Lemar at WNHH.
The spectres of Dan Malloy and Donald Trump will haunt Roland Lemar’s summer vacation.
Actually, Lemar, a Democratic New Haven state representative, is not planning a big vacation this summer. He has too much campaign business to attend to — business that has grown complicated in the wake of the just-completed state legislative session and the upcoming fall presidential campaign.
He is running unopposed for reelection to his 96th General Assembly seat, which representatives downtown, the Fair Haven, East Rock, and Wooster Square neighborhoods, as well as a sliver of East Haven.
Meanwhile, Lemar said he has a second, contested campaign to work on this summer: the campaign to maintain Democratic control of the state House of Representatives. Lemar chairs the House Majority Caucus.
Speaking during an appearance on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven program,” Lemar said he has been busy helping to recruit candidates to challenge incumbent Republicans considered vulnerable, and helping reelect Democratic incumbents in seats considered considered vulnerable to Republican challenge.
Many of those latter seats can be found in communities along Route 8, Lemar said — districts, such as those in the Naugatuck Valley, where Donald Trump scored big victories in the recent GOP presidential primary. Lemar predicted that Democratic Hillary Clinton will defeat Trump in the November general election. But Democrats anticipate an enthusiastic Trump-inspired GOP and independent turnout in those Route 8 corridor strongholds.
Control of the state House is at stake. Democrats currently hold an 87 – 64 majority there. Governing magazine, for one, has called the battle of control of Connecticut’s legisature a “toss-up” in the Senate and “leaning Democratic” in the House. (Ballotpedia does not rank Connecticut’s legislature on its 20 “battlegrounds.”)
Lemar spoke of a crop of new candidates waging campaigns against Republicans this year, including Joe de la Cruz and Christine Conley for two Groton seats, Laura Bartok in Bristol, and Raghib Allie-Brennan in Danbury/Bethel. He also said he and others in the party are working hard to help Theresa Conroy of Seymour hold onto her seat, Lemar said.
Republicans have been vocal statewide in criticizing the adjusted new fiscal year budget prepared by Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and legislative Democratic leaders, which featured extensive cuts to close a $930 million deficit. Lemar defended the budget, saying it protected many important services and increased aid to cities, even if those increases weren’t as high as originally planned. He also praised Democrats in the legislature for passing a new retirement plan that will make a retirement savings program available to some 600,000 working families in the private sector.
At the same time, Lemar differed with Malloy and some fellow Democrats for taking tax increases off the table during negotiations. He argued that the state could have avoided layoffs and devastating cuts to mental-health and other services by raising the highest income-tax rate, on capital gains and on annual incomes over $1 million, from 6.99 to 7.5 percent.
“When we cut and we refuse to have a conversation about revenue, we will not invest in things we believe in,” he argued.
Malloy argues that the state already relies heavily on taxing the wealthy, and that raising taxes more will make Connecticut less competitive than other states, costing the state more income in the long run. Lemar argued that neighboring states have higher income tax rates than Connecticut’s on the wealthy.
Connecticut’s high reliance on income taxes, and its progressive tax structure, has left the state vulnerable to volatility in the financial sector. Lemar embraced a call by Comptroller Kevin Lembo to create a spending rule based on revenues over a period of years rather than based on year-to-year projections.
Lemar rejected the idea of raising sales taxes or other levies on lower- and middle-income people, who he said pay disproportionately high percentages of their income on taxes in Connecticut.
Click on or download the above sound file to hear the full interview with Lemar on “Dateline New Haven.” The interview also touched on the future of the debate on Yale’s tax exemptions and on legalizing mairjuama (he’s for it).