Two very different debates took place Tuesday night, Oct. 8 at the Wilton Library, with two candidates for the State House of Representatives 42nd District, and two for the State Senate 26th District, squaring off.
The event was hosted by the library, the Wilton League of Women Voters, and GOOD Morning Wilton, which did a livestream of the two one-hour debates. [Editor’s note: GMW will be posting edited clips of each debate as well as candidates’ answers to individual questions so readers can compare candidates’ stances on specific issues. Stories will be updated with videos and links accordingly.]
The first debate for the open 42nd District seat, which represents Wilton and includes parts of New Canaan and Ridgefield, offered a more cerebral exchange between Republican Kim Healy, a current Wilton Board of Selectmen member, and Democrat Savet Constantine, a longtime PTA leader.
The second debate for the 26th District race between incumbent Democratic State Sen. Ceci Maher and challenger Republican Kami Evans, a marketing professional from Westport, featured an ample helping of personal conviction and emotion from Evans, which was sometimes oddly juxtaposed with Maher’s detailed assessments of her experiences in Hartford. The 26th District includes Wilton, Darien, New Canaan, Redding, Ridgefield, Stamford, Weston and Westport.
State House of Representatives 42nd District Debate
While they strived to emphasize some differences during follow-up comments, Constantine and Healy shared a civil debate with a lot of common ground between them.
Healy spoke several times about her background as a certified public accountant, noting that areas of state operations needed to be audited, and results, as they related to fiscal management, put into better practice.
“We always hear that our state doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem,” she said. “And I think if we control the spending problem … we should be able to manage our funds better and provide tax relief to everyone.”
“There are a lot of audit reports that come out of our state,” Healy said. “I do not see a lot of action taken on them. There’s a lot of savings that could have been generated from that and passed on down to us.”
Healy noted that the state’s biggest industry was the state itself, and that large pensions, benefits and pay opportunities needed to be arrested and reexamined.
Ironically, she praised Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont for his financial oversight.
“He is a very seemingly fiscal responsible governor,” Healy said. “I hope that if, unless another amazing candidate comes up, that he runs again, because he is the fail-stop for some of the bills he’s had to veto, some of the bad, fiscally unsound laws that have come out of the legislature.”
While Healy said her first choice is to serve on the Appropriations Committee in the state legislature, Constantine said her first choice was the Education Committee, which she called “the reason why we all moved here.”
While Healy chastised the state for implementing new reading programs, which caused consternation for Wilton Public Schools administrators and added new costs to the district, Constantine pointed out the motive behind its reasoning.
“From our data, we are showing that without this phonics program, that some kids are falling through the cracks,” she said, citing conversations with experts and advocates in special education who would argue that Wilton’s past approach to reading hasn’t benefitted every student.
The state mandate, from which town school officials had hoped the district would be exempted, forced Wilton to adopt a new and costly reading program for primary grades, being piloted this year.
“This is bureaucracy at work,” Constantine said, noting that a good state representative needs to work with the state to foster flexibility.
“That’s why in the next term we can always re-address it,” she said. “It’s always very important to keep the conversation going.”
Constantine said the first bill she would ideally consider sponsoring would center on guns, including prohibiting concealed weapons at voting stations.
Healy made several comments about the police needing greater power, in part to address illegal guns, stating they needed to have their authority returned to search vehicles.
“There is an increase in people being pulled over for alcohol and drug use … I think distracted driving is another big issue that we should absolutely be addressing,” she noted on the topic of traffic and safe driving.
“If the police had the support that they need to be able to address these issues while patrolling our roads, we could do a lot to make the roads more safe,” she said.
Constantine concurred on this point.
“I think everyone started noticing after Covid the way people are driving, the disrespect that people have for other drivers for not obeying stop signs,” she said. “We do need to give our police the tools in order to police the roads, in order to make drivers more aware of their driving habits.”
While the two jointly acknowledged problems with some areas of the state, including the affordability housing law 8-30g, they shared different outlooks on the No-Excuse Absentee Voting amendment.
“It’s really about expanding people’s choices to vote as it suits their lives … It helps expand the electorate. It helps expand Americans’ right to vote,” Constantine said.
Healy, meanwhile, said she “[didn’t] really have an opinion” on no-excuse absentee voting, but that voter fraud was of greater concern to her.
“I suspect [no-excuse absentee voting will] pass and I guess I support that,” she said, although she criticized the 14 extra days of early voting passed by the legislature because she said legislators didn’t also give funding to municipalities to address associated extra costs.
“I think the more important issue is securing the vote … We need to make it really hard to cheat,” she said, citing a case of fraud in Bridgeport.
This offered some back-and-forth with Constantine.
“Whenever there is voter fraud, it’s usually caught, and the Bridgeport ones, they were caught,” Constantine said. “They are being punished.”
“I do not know a single person who does not want secure voting,” Constantine added. “We want to make sure everyone has the right to vote, has the ability to vote, and has their vote count.”
Healy was skeptical.
“I guess I would just hope that we would require IDs to vote, because we do not and we do not require signature verification,” she said.
State Senate 26th District Debate
Asked what laws they might hope to champion if elected, Maher had the advantage of mentioning a family court mediation bill that had already been written in her last term, “so that children are not hurt during family court and divorce proceedings.”
“That’s all set and ready to go,” she said.
She also referencing a second bill to install silent alarms in schools to warn of shooting incidents as well as a third bill on her agenda to limit the number of gun purchases per month from the current number — three — to one.
“Thirty-six guns a year… I’d like to take that down to one, buying 12 guns over the course of the year. Seems like a reasonable amount for a gun owner, and it allows that people can purchase guns, but it also reduces the amount of guns out on the street,” Maher said.
On the same question, Evans said there should be a spotlight on veterans. “I think there’s a missed opportunity where we can bring them into the fold, bring them into our schools as SROs, and really champion them,” she said.
Both spoke in favor of local control on issues like zoning and education, with Evans taking a stronger stand.
“We need to be more focused on having the entire family and caregivers and parents be the ones to be more engaged,” she said, “and I don’t think there should be so much overreach. Government should be a compliment to our society, not mandate us on every single aspect of what we’re doing.”
Maher said she believe “100%” in local control, but noted that the town has to work in consort with Hartford.
“That is the goal that I’ve always had in terms of going up to Hartford,” she said.
In response to Maher’s comments about working together in Hartford, Evans said she had attended a discussion on mental health organized by Maher earlier that day, but had felt ignored and alienated.
“I was kind of like in the naughty corner because I wasn’t on the panel, but I had so much that I could offer and share, but I was told to sit to the side,” she said.
Maher countered that the event hadn’t been a public meeting, but an invitation-only pediatric roundtable aimed at hearing 14 different doctors discuss mental health.
“I don’t know if that was an apology,” Evans responded.
“No, I don’t believe it was an apology,” Maher said.
“I know it wasn’t an apology, but that’s fine,” Evans said, adding the non sequitur, “I work very hard as a single mom.”
Evans stressed her role as a single mother, as well as a focus on addressing issues of mental health among teens.
Ironically, at one point she identified herself as being “super dyslexic,” telling the audience, “If I jump around a little, I apologize. Just deal with my little neurodivergent moments.”
Evans span of comments included a range of other personal revelations and references, including her switch to Christianity, her trials with trying to get pregnant, and her challenges living in an 850-square-foot home with her two daughters.
As the incumbent, Maher referenced either work she’s done or information she’s gathered through her time in Hartford, furthering the distinction between her and the challenger Evans, who relied more on her personal experiences.
Answering a question about how “our state senators should understand rail from first hand experience” because many constituents are regular commuters, Maher pointed to learning about a study on “support[ing] workers in terms of transportation” during a call with the Office of Workforce Strategy, and discussed the use of ARPA money for improving state infrastructure and addressing the issues on the Danbury rail line.
Evans’ answer touched on being a “slow driver” and understanding from her time living in Europe that rail travel was considered a luxury. “I wish we could incorporate that somehow in Fairfield County … it’s a more sustainable way of traveling into the city, and I welcome it.”
The same imbalance showed up in answers both gave to a question on what the state should do about climate change. Maher referenced meeting the governor’s representative to discuss specifics on how a proposed bill would impact local towns, and what she’d focus on with a return to Hartford: “That includes emissions from cars. It includes vegetative waste [which] creates methane, and the methane is 25% more dangerous to our environment than carbon dioxide out of cars. There are ways that we can address it, and we need to do it.”
Evans noted, “my family has been in the recycling business in South Carolina and in Puerto Rico. So sustainability is very important to me. I think we all can support doing better.”
She added that conversations about climate change can overwhelming younger people “that the whole world’s going to fall apart,” and by “encourag[ing] better living, supporting our communities, but also not doing so much doom and gloom on our kids, because they’re just ready to call it a day. A lot of the antidepressants are being given to kids because they’re so overwhelmed, and we need to make sure that we’re giving them hope.”