Consider the choice between Dathan and Wilms

It’s a mistake to pay nearly all our attention to the presidential candidates on Nov. 3 while largely ignoring the “down-ticket” candidates.

Voting for who you want representing you in the state legislature, for example, can be more consequential for your personal interests than who sits in the White House.

Take the race for the 142nd House District between Lucy Dathan, the incumbent, and Fred Wilms, who held the seat previously. The 142nd includes the Norwalk neighborhoods of Brookside, West Norwalk, Broad River, and Silvermine, plus large swathes of New Canaan. The reasons for voting for one over the other are compelling either way.

If you thought our state taxes were not high enough and had to be raised by $1.75 billion in the current budget, if you favor the idea of tolls on Connecticut highways, if you are happy that state employee unions got $350 million in pay and benefit increases while ordinary employees and businesses were being hammered by COVID lockdowns, then vote for Lucy Dathan.

If you’d rather have someone who, when he held the 142nd seat prior to 2018, succeeded in neutralizing some of the most destructive ideas coming from the regime of former Gov. Dannel Malloy, if you want someone who will renew the fight for lower taxes and a better jobs climate in Norwalk and New Canaan, then vote for Fred Wilms.

Still undecided? Then consider Dathan’s reaction to the phony scandal that state Sen. Bob Duff cooked up to smear Norwalk’s police department. Dathan could not wait to pile on. She called the police “reprehensible.” That was before the videos turned up that demolished Duff’s claims.

And prior to Duff’s attack on the police, Dathan cast the deciding vote in the legislature to strip individual police officers of the normal protection against being sued personally for doing their job.

The choice couldn’t be simpler.

Bill Dunne Norwalk