Paul Bass Photo
State Reps. Dillon & Porter at WNHH FM.
“Team Porter” navigated a newish app to turn out suburban votes. Now Connecticut might get paid family leave, a $15 hourly minimum wage — and maybe even electronic highway tolls.
That prediction came from New Haven State Reps. Robyn Porter and Pat Dillon.
Fresh over their reelection victories last week — and the “blue wave” that elected Democrats to all statewide offices and gave them commanding majorities in both legislative chambers — Dillon and Porter analyzed what happened and what that means for the kind of laws that might get passed in 2019. They offered the analysis during a joint appearance on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
“People really wanted to vote,” Dillon observed, noting New Haven’s high turnout as well as the statewide wave.
New App-titude
An outpouring of volunteer work from Democratic women and young people in the suburbs helped the party (including many female candidates) win unexpected victories throughout the state last Tuesday. Porter saw that firsthand, as she dispatched 40 of her supporters to legislative districts in other counties to help Democrats hold onto seats or beat incumbents.
Porter’s seat —- which includes parts of Hamden as well as New Haven — was considered safe. So while she still knocked on doors there, she leant her crew to the other races as well.
“We knocked on over 7,000 doors. We drove over 4,000 miles,” she said.
Along the way, her team made use of a relatively new app called MiniVan. It enables them to send rankings of likely voter support (on a 1 – 5 scale) immediately into a central database rather than handwriting results to be computerized later.
“I fell in love” with MiniVan after resisting using it in her past “old-school” campaigns, Porter said.
Porter said she made a point of directing volunteers to not only the closest races, but also some deemed “unwinnable.” She’s particularly proud, she said, of her crew helping Pat Wilson Pheanious defeat incumbent Republican State Rep. Sam Belsito in Ashford. She’s the first African-American to win that seat.
Family Wage, Minimum Wage … & Tolls?
Thomas Breen Photo
Porter serving pizza at a pre-election event at Bella Vista.
The pressure will now be on those victorious Democrats and their nearly two-thirds legislative majority to deliver for those voters.
Dillon and Porter agreed that two specific items on the Democrats’ agenda will now probably pass in 2019: a $15 hourly minimum wage and a paid family and medical leave law. The two representatives, along with the New Haven legislative delegation, have supported those proposals for years. Gov.-Elect Ned Lamont has promised to support them as well.
Lamont did not support other new revenue-producing measures that Democrats like Dillon and Porter call essential to addressing a projected $4.4 billion projected two-year deficit without ravaging services for the poor, working families, and cities. Lamont ran on a tax-cutting platform.
“We need to increase revenues,” Porter said. “You don’t get to balance your checkbook without revenues. That’s why it’s been so hard to get out of the hole.”
Dillon and Porter argued that tax-cutting is unrealistic given the deficit, and that the voters they encountered on the hustings throughout the state support new revenue measures like …
… new electronic highway tolls. Lamont supported just a restricted pilot version charging out-of-state truckers. Listening to all the gubernatorial candidates in the recent election campaign, you’d think that the public would never support full tolls. The most recent Quinnipiac poll on the subject, however, reported that a majority of the state does support new electronic tolls, which already exist on highways in neighboring states.
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Dillon at the Capitol.
Dillon and Porter said they believe a toll bill has a real chance of passing, especially if Democrats make the case.
“We need to not be afraid of our constituents. Let’s have a conversation about this,” Dillon said.
One point to make, Dillon said: The gas tax, on which the state relies heavily for transportation work, is no longer the workhorse it once was. “Thanks to Barack Obama, our cars have better mileage.”
Another point: “Do you want somebody from New York or New Jersey to get a free ride and pay for their roads?”
“Our roads” and bridges “are falling apart,” Porter added.
The pair also predicted that legalized recreational use of marijuana has a better chance of becoming law in the upcoming session, as well. And Porter said that raising income taxes on top earners will also be on the table, a notion leaders in her own party have previously resisted.
Click on the video to watch the full discussion with State Reps. Pat Dillon and Robyn Porter on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”