Sebastian Medina-Tayac Photo
Blumenthal, Dolores Colon and Lowendor at Sunday’s meeting.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal slipped into town for a closed-door meeting with local Democrats about an international issue — U.S. peace talks with Iran.
The meeting — a rare instance of a Blumenthal event that was not accompanied by a press release — took place Sunday morning at the Central Labor Council headquarters at 267 Chapel St. in Fair Haven.
Blumenthal came in response to a resolution before the New Haven Democratic Town Committee, the largest vote-pulling party organization in the state.
Town committee resolutions traditionally focus on nominating candidates for office. This one was focused on international affairs, drafted by Henry Lowendorf, a peace activist who serves as co-chair of the 27th Ward Committee.
“Regretfully Senator Richard Blumenthal, despite his overall progressive record, has joined these forces opposing peace with Iran, signing a letter and co-sponsoring two bills (S. 269 and S .615) all intended to torpedo negotiations between the 6 major powers and Iran,” the resolution reads.
“The New Haven Democratic Town Committee supports efforts toward building peace and using our country’s resources to generate jobs and provide for the needs of our cities. We urge Senator Blumenthal to stand with the President in the quest for peace with Iran.” (Click here to read the full draft of the resolution.)
Blumenthal had previously declined to meet with city peace activists protesting his support of the two pending bills, which would re-impose economic sanctions on Iran and would increase Congressional oversight of any deal reached between that country’s negotiators and the Obama administration. Supporters of the bills call them safeguards against a reckless deal that will fail to check Iran’s nuclear ambitions; opponents argue that the bills are intended to thwart any peace deal.
After Lowendorf introduced his DTC resolution, a Blumenthal aide set up Sunday morning’s hush-hush meeting.
Five DTC members and some 15 peace activists from around the state showed up for the meeting. A reporter was barred from the room.
Afterwards Blumenthal said he was in too much of a rush for his next scheduled event to discuss specifics of the issue. “The meeting was informative,” he said. “And productive.”
DTC members and peace activists leaving the room said they found Blumenthal’s remarks persuasive. Blumenthal told them he only signed onto the bills in order to “have a seat at the table” to moderate the bill to the degree that President Obama could sign it.
“It quickly became apparent that Blumenthal very sincerely supports a diplomatic solution, rather than a military one,” said Eric Stamm of the Connecticut Coalition for Peace and Justice out of Hartford. “There was a collaborative environment because he reassured people that his views were consistent with the DTC and the peace community.”
Rodney Williams, co-chair of the 21st Ward Committee, called Blumenthal’s move to co-sponsor the bills purely strategic, part of the broader “chess game” in Washington. By getting Blumenthal to come to the DTC meeting to face the community, Lowendorf too played “a good game of chess,” Williams said.
Williams said many veterans return to his community with mental or physical disabilities that present a huge barrier to hiring in a city where unemployment and poor infrastructure is a crisis.
“The government should be fixing American infrastructure first, rather than fixing foreign countries we bombed,” he said. “It looks like we’ve already been bombed here!”
Though other people in attendance said they were satisfied with Blumenthal’s explanation, Lowendorf remained critical of the senator’s actions. Blumenthal should have opposed the “pro-war bills” from the start, he said.
In light of Sunday’s meeting, Lowendorf said, he plans to rewrite the resolution in such a way that it will “provoke more discussions.” He declined to specify the changes he’ll make.
“We have an issues-oriented town committee,” observed Democratic Town Chairman Vincent Mauro Jr. “I’m glad [Blumenthal] came and talked to us. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing.”
Mauro said the DTC will take up Lowendorf’s revised resolution in a future meeting. Meanwhile, it will meet next month to consider a more local agenda — nominating candidates for mayor and alder.