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The Coventry Republican Town Committee (RTC) had much to celebrate at its “Lincoln Douglass United Dinner” Wednesday evening that featured presentations by many GOP candidates for statewide office ahead of the primary election in August.
As Coventry RTC Chair John French proudly observed to all attendees, the RTC had just come off leading an effort to repeal a recently enacted town ordinance that placed restrictions on home shooting ranges. Following an organized petition signing, a vote of 432 to reverse the ordinance, to 120 to retain it, was realized.
In his introductory remarks, French pointed out the vote was not just a victory for Second Amendment rights, but also for the fact that Republicans came together to defend their “property rights.”
As the event unfolded, statewide candidates echoed their hope that Republican voters across the state will harness that same level of high energy to protect constitutional rights during this election year. Many also urged the Republicans attending the event to work to draw in independent voters who are equally enraged by increasingly radicalized Democrats in Hartford seeking to suppress parental rights, health freedom, and religious liberty.
“I think the momentum on the campaign has been better than what I could have hoped,” gubernatorial candidate State Sen. Ryan Fazio (Greenwich) told The Connecticut Centinal. “At this stage, we're running a campaign that's unafraid of our Republican values, our support for limited government, personal freedom, constitutional rights, affordability and opportunity for all.”
“And I think it's apropos that we're at a Lincoln Day dinner because we believe in the values of this republic and of the founding of this party and its first president, and applying them to the problems of the day,” Fazio observed. “And that is a campaign that I think builds grassroots support. We know that we need Republicans to turn out in order to win a general election, as well as persuading middle of the road voters to come on board – and you got to do both.”
Fazio said he believes many Connecticut voters now find the state “unaffordable” since the last gubernatorial election, with many retirees concerned they will be unable to thrive in the state they lived in their entire lives.
Asked about parents of young children fearful of having their rights to direct their children’s health and education being eliminated by Democratic legislation, Fazio said “every parent is in charge of their child – not the government – and it is a natural right that you make decisions for your own kids without the government's interference.”
The gubernatorial candidate added that the concept of parental rights is “so instinctual to me that as soon as the government comes after your family and your kids, then I need to get in the way. And that's my job. That's my primary job.”
Describing how he and other Republican lawmakers have been working together fighting for the rights of parents on the homeschooling “equivalency” bill, Fazio added that “when you stand up for what's right, you find friends, and we've seen Democrats say, ‘Hey, I'm a home school parent too.’”
Fazio said he has parents who are Democrats in his Stamford district “who have come to our defense because of my stance on that issue – even before this past year. So, you know, this is important. This is common sense.”
In his presentation, Fazio said people in Connecticut are “afraid”:
This governor has raised taxes by a billion dollars on our residents. He's presided over a $400 million increase in our public benefits charge, and he's abandoned common sense at every turn. This governor signed House Bill 8002, taking away your local control of your town to decide housing and planning and zoning for yourselves. He has attacked our medical freedoms, our parental rights and our constitutional rights at every turn. This election is about restoring common sense, affordability, opportunity and the American way in the Constitution state … As governor, I will usher in a renaissance for this state and a rediscovery of the American dream in Connecticut. I will eliminate the public benefits charge and cut electric rates by 20% in my first term, I will deliver the largest middle class income tax cut in state history, saving the average family thousands of dollars. We will finally cap property taxes and eliminate hundreds of the unfunded mandates on our towns and cities which drive up the cost of local government, drive up our property taxes, and push seniors and working families out of the state … And I will always honor the oath … to defend our freedoms, to defend our constitutional rights. They should never be in question in the Constitution state, and they never will be under my administration.
Former New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart presented herself as the GOP gubernatorial candidate who has led as a Republican in a city dominated by Democrats:
I did a lot of hard, hard work in a place where we're not supposed to win, where Republicans are outnumbered by Democrats, five to one. That is impressive to not only have a Republican take a majority of our city council, take town clerk's office and tax collector positions too, but also be elected, re-elected, not once, not twice, 3-4-5-6 times.
“And I know we're all having competitions of who wins in the most difficult places, right now, right everybody?” Stewart said, touting that she thinks “I take the cake” in that area.
“But I will say … we're not naive enough as Republicans to know that that's exactly what we have to do this year in order to win without failing,” she continued. “Without falling to the wayside from our core values, from what makes us who we are and what makes us Republicans: good stewards of taxpayer dollars, wanting to hold government accountable and hold other elected officials accountable; really being the stewards of transparency and accountability in government – which we haven't seen at all from what we have right now – and being responsible and responsive to what the people of our state are clamoring for.”
Former lieutenant governor of New York Betsy McCaughey told event attendees Gov. Ned Lamont’s housing law “basically says if you worked your whole life to own a single family home on a quiet street, you can't have that.”
“The government says it can come in and put an apartment building or a trailer park right next door to you and destroy the value of something that's your biggest investment in your life, and all for the sake of what the bill says is economic diversity,” McCaughey asserted. “Let me assure you, on day one as governor, that law will be dead.”
Railing against Lamont’s property tax hikes, she continued:
My first day in office – it's going to be a busy one. I'm going to freeze that unconstitutional state law that is forcing our towns to reassess home values every five years. It is unconstitutional, and, instead, I'm going to push through the legislature a bipartisan bill that will cap property tax hikes at 2% or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. Every other state – almost every other state – has a cap of that nature … We should have it too.
Prior to the announcement of his bid for lieutenant governor this year, Matt Corey ran for Congress, for the State Senate, and for the U.S. Senate.
Corey first directed his listeners to notice the “difference in leadership” with President Donald Trump in office.
“Easter Sunday, we rescued a pilot, a downed pilot in Iran,” he said, to applause. “The French president said, ‘I can't believe America wasted all that military equipment for one person.’ Do you know what the Obama administration and Leon Panetta did with Hillary Clinton as secretary of the state? They left our brave men and women in Benghazi and said, ‘You can't use the military as 911 to rescue our brave men and women of the military.’”
“Who would want to serve under that type of leadership?” Corey asked his audience. “We see here in Connecticut, a lack of leadership coming out of the governor's office, an absentee governor … I want the Lieutenant Governor's office to be a strong, independent Office of the Governor, but also a responsible office to make sure that we push forward the governor's agenda to move Connecticut forward.”
“There is no vision from this governor's office,” he asserted. “There is no positive vision. All my nieces and nephew have left the state of Connecticut. Our education systems are failing in our cities … You want an independent lieutenant governor from the governor's office to push positive policies, to move Connecticut forward and to push back against bad policy.”
Other Republican candidates who spoke at the event included George Austin, candidate for the 2nd congressional district; Peter Lumaj, candidate for secretary of state; and Fred Wilms, candidate for state treasurer.
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