, we should leverage (i) low-cost federal transportation funding, (ii) adopt structural spending reforms, including using the Special Transportation Fund as it was originally intended, (iii) improve efficiency at the ConnecticutDepartment of Transportation, and (iv) advocate that projects in Fairfield County are prioritized by requiring that any project’s economic return be a part of the state’s analysis.

Education

As a parent of two children in public school, a PTA Executive Board Member and a former adjunct professor at UCONN, education is a main priority. Reduced funding to Fairfield has become a constant under the majority party in Hartford. I will advocate for Fairfield’s fair share of state funding.

Leaders of the majority party have a renewed interest in forcing school districts to consolidate with neighboring cities. The majority party currently controls the governorship and both the House and Senate and have a large enough majority to pass forced regionalization. I will fight against any forced regionalization proposal and protect the local control of Fairfield’s education system.

Government Reform And Term Limits

Connecticut needs government reform because Hartford, like Washington D.C., is broken. To address the size of government, conflicts of interest, the influence of lobbyists and career politicians, we need term limits for the state legislature and more competitive legislative districts that are drawn away from political influence so the politicians are not picking the voters, the voters are picking the politicians.

Affordable Housing Laws

Connecticut's Affordable Housing Statute 8-30g in its current form prevents towns from protecting its residents from predatory developers. Developers can easily circumvent zoning regulations and damage small neighborhood communities for financial gain through use of the law. Towns and residents are effectively powerless to defend against it until they reach a 10 percent statutory goal, which may not be realistically attainable for every municipality. We need to reform the law so that we can provide a necessary balance of both affordable housing promotion and protection for neighborhoods from the current law's unintended consequences.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

When I was first elected as state representative, I anticipated many long nights and forging new relationships in Hartford to put the interests of Connecticut first. As the state, country and world has changed so much this year, the needs of the residents of Fairfield have also changed. Instead of dealing with committee meetings and the back and forth of the legislative process, I have taken on a more meaningful role than I could ever imagined.

I am helping people with their unemployment claims with an antiquated state bureaucracy that has failed them, fielding questions regarding how a small business can get the much-needed assistance to stay afloat and keep their employees on the payroll or assisting an elderly couple get access to face masks. Instead of coaching baseball and soccer games on the weekends, I’ve spent weekends helping Operation Hope and the Bridgeport Rescue Mission collecting food for our most vulnerable citizens.