This Week's News:

Testimony begins in Bob Stefanowski's lawsuit over Independent Party vote for CT gubernatorial candidate...



Giants vs. Jets vs. Patriots: Which NFL team is more popular in your Connecticut town?

After the Labor Day holiday ends, the countdown happens to election night 2022. In fact last week before the Labor Day Holiday, the Governor and Lt Governor announced the official kick off of their campaign with a stop at the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union HQ.

While we have been weighing in on the ups and downs and ins and outs of the campaigns since last spring in Connecticut, September is in fact when the real campaign gets focused and really goes into full swing. Even with that said, we’ve been finding that almost every day this summer something hits the news about a “big campaign story”. It really started with the convention outcomes for the Republicans and some of the Democratic under ticket races. Then we felt the earth shake again after primary day and now with the brouhaha over the Independent Party nomination, we definitely should feel like there’s going to be more to come in the months ahead!

A week ago we saw another shock when unbeknownst to an education administrator in the Town of Greenwich, his astounding comments on his personal hiring preferences and his attempts to ensure a  “woke” workforce that excluded those who think conservatively hit the news. I’m still scratching my head as to how this can happen in a state like Connecticut and a town like Greenwich. I get that it’s one person, BUT is it really one person?

This creeping intolerance and need to censor people no matter what your beliefs definitely takes our world to yet another level of concern. So it seems, now someone has to be concerned about being too independent, too open minded in their lives in light of others who look to punish those who are different in how they define themselves, or where they were born or who their ancestors came from. I wonder what’s next.

A simple childhood question keeps popping up in my mind -. Can’t we all get along? Really!

This week, the Governor M. Jodi Rell Center for Public Service at the University of Hartford, CTPublic and a nonprofit called Braver Angels held a zoom interview with two state representative - one Democrat and one Republican about the rancor in politics. Over 120 people zoomed in for Thursday night's program to listen and discuss what’s happening in the world of politics, elections and public service. It’s too bad their conversations could not be the lead on primetime news across the state. They were frank in their conversation about how the Legislative Office Building works, the lack of socialization and the erosion of personal relationships since the pandemic. They discussed the pressure to “follow the pack” so to speak when it came to political positions.  Polarization was the key word last night.

Intellectual difference, honest debates and heated discussions are what so many have fought for from the beginnings of our country’s existence and through every decade of this country’s history. We send our people across the world to defend tolerance and equality and understanding but we have an assistant principal in a tiny state like CT in a small town like Greenwich taking those very freedoms away.

Folks need to really start taking a stand focused not on your political positions and philosophies but about the right to have your opinion and be able to express it in a respectful and tolerant manner.

There’s a small but mighty effort being forged by CTPublic and “The Rell Center at the University of Hartford” that is trying to address and make elected officials more aware of this disconcerting growth of incivility in our communities – at both the state and local levels. A collection of other like-minded organizations – Council of Small Towns, CT Conference of Municipalities, CT Associationn of Superintendents and the CT Boards of Education as well as the top four leaders of the CT Legislature last June convened a zoom call for elected officials that drew over 300 attendees and almost crashed the chat room with comments, questions and expressions of the need to do more.

This fall as the political campaign marches on, the statewide campaign for civility in government continues as the “Rell Center”, CTPublic and others have joined forces in expanding their efforts to raise the awareness, providing coaching and skill building sessions for elected officials and sponsoring a series of public debates and college level watch parties for most of the statewide races, with the goal of bringing back the art of collaboration in a more intensively partisan legislature. They highlight the importance of a commitment to solve “the problem” versus focusing on where the differences lay on any given solution.

There's an effort at the secondary school level as well to expose students to the need to remain objective, respectful and engaged in your communities. As part of focusing on the up and coming decision makers, the second annual contest to find 2 schools for such exposure has initiated. This includes one at the high school level and one at the middle school level who have created and implemented initiatives and programs and or events promoting civility in their schools and educating the students of the need to work together to resolve problems.

So there’s hope. There’s a small but growing group of concerned organizations making efforts to highlight the frightening cultural shift of chaos over collaboration and to promote difference with a distinction rather than a divide.

As the ever charming former president Ronald Reagan said in 1964 in that famous speech now referred to as “a time for choosing” he was quoted…” we are told to choose left or right. Well, I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as left or right. There is only up or down and if you’re going down, I’m going up." Funny ….sounds a bit like Michele Obama’s famous convention speech. "When they go low - we go high”.

Ummmm. Something for our leaders to ponder? 

Connecticut lost one of its great local public servants this week. Mayor Allan Spotts of Cromwell passed away on September 4th. Although his most recent post was the recently elected Mayor of Cromwell, he served locally for decades on countless boards and commissions. He also served as an assistant clerk in the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee who always greeted those who came into his offices with a smile and a helpful attitude. Beyond his political service, he was also very active in his local Knights of Columbus and received their “Man of the Year Award” in 2016. Mayor Spotts was a great man and he will be terribly missed. In a day and age of divisive politics, Mayor Spotts was not that. He truly believed in the democratic process and will be remembered fondly by those of us who have had the pleasure of getting to know him over the years.  

State's Pandemic School Masking Requirement hits CT Supreme Court

Six months after the state's masking mandate for CT schools was lifted, a group of concerned parents told the Supreme Court Wednesday that it was imposed illegally, and such measures in the future should be subject to greater oversight by the legislature and the public.

Last year, Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher ruled against the group and the Supreme Court agreed to take their appeal directly. Representing the state, Attorney General William Tong's office argued against the group, urging the court to dismiss the appeal as moot since the mandate was lifted in February. Assistant Attorney General Holzman argued that if the court were to side with the group of parents, it would hamper the ability of the state to react in future public health emergencies.

The concerned parents argued the law and regulations that allowed Lamont to close businesses and restrict movements remain largely in force and written in a fashion that limits legislative oversight and input from the public during future emergencies. This should be an interesting case as it plays out, having large implications for the executive's emergency powers going forward.

September - Statewide!

The damp and dreary days of fall seem upon us. What came with the rain this past week was the two month mark until Election Day. Now that the primaries are well behind us and our next two months are full of mailers, lawn signs, and campaign staffers knocking on your door, we are ready to dive right into the full sprint that is the chase to be an elected official in 2022-23. People have begun to pay more attention to the many races that fill the airwaves in local politics and we are here to track them for you. These last few weeks have been slow on the campaign side, but get ready for things to heat up. Let’s check in on some statewide races that you might not know much about.

If you have immersed yourself in learning all you can about absentee ballots and how many times candidates appear on separate “ballot lines,” then you probably know State Representative Stephanie Thomas is running against Dominic Rapini for the Secretary of the State seat. If you want to get more involved and see the two candidate’s debate, tune in here for their CT Public Radio debate. You may have heard Rapini’s ads on the radio about keeping voter fraud down or you could have seen Rep Thomas at the many events across CT she has been attending. In the grand scheme of statewide campaigns, this race may be overshadowed but it certainly shouldn’t be. In a world where how-we-vote is constantly becoming more convenient, this seat is wildly important.

Many people across Connecticut have little to no idea what a Comptroller does. But State Representative Sean Scanlon and Republican Candidate Mary Fay are trying to change that as the campaign statewide for the seat. Fay is an interesting candidate coming from the financial services sector while Scanlon has been a Guilford/Branford State Representative for many years. Both candidates are working extremely hard and while you may not know too much about what a Comptroller does, here is a lot of information on why that particular statewide position is important. Basically, that role oversees the accounting tasks while dealing with all of the financial data associated with the state.

While these races may not be on your radar, they should be. Given the interesting nature of the six statewide contests we have in just under two months, a lot could change with the current landscape. Look for these candidates to separate themselves and teach voters about why those elected positions are particularly important for the trajectory of the state. 

September 9: A Pair of Shoemakers Try on the Governor's Office

When shoe-manufacturer Phineas Chapman Lounsbury of Ridgefield, Connecticut won the Republican party nomination for governor on September 9, 1886, it marked the beginning of a short-lived but unique political dynasty. Phineas would go on to win the governor’s race later that year and serve a single term as Connecticut’s 53rd governor before retiring from political service. Then, not quite 10 years later, his older brother and fellow shoe-making magnate George Edward Lounsbury would successfully run for governor as well — making the shoe-manufacturing Lounsburys the only fraternal pair of governors in Connecticut history.

Born to a well-to-do family, the two brothers Lounsbury pursued very different life paths on their way to reaching the state’s highest political office. Elder brother George was a student at Yale in the early 1860s, while younger brother Phineas served in the Union Army during the early months of the Civil War before severe illness earned him an honorable discharge. As George continued his higher education at Yale and then Berkeley Divinity School, Phineas pursued real-life business experience instead of formal education, serving as a store clerk and salesman before partnering with George to establish the Lounsbury Brothers shoe manufacturing company in 1862. Both brothers served in the Connecticut General Assembly before seeking the governor’s chair; Phineas as a state representative and George as a state senator. Each of them served one term as governor before retiring from public office.

Today, “Lounsbury House,” the restored mansion originally built by Phineas Lounsbury in 1896, serves as an event rental space and as the home of the Ridgefield Community Center.

To view the full story on the CT Historian's website, click here.