Emily Hau Announces Candidacy for State Representative in Connecticut's 132nd District

Emily Hau today announced her candidacy for State Representative in Connecticut's 132nd District, which covers Fairfield and Southport. A community organizer, Hau is running on a simple promise: read the bills, do the research, listen to constituents, and vote for what's good for the people who live in the 132nd today.

"I'm a natural problem-solver; it's just how I'm wired," said Hau. "When my neighbors were overpaying for heating oil, I organized us, ran the numbers, and got everyone a better deal. I look at electricity bills the same way, and I'm convinced we could do far better on utilities across the board. That's the work I want to do in Hartford."

"It's very exciting to have a candidate like Emily Hau — a citizen volunteer, a mother and an energetic problem solver who shows up for others and who is ready to fight the good fight on their behalf," said Alexis Harrison, chairman of the Fairfield Republican Town Committee. "Emily embodies the ideals of good government: she asks the hard questions, does the research, and already works diligently for her fellow residents. Her commitment to transparency and working for the betterment of our community sets a standard we should all aspire to."

Hau is the founder of the Nutmegger Oil Group, a neighbor-run buying collective that has grown from 117 households to more than 900, saving members an estimated $1.6 million over four winters. She rebids the contract every year, and the supplier she selects compensates her for organizing the group — a disclosed arrangement paid from the company's margin, not added to members' per-gallon price. "Trust is renewed every year," she said. "You have to earn it."

Hau has spent two decades at Yale University, where she is associate director of the Yale Institute for Foundations of Data Science. Her career has centered on convening people from very different worlds — researchers, business leaders, and government partners — and getting them to solve hard problems together. It's an approach she pledges to bring across the aisle in Hartford. A Fairfield resident since 2015, she lives in the district with her husband, William, and their two daughters.

Hau's platform centers on three priorities:

• Affordability — apply the same organize-and-negotiate approach that lowered heating-oil costs to electricity bills, among the highest in the nation.
• Accountability — bring public-records discipline into the building, "writing the rules instead of enforcing them from the outside."
• Local control — support housing solutions built for Fairfield, not one-size-fits-all state mandates with deadlines she calls "mathematically impossible to meet."

Hau has already built civic tools her neighbors are using. One helps Fairfield residents weigh in on using the new housing law's conservation and traffic mitigation district provision to protect local-business parking (686 responses); another publicly tracks the town's speed-camera process and helps residents petition the RTM (199 responses).

"When the next bill crosses a desk in Hartford," Hau said, "who do you want reading it?"

To learn more, request a lawn sign, volunteer, or contribute to the campaign, visit emilyforfairfield.com.

Emily Hau is the Republican candidate for State Representative in Connecticut's 132nd District (Fairfield and Southport). She is associate director of the Yale Institute for Foundations of Data Science, founder of the 900-family Nutmegger Oil Group, co-founder of the Give Speech Foundation, and has a longtime research interest in autism and special education. She lives in Fairfield with her husband and two daughters.