The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
How Monte Frank is trying to change the election system
Monte Frank is like many Americans — he’s tired of party politics that serve as roadblocks to meaningful legislation. Politics for the party, not for the people.
Unlike many Americans, he is willing to jump into the Herculean task of changing the system. The story of how this attorney from Newtown became a national activist is remarkable. Though Monte himself would downplay it.
Monte Frank is chairman of the Connecticut task force of the Serve America Movement — SAM. Transparency, accountability, electoral reform and cross-partisan problem-solving are the group’s core values.
Here’s how SAM is trying to move those values into the political arena. The group mailed a survey on Sept. 24 to each of the Connecticut House and Senate candidates asking for their response to four questions — yes or no — about election and democracy reforms.
Moving to a single taxpayer-funded, nonpartisan primary open to all voters. ⏩ Adopting ranked choice voting.
Adopting term limits for Connecticut’s six constitutional offices including governor and all members of the Connecticut General Assembly.
⏩ Adopting a permanent Vote by Mail Option for all state and federal elections.
When posed to the public through an online survey since May, more than 73 percent of the nearly 500 state residents who have responded support the initiatives.
Of the 186 candidates for the state General Assembly who received the survey three weeks ago, how many do you think responded?
Thirty.
“I’m pleased with the response,” Monte said Thursday in a Zoom interview with me.
It seems to me more candidates who hope to represent the public at the Capitol would have indicated where they stand. Going into office, maybe they wouldn’t be keen on term limits, but a permanent vote-by-mail option should be a given.
Most exciting is a nonpartisan primary, open to all voters regardless of affiliation. In Connecticut, the greatest number of the more than 2 million registered voters are unaffiliated — about twice as many as Republicans. Yet because they cannot participate in either major party’s convention to select candidates, their choices are limited.
“The days of either Coke or Pepsi as the only two choices are over,” Monte said.
Out of the comfort zone
Monte knows this up close. He was a lifelong Democrat when a mutual friend introduced him to Oz Griebel, a Republican and Hartford region business leader. They put aside party labels and teamed up to run in 2018 for governor and lieutenant governor as independents.
“Oz was that rare candidate who possessed incredible integrity, extreme intelligence, communicated well with people, had a deep knowledge of policy and vast experience to lead people to change,” Monte said.
Their long-shot ticket gained 54,741 votes (compared to the winning Lamont/Bysiewicz team with 694,510 votes), but they achieved recognition for their message of electoral reform. The Land of Steady Habits is not exactly fertile ground for change, but, as Monte said, the state has to come out of the dark ages when it comes to elections.
You can hear Monte’s admiration for Oz in his heartfelt words. You can sense the devastation he felt when Oz died on July 29, a month after turning 71, after being struck by a car while jogging. You can understand why Monte could not let Oz’s work as chairman of SAM falter and so stepped up to take the helm.
This was not what he could have imagined for himself even a decade earlier. But neither was what happened to first propel him out of his comfort zone and into national activism.
Monte’s daughter went to Sandy Hook Elementary School and became close to her third-grade substitute teacher, Vicki Soto, who went on to teach first grade. On the morning of Dec. 14, 2012, Vicki was one of six educators and 20 first-graders shot to death at the school.
“How do you explain to an 11-year-old that her favorite teacher had been killed?” he said. “It still haunts me to this day.”
People in the community responded to the tragedy in various ways. Monte formed Team 26, a group of bicyclists who ride every spring from Newtown to Washington, D.C., to advocate for meaningful gun violence prevention legislation.
“My way to get involved and honor the 20 children and loved ones was to raise awareness of this significant public health crisis,” he said.
On their route, the riders would stop in Harlem, Trenton, Baltimore, and other communities affected by gun violence. He had individual conversations with gun owners and found common ground on, for example, universal background checks.
Yet, with 90 percent of Americans saying in a poll they support the background checks, the Senate failed to consider the legislation — to this day.
“No question, what I saw carried out in Congress after Sandy Hook was eye-opening,” Monte said. It steeled him. “Unless you can change the system, any meaningful reform is only temporary, depending on which party is in control. It’s a pendulum.”
The last ride Team 26 did was the most moving — their route included Pittsburgh, to unite the Sandy Hook community with the Tree of Life Synagogue where 11 people were shot to death on Oct. 27, 2018. Survivors and riders prayed together.
“That experience was so powerful,” Monte said. “It’s hard to put into words.”
Perhaps it resonated so much with him because his mother, a major influence on his life, was born during the Holocaust. His grandparents met on a train fleeing Poland.
He never expected our country would be where we are now, a place “where white nationalism, antiSemitism, would emerge. These clouds are getting pretty dark; those storms are approaching,” he said. “For me as a son and a grandson, I have to speak up. It’s part of my DNA.”
What you can do
The pandemic halted Team 26’s annual ride in 2020, but Monte is still moving forward.
The SAM Connecticut Elections Committee interviewed candidates who signed a pledge to support the four core values and endorsed three incumbents and one challenger — Brian Farnen, incumbent Republican state representative for the 132nd District in Fairfield; Rebekah Harriman-Stites, the Democratic challenger for the 106th District in Newtown, and two incumbents in Eastern Connecticut.
Undeterred, Monte and SAM intend to send the survey again to the 156 who haven’t yet responded. You can take the survey, too.
If you agree that elections should be more open to the people, with transparency and accountability, then contact the candidates in your House and Senate districts and urge them to take the pledge.
We want those elected to represent us to be willing to cross party lines and get the work done. It can start here.