Election’s over; time for Lamont to do big things

Two terms seems like enough. That’s what a president gets. Eight years and then done.

Dan Malloy did two terms. Jodi Rell did most of two terms. Going beyond two terms means going the full John Rowland, and no one needs another John Rowland.

So let’s assume this is it for Ned Lamont. This past Election Day was the last time his name will appear on a ballot, and by 2026 he’ll retire into life as an elder statesman and Democratic sage. There are worse things.

If that’s the case, it should be freeing. A politician who doesn’t have to face the electorate again should be able to do some important things without worrying about a short-term backlash. Whatever happens next, the electoral blame will hit someone else.

It’s not quite that simple — assuming he doesn’t run again, Lamont would certainly want his successor to be a Democrat, whether it’s Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz or someone else. He’s not going to do anything crazy like annex Block Island.

But he does have more room to maneuver. He should be able to push the boundaries on policy, go places he might otherwise have avoided. And with large majorities in both houses of the General Assembly, there should be ways to make progress on key challenges.

For instance, housing. Connecticut needs more of it. Towns that lack housing have too many ways to say no. Proposals that make sense are bogged down for years in hearings, denials and lawsuits. The result is a state that prices people out and is hurt economically by a lack of population growth. We are not making room for people who want to live here, and as a result the state is not half as dynamic as it could be.

Housing came up in the gubernatorial race, but it wasn’t a driving issue. Bob Stefanowski, in the course of a his six-year campaign to lead the state, could have picked up on an issue that Lamont was ignoring and tried to make some headway, but that didn’t happen. He managed, instead, to be even worse on the issue than a governor who studiously ignored the problem.

For instance, in a mailer sent to voters in advance of the election, the Stefanowski campaign pasted a picture of a maybe 15-story apartment building alongside the words “If Lamont gets his way, this will be the new house in your neighborhood.”

It continued: “FACT: Lamont will take away your local control of zoning and mandate low income housing if he wins a second term as governor.”

Some people might have looked at the picture on Bob’s mailer and thought, “Fun, new neighbors.” But that’s not the effect it was going for. This is propaganda designed to scare people, using coded language that doesn’t come out and say what it means, even as everyone who sees it knows what it means.

It’s not politically tenable to say “We don’t want Black people here.” You can’t just come and announce your town doesn’t like poor people. So instead appeals are made on the basis of opposing affordable housing, or sometimes even just apartments, which has become a stand-in for low-income people of color who live in cities. There’s nothing subtle about this.

It wasn’t any different than the coordinated Republican campaign on crime. With little to say on issues of substance, Republicans in Connecticut resorted to scare tactics. That it didn’t win them any elections this year does not mean it’s ineffective. If it didn’t work, we’d have a lot more housing in more places.

Lamont himself doesn’t have much to say about affordable housing. When asked about it, he usually refers vaguely to downtown units that would appeal to teachers and firefighters, which is fine, but it’s rare that he’ll get into specifics.

Building affordable housing requires money. Most housing is built by private developers, so if there’s going to be an affordable component, there is usually a state subsidy. Otherwise it’s harder to make the math work. So the governor and General Assembly can commit to spending more of that ever-growing state surplus on housing subsidies.

But more than that, it requires a place. Too many towns are far too conditioned to see housing of any type other than single-family homes as detrimental to their community aesthetics, property values and safety. None of that has to be true, but it requires educating people to get that message across. Few people are in a better position to lead that campaign than the governor.

Barring a successful persuasion campaign, it requires changing statutes that give local communities too many opportunities to say no to everything. That means new state laws. There will again be a push in the General Assembly in the next regular session to make that happen, and in the past, Lamont has done all he can to keep quiet on the question.

His reelection is now in the past. His leadership has been ratified by the voters. There’s a chance for him to accomplish something important, and it starts with a push on housing.