Congressman Jim Himes

We will face an important choice this fall. We can either continue the progress that helped save us from the brink of another great Depression or return to the failed policies that drained retirement accounts, resulted in record foreclosures, and let organizations like BP run wild with no oversight.

It is absolutely essential that voters understand this choice. To that end, my campaign will begin airing our first television ad soon.

Click here to view the ad titled “Independent.” And while you’re at it, I hope you become a fan on Facebook.

Thank you,

Jim

Congressman Jim Himes will be in our area to conduct the third and final scheduled town hall on the federal budget on Thursday, August 12th from 7:30 to 9 PM.

The event will be held at New Canaan High School, 11 Farm Road in New Canaan (map).

A Candid Discussion on the Federal Budget

Congressman Himes conducted similar town hall meetings recently in Fairfield and Shelton. He will offer a presentation on the problems and issues facing legislators as they look ahead a decade or two and see enormous structural problems in the federal budget.  He will discuss his own votes since 2009 and his thinking about contemporary proposals, including the potential extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

There will be ample time for questions and discussion.  Please attend and participate in this important discussion.

The Democratic and Republican primaries will be held on Tuesday, August 10, 2010. Learn more about the Convention-endorsed candidates.

Candidates in Democratic Primaries:

• GOVERNOR: *Dan Malloy, Ned Lamont
• LT. GOV.: *Nancy Wyman, Mary Messina Glassman
• SEC OF STATE: *Denise Merrill, Gerry Garcia
• COMPTROLLER: *Kevin Lembo, Michael J. Jarjura
  (Editor’s note – Mike Jarjura, who is being advised by disgraced former governor John Rowland, is anti-choice and a board member of the ultra-right wing Family Institute.)

* = endorsed candidates

Voting Information

Polls will be open from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at all 3 polling places:

• District 1 – Wilton High School Clune Center
• District 2: Driscoll School Gym
• District 3 – Middlebrook School Cafeteria

If you aren’t sure of your voting district, you may look it up on the Town of Wilton site.

Only registered Democrats and registered Republicans may vote in their party’s respective primaries. Unaffiliated voters can mail in a party enrollment card by August 5 or can stop by the Registrar’s office in person to affiliate up until 12 noon on August 9.

In many families, women are the primary breadwinners or contribute to a two-income household, and they need leaders who will make the right choices to grow the economy with high-paying jobs open to everyone.

Congressman Himes Fights for Women

Jim Himes has stood as a proud advocate for women in the nation’s Capitol, ensuring better access to quality health care coverage for women, fighting encroachment on women’s reproductive rights, advocating for improved childcare options and more flexibility in the workplace, and standing for the principle of equal pay for equal work with his support of the Lily Ledbetter Act.

As a supportive husband and proud father of two young girls, Jim will always work toward progress for all women.

Help Re-elect Congressman Himes

We need Jim to keep fighting for us! Add your voice to support and endorse Jim Himes, our strong voice for women in Washington. Sign-up today to join Women for Himes.

The Wilton Democratic Town Committee will hold its 5^th Annual Barbeque for Victory fundraiser on Saturday, September 25, 2010.

The event will be held at Merwin Meadows from 11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. and will feature food, fun, friends, and great guest speakers, including:

• Congressman Jim Himes
• State Representative Peggy Reeves
• State Senate candidate John Hartwell

Tickets are $45 per person. Family tickets are $100. Tickets for children under 15 are $10 each or free for children under 3.

To reserve your tickets, please contact Finance Committee Chair Barbara Massy Bear via email or phone at (203) 762-5803.

In a result that augurs well for November, Coach David Borglum’s team prevailed over the Wilton Republicans at the 2010 Frivolity Bowl by a resounding 23-0.

A town tradition that began in the 1960s, the Frivolity Bowl is annual softball game held between the Wilton Democrats and Republicans every July 4. With the 2010 win, the Wilton Democrats narrowly lead the almost 50-year series.
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Budget, 2012

FY2011 Budget passed as proposed: Mill Rate up 2.9%, Grand List up .7%, BOS Budget up .28%, BOE Budget up 1.17%, Senior Tax Relief up 6.2%, and Wilton still holds a AAA Moody’s rating. Unions have come to the table for pay freezes; we are still waiting for the teacher’s union. The Town Meeting was packed–standing room only. Budget passed with a comfortable margin. We are already preparing for Budget 2012.

My Take: This has been a tough budget year; at the same time, I left the Town Meeting feeling quite uplifted! The turnout was wonderful, and people spoke passionately, yet respectfully, in expressing their thoughts, concerns, and hopes. I applaud all of the Town Boards along with our First Selectman for working through tough issues. While I believe the economy, and the overall state of the nation is improving overall, this will still be a very, very tough upcoming budget year locally. There is a lot of hard work and sacrifice yet to come, but there is hope at the end of the tunnel!

Re-usable Bag Ordinance

Only 1% of plastic bags are recycled

My Take: I am very hopeful that over time, this initiative will be passed in a form that best suits Wilton. While China and most of Europe have long decided that retail checkout bags–plastic or otherwise–are a detriment to the environment and a waste of resources, old habits die hard! Businesses can be proud that they have plastic bag return bins, but the unfortunate reality is that the recovery rate is hovering at 2% in the United States. You can bet that the lobbyists will be sending their minions to upcoming BOS meetings; your public support in the form of letters to the editor and comments at our meetings will be most helpful in furthering this crucial grass roots environmental effort! That being said, I did have a sit down with Peter Keating (owner, Village Mkt), and Mark Carluzzi (Carluzzi’s) about how the ban would affect them specifically. We will crunch some numbers. My first real job was at the Village Market; Peter was the Manager at the time. I want to make sure that our local markets can survive any action we take. I believe they can, but we still have work to do. Whether or not this effort moves forward depends on your support. No public support, no movement. So, if you believe this is worthwhile, we need those letters…

Dog Ordinance/Town Playing Fields

Parks and Rec. still wants a stronger ordinance concerning dogs near playing fields. They have adjusted their fifty feet ban of dogs near playing fields to twenty five feet – with exceptions for paths that cross near a field, such as with Merwin. The driver is that there has been too much dog excrement on fields, some altercations between dogs, and the concern that players may crash into dogs. Another version is on the way, clarifying specific fields.

My Take: The concern is, again, and again, legitimate. Unfortunately, the current ordinance is not effectively enforced; dogs are already prohibited from fields. While I agree dogs should not be on fields, I still feel that even twenty five feet is too harsh for all fields. The stadium and Lilly Field may be legitimate, but I do not want to burden good owners with good dogs from attending all sporting events. We are still working on this, and want to get it right. There is new language on the way this summer, that could help clarify things.

Troop Boxes

Trackside is now also helping with the troop box drive. They were featured recently on News 12 for their efforts!

My Take: This is great, because the drive needs help! Our troops are working hard for us, far away from home. Please grab a flat rate box that I have put at the entrance of town hall, along with a list of items needed. Boxes can be filled and returned to Town Hall – just let us know what you put in them! We can also accept donations for shipping (checks can be made payable to the Wilton Town Hall Troop Box Drive). FYI, at present we do have money to ship, but no boxes to ship, so please, take a box!

Contact Selectman Ted Hoffstatter any time with comments or questions via email or phone at (203) 451-5049.

Let’s take a quick look around the country at the primary races, and the choices made by the GOP. This is no longer a party that recognizes or makes room for the values of New England moderates.

I understand that proud traditions fade slowly, but I also think there comes a point where folks ought to recognize the writing on the wall. Consider these notes from campaigns now underway:

Kentucky:

Republican primary voters in Kentucky ignored the GOP establishment and overwhelmingly selected Rand Paul to run for the US Senate. He promptly drew enormous scrutiny and criticism for… saying what he really believes. He is certain that the federal government should stand by and allow businesses to deny black people a seat at a restaurant table or a night in a hotel. Sure, he backpedaled his response and endorsed the Civil Rights Act (I’m sure his Profile in Courage award will be forthcoming).

But the fact is: he espoused a view of government that probably doesn’t comport with that of the New England branch of the Republican party. In fact, it was the New England Republicans (and others outside the South) of 1964 who gave the Civil Rights Act the margins needed to overcome near-uniform resistance from Southern Democrats — the same folks who are now overwhelmingly Republican. But the Civil Rights Act controversy wasn’t the strangest thing Rand Paul had to say in the weeks following his primary victory. He is iffy on the 14th Amendment. That is truly amazing. Children born in the US to immigrant parents, regardless of whether they are here legally or not, are US citizens. This is nothing novel. The Supreme Court settled that question, oh, 100 years ago. Yet Rand Paul – and the state senator from Arizona who wrote the controversial, recently-enacted immigration legislation – think there’s something wrong with a fundamental element of our Constitution that has long defined who an American is.

So in Kentucky, you have a GOP electorate endorsing a candidate for US Senate, who is skeptical of parts of the Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment. If your party is leaving you…

Maine:

At state conventions, delegates endorse candidates. But they also draft and endorse a state party platform. Up in Maine, the Republican delegates adopted a platform that is shocking. It’s only four pages. I urge you to go read it. If you think the Tea Party types are some isolated fringe group that has nothing to do with the traditions of New England Republicans, consider that in a New England state, the Republican party now espouses these views:

• Repeal and prohibit any participation in efforts to create a one world government.
• Reject the UN Treaty on Rights of the Child.
• Investigate collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth
• Pass and implement Fed bill #1207 (Introduced by Ron Paul), to Audit the Federal Reserve, as the first step in Ending the Fed
• Return to the principles of Austrian Economics

Bonus points if you know what Austrian Economics is all about (here’s a hint: Ron Paul has written six books on the subject). There’s more: Tenther stuff, specific targeting of ACORN, and “Reject[ing] any effort to give foreign citizens the right to vote” (What? Huh? Did I miss something in the news lately?). And I love the bit where they specify that “Congress can no longer vote themselves a pay raise.” That is specifically addressed in the 27th Amendment. Sure, it took 202 years to ratify, but it’s there. For all the professed reverence for the Constitution, they sure are quick to toss aside the parts that conflict with policy they want to impose while taking the country back (how far back always remains unclear).

This is in New England. Do you think Olympia Snowe is grateful that her term isn’t up in 2010? If your party is leaving you…

Nevada:

Chickens. A serious Republican Senate candidate wants you to pay for your health care with chickens. OK, I admit I’m over-simplifying. But it’s funny stuff. The candidate for US Senate who was most likely to end up challenging Harry Reid in November made a pretty colossal error and suggested that barter was a way to help keep health care costs down. She went on to say that decades ago, a farmer might offer to pay a doctor with a chicken, and that’s something we should look at now. Now, instead of saying “Look, I was merely saying people do all sorts of things to pay for the sky-high health care costs that we need to address, but I was not suggesting that actual barter is a real solution to this problem,” she dug in deeper. Her lead in the GOP field evaporated, opening the door to the Tea Party-endorsed Sharron Angle.

Again, in a race for the US Senate, the party seems like it’s going to nominate the candidate with the views that have nothing to do with reasonable, centrist, moderate governance. According to Angle, Social Security is “a broken system without much to recommend it.” She favors phasing it out. Good luck with that. She also wants to repeal the 16th Amendment (boy these Constitution-lovers sure do hate those pesky Amendments!). That’s the income tax. And while a state senator in Nevada, “she wanted female inmates to enter a drug rehabilitation program devised by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.”

So in Nevada, you have the chicken-barter slip-up leading to the political ascendancy of a candidate who wants to literally eliminate the tax code and social security. That is not someone serious about governing in the 21st century. If your party is leaving you…

Oregon:

This one is a little off the beaten path, but, the race for the House seat in Oregon’s Fourth Congressional district is instructive. One of my basic arguments is: you can’t identify a serious Democratic contender for a House seat that is this far outside the mainstream. Yet, you can find lots of candidates like Oregon’s Arthur Robinson on the GOP side. Mr. Robinson is nominated to challenge Democratic incumbent Peter DeFazio. Mr. Robinson will lose. DeFazio had no challenger in 2008, and has won with 20- or 30-point margins in previous contests. So perhaps the local GOP is just giving the nod to the only guy who wanted to take on the task. But, do you think a modern political party should put forth a nominee who says:

Home schooling is no more than a tool that can be used to keep a child out of the World.

If a young person is kept out of the World, the Lord will raise him (or her). Little else is necessary. The links to the Lord are already built into the child. He will follow those links and will directly help the child. All children receive this help. Parents really need do very little in addition.

He’s also an avid climate-change denier, and doesn’t think schools (or homeschoolers) should use any books published after 1950.

Can you find me ANY nominated Democratic candidate in any of the 435 districts in the US whose views on ANY aspect or function of the government are similarly extreme? I doubt it. Please try. If your party is leaving you…

Alabama:

This ad says everything you need to know about the heart of the modern Republican party. Now, this guy did lose in his primary, so his own party’s voters rejected this pitch. Thank heaven. But I think the ad demonstrates where the the base of the Republican party has shifted to in the last few decades. Sorry, folks. The center of the GOP is in the culturally distinct South.

Again, show me the ad from a statewide Democratic campaign (or federal campaign) ANYWHERE in the nation that is so out-of-step with the political norms and values of Connecticut voters. You just don’t see this sort of thing in Democratic campaigns, because Democrats are now the centrist, moderate party in this country. We have a left-wing and a conservative wing (and folks all along the spectrum in between). But the GOP is now reduced to a right-wing and a ultra-right-wing. If your party is leaving you…

And, of course, Connecticut:

The Republicans in Connecticut threw moderate Rob Simmons under the bus. A primary between him and Linda McMahon would have been beneficial, I think. But the Republican establishment in this state took a look at a moderate with a career in public service, including experience in the Congress and a woman with a career in (you can’t make this stuff up) TV wrestling whose only work experiences are promoting violence, sexism, and stereotypes to young people, and chose the latter. If you haven’t seen the WWE videos of simulated rape and necrophilia, or the depiction of a mentally disabled “character,” you haven’t yet seen the work of Linda McMahon.

There is no room in Connecticut’s Republican party for moderates, it seems. Even here in New Canaan – at the Memorial Day parade (which is supposed to be respected as a non-partisan event recognizing the solemn nature of the observance) – at least one member of the RTC was out there circulating petitions for Rob Merkle in the race for Congress. Apparently, Dan Debicella isn’t ultra-right-wing enough for some on the RTC.

To the other, moderate New Canaan Republicans, I continue to make the case: if your party is leaving you, it’s time to leave your party.

State Rep. Peggy Reeves and award-recipient Bruce Hampson

“This award is an honor that is shared with the members of the Wilton Energy Commission and with the members of the High School Renovation Building Committee,” said Hampson who received the award in part because of his work overseeing the state of the art energy conserving features at Wilton High School.

Hampson added, “The bottom line is that although we have added 200 tons of classroom air-conditioning and provide four times the fresh air than when the high school was built, we are using less energy and consequently emitting less greenhouse gases than before the renovation.”

Hampson was also honored for implementing an EPA Energy Star benchmarking of all municipal and school buildings, which led to a combined electrical use reduction of 12.2% from 2007 through 2009, for a cost savings to the Town of Wilton of approximately $150,000. He was also recognized for his work promoting clean energy, including creative campaigns to increase signups for the CT Clean Energy Options program that earned Wilton a free solar photovoltaic system under the Clean Energy Communities program.

State Representative Peggy Reeves, who represents Norwalk and Wilton in the Connecticut General Assembly, accompanied Hampson to yesterday’s ceremony along with members of the Wilton Energy Commission, the Superintendant of Schools, Dr. Gary Richards, and the former Chair of the Wilton Board of Education, Karen Birck.

“I am so proud of what Bruce has accomplished and am honored to be with him here today,” said Reeves. “The Town of Wilton has actually reduced its carbon footprint as a direct result of Bruce and the Wilton Energy Commission’s work”

The Climate Change Leadership Awards Program is an annual program developed by the Governor’s Steering Committee on Climate Change to recognize individuals and organizations that have taken exemplary action in the past year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. The Governor’s Steering Committee, established in 2003, is charged with leading a collaborative effort to develop and implement the Connecticut Climate Change Action Plan and the Connecticut Global Warming Solutions Act.

Representative Peggy Reeves is serving her first term representing most of Wilton and part of Norwalk in the 143rd Assembly District. Representative Reeves sits on the legislature’s Government Administration and Elections, Judiciary and Transportation Committees.

Nancy Wyman

The event will be a breakfast at Oscar’s Deli in Westport, located at
159 Main Street, from 7:30 – 9:00 am.

Download invitation (PDF)

Dan Malloy

Dan Malloy, candidate for Governor, will be our special guest.

They will make a dynamic team in Hartford. Please come and support Nancy, have a cup of coffee, a bagel and feel free to ask questions.