Meet the doctor who’s hoping to unseat longtime US Rep. Delauro
Chai, running as an Independent, will also face Denardis, Paglino
When Dr. Amy Chai was a preschooler, she earned the nickname “Doc” because Chai used to set up fly hospitals on cardboard and remove spider webbing from the insects’ wings so they could soar again.
Today, Chai is known as “Doc” because she’s an actual medical doctor and also running for U.S. Congress as an Independent endorsed by the Libertarian Party with a passion for fixing Connecticut, the overall political system and everyday life for people in the third district.
“I love solving problems,” said Chai. “I have devoted my life to serving others.”
Chai, who believes her skills as a doctor and her humble background qualify her to lead Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District, hopes to unseat popular longtime Congresswoman Rosa Delauro, D-new Haven, first elected to the office in 1991.
Also on the Nov. 8 ballot seeking Delauro’s job are Republican Lesley Denardis and Green Party candidate Justin Paglino.
“I’m very frustrated and know that I can do a better job,” Chai said. “I strongly believe in term limits. I believe in putting the service back into public service.”
Chai is adamant about political reform, including term limits, ranked choice voting and campaign finance reform. Putting in term limits takes out the motive for corruption, she said.
“Our two-party system is last century’s model, and it is designed to create conflict,” she said.
“Almost half of Connecticut voters are disenfranchised. I am running for them.” She said people are now often voting for that person “they dislike the least.”
Chai said she’s learned through this candidacy that without the
backing of one of the two main parties, it’s difficult to raise money and get publicity. Chai is doing all the social media she can to get her platform out there and all the speaking engagements she can get. She’s also visiting fairs and festivals. Chai cut her hours at work to run the campaign.
“It’s surprisingly a lot of work. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to have my voice heard at all in this campaign,” Chai said.
Paglino, also a doctor who has a strong environmental platform, ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives seat in the 2020 election.
“I welcome her (Chai) into the race and I’m happy to see her running,” Paglino of Guilford said. “Two years ago, more than 5,000 voters voted for me. They thought I had something valuable to offer.”
She and Paglino have agreed to debate one another before the election, adding that both Delauro and Denardis declined to participate in a debate with her. Chai is confident she would have won. Neither Delauro nor Denardis responded for comment.
“It’s not fair because how else will people compare our views?” Chai said.
Just as she was giving web removal surgery to flies at a young age, Chai was an environmental activist. She built a passive solar heater and formed a “pollution patrol,” where she organized the neighborhood kids and they picked up garbage. She gave them a coveted popsicle as a reward and kept the least popular color — green — for herself.
Chai has a “people-powered” plan for the environment she calls the “Green Future Initiative,” that’s geared toward local communities and their specific needs.
Chai, who lives in North Haven with her husband, Toby Chai, also a doctor, claims Delauro is “out of touch” with constituents, including regarding rising gas prices, crime, education and other issues.
The couple met in medical school and have two grown children, whom Chai homeschooled in middle and high school. In 2011, she received the U.S. Presidential Teacher Award from the Obama administration for homeschooling.
Aside from being a doctor of internal medicine, Chai has special training in “care of the complex patient,” she said. Chai also has a master’s degree in epidemiology and a specialty in addiction medicine. She is the medical director at Connecticut Counseling Centers, which specializes in addiction. Her husband is chairman of epidemiology and CEO of the medical group at Boston Medical
Center.
Chai said her work with those who suffer from addiction helps keep her in touch with what people in the community need.
“The patients I see, especially the addicted patients, say, ‘Thank you for treating me like a human being.’ Then I realized how horrible people were being treated,” Chai said.
She’s heard stories of trauma, abuse and mothers giving their kids heroin at age 9, meaning they’re addicted before 18 years old.
“I don’t want to just keep them alive,” she said. “It’s horrible, and it’s so unnecessary.”
At a recent forum she attended at Hillhouse High School in New Haven, there was a lot of concern expressed about the mental health crisis, including addiction.
“It’s got to end,” Chai said. “We need to stop the problem at its source.”
Chai believes strongly that many of the serious problems she sees every day at work in the addiction arena are due to the ever-widening achievement gap. Investing in education is one answer to helping change the kind of outcomes Chai sees every day, she said.
“Here in Connecticut in a state with all this pride, these kids have a zero chance,” Chai said.
She criticized the way over $40 million in COVID-19 aid was spent on buildings rather than tutors to catch students up on studies missed when there was no in-person school during the pandemic. Chai said they could have hired 300 tutors at $100,000 each with part of the money and “flooded” the schools with academic help. Instead, a big chunk was spent on items like cleaning ventilation systems.
“It would have been easy to solve the problem. It just wasn’t done,” Chai said. “You have to think outside the box.”
She said Delauro recently sponsored the bipartisan CHIPS and Science ACT to promote science, technology, engineering and math. Chai says it’s a good act. Recent numbers show only 12% of kids in New Haven are at grade level for math, so realistically they wouldn’t be able to participate functioning at that level.
“I think she’s [Delauro] good at getting money, but I don’t think she’s good at getting the money to solve the problems that exist,” Chai said.
As a doctor, Chai says she would bring a scientific approach to the job, factoring data and predictive measures into decision-making and spending.
“I’m a hardcore pragmatist,” Chai said, noting that as a doctor, she’s held accountable every day because lives are at stake. She would be accountable in Washington, D.C., Chai said.