Familiar foes face off in 40th District
Two years ago, Conley defeated Scott, who now hopes to return favor
Groton — The 40th District House race this year is a rematch from 2016, when Democrat Christine Conley ousted incumbent Republican John Scott, who is now hoping to regain his seat.
Scott thinks that part of his defeat two years ago had to do with the “mechanics of a really contentious presidential race.”
Acknowledging that lower turnout in non-presidential years is a challenge, he is trying to get out his message: “We’ve got to turn this state around. The clearest definition of insanity is sending the same people to Hartford over and over again and expecting a different result, and that’s what we’ve done with the Democrats over the years.”
Conley, meanwhile, has touted her record of helping get state dollars for Electric Boat, voting against Medicare cuts, and protecting health care benefits, especially for women and children.
If re-elected, Conley plans to address the state’s transportation infrastructure needs and codifying health care coverage for pre-existing conditions into state law, in case coverage is taken away at the federal level.
The district covers the northern part of the City of Groton, the Town
of Groton north of Interstate 95, and the southwestern corner of Ledyard.
Each candidate sat down for a half-hour interview at The Day this month to talk about their platforms.
Conley, 36, is an attorney at The Law Office of Lori Comforti, having received her bachelor’s degree at Bay Path University and law degree at Western New England University. She sits on the judiciary, planning and development and transportation committees.
Scott, 49, works in specialty product sales at Smith Brothers Insurance. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from Franklin Pierce University, and he has sat on the state Commission on Economic Competitiveness for the past two years.
Both candidates are married without children and live in Groton.
Tolls
One major difference between the candidates is their position on tolls.
Conley thinks it’s “very clear that we need to follow our neighboring states and do the truck tolls (like) Rhode Island, the electronic tolls, because we need to have the funds to fix our infrastructure.”
But she feels the General Assembly should’ve had a say in the $10 million toll study the bond commission approved, and that it should’ve been delayed until after the election.
Conley thinks that before people have the choice to approve tolls, they “need to know where they are, how much they’re going to be, who’s paying them, and what are the rebates — if it is Connecticut residents pay less, if it is a writeoff on your taxes for Connecticut tolls.”
Scott has campaigned on his opposition to tolls and said he wants to wait and see how Rhode Island fares with truck tolls. The American Trucking Associations Inc. has sued the state, saying the tolling is unconstitutional.
“The infrastructure’s been built in Rhode Island and they’re adding to it, so if they lose the lawsuit, they have to toll everybody,” Scott said.
He is also fearful that money from tolls will not go toward fixing transportation infrastructure but will be “squandered in just paying the general obligation bills and allowing the state to continue to expand the size of government: more departments, higher wages, more benefits.”
Conley said she doesn’t want to see state workers’ benefits be so low that they’re on HUSKY Health insurance or getting rental rebates or receiving food stipends. “We want to make sure we’re not cutting so much on benefits in one direction that we’re increasing our social services on the other. Everything is a balance,” she said.
Marijuana
Along with waiting on Rhode Island to see how truck tolls pan out, Scott wants to wait on Colorado to see if there are social costs associated with the legalization of recreational marijuana.
“I’m not 100 percent opposed to it, but I’m also not 100 percent for it,” he said, “so I’m kind of in the middle, wanting some more information.”
Conley is solidly in support of legalizing marijuana for those over 21, for the state to “tax it and use that revenue to deal with some of our deficits.”
Opposed to tolls and wary of marijuana legalization, Scott’s ideas to address the deficit spending and pension obligations are to “get the unions back to the table” and to take advantage of technologies to make systems, like payroll, more efficient.
He also points to his goal of cutting back on regulations and red tape for businesses to increase revenue.
Conley cited Rep. Diana Urban’s multi-year push for doing results-based accounting to “find out where the duplicities are,” saying the state could free up some money by “switching folks over to the right types of programs so we’re not only saving money but also serving people better.”
Education funding
Both candidates expressed concern with the volatility of Education Cost Sharing grants to towns, with Conley saying this portion of the budget needs to be done earlier in the year.
Scott blamed Conley for voting for a budget “that really stuck it to the town of Ledyard,” considering Ledyard sent out a supplemental tax bill in February to help close a deficit brought about by a $1.5 million cut in state aid.
Conley voted for a budget that included a loss of $600,000 in Education Cost Sharing dollars to Ledyard, while Rep. Mike France, whose district includes most of the town, voted against the budget.
Conley argued that Ledyard’s budget struggles also came from having a bond payment due, and noted that she voted in favor of a bill that would prevent the governor from being able to do mid-year cuts to town. The governor vetoed the bill.