New Haven Independent

That “if”: If New Haven Democrats can rally together behind one of (at last count) five leading gubernatorial hopefuls from their party, and if that candidate can make a case for cities that has fallen on deaf ears for 20 years.

Republican Rell (pictured) startled the state late Monday afternoon by announcing she’s retiring at the end of the year. That gave an initial jolt to the campaigns of six Democrats already eyeing her seat, and opened the gate to Republicans awaiting their turns. (Click here to read about that.)

In Democrat-dominated New Haven, some elected officials saw a door open that has been shut for two decades — the door to the governor’s office in a government with a strong executive, at a state capitol where advocates for cities often find themselves outnumbered by advocates of suburban interests.

Democrats outnumber Republicans in Connecticut. All five U.S. representatives are (liberal) Democrats. Yet no Democrat has won the governor’s office since 1986. New Haven politicians feel the city has suffered as a result.

The Democrats even control both houses of the state legislature. But because they have been outcasts from the governor’s office since before some voters were born, they have found efforts to broaden health care coverage or boost aid to the poor stymied by gubernatorial vetoes or veto threats.

Rell’s personal popularity convinced many Democrats that 2010 was shaping up as another loser year.

That all changed in an instant Monday evening. And the “o” word starting trickling off New Haven Democratic tongues.

“An opportunity to protect our city in the budget,” was State Rep. Pat Dillon’s reaction.

“It gives us an opportunity for finally after two decades to have a Democratic governor” and send more aid to cities, remarked State Sen. Toni Harp, who said she’s “leaning” toward backing Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Ned Lamont.

“It creates the best opportunity the Democrats have had to elect a governor since our last successful campaign — in 1986,” declared State Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney. “Clearly she would have been a formidable candidate had she run.”

“I’m excited. I think it’s an incredible opportunity in our state to talk about land use policy and transportation policy and real job-growth strategies — things under Rowland and Rell that have been ignored for the last decade,” said East Rock Alderman Roland Lemar, who has traveled to the Capitol to lobby for more urban aid and is believed to have his eye on a state legislative seat. (Click on the play arrow to watch one such New Haven pitch, to an unreceptive former House speaker who’s now running for governor; and click here to read about it.)

Leading Democrats seeking or “exploring” seeking the nomination to run for governor so far include Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy, former U.S. Senate candidate Lamont, former House Speaker Jim Amann, and State Sen. Gary LeBeau. The first three all have supporters in New Haven and have been showing up in town. Bysiewicz has emerged as the early front-runner; a Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday morning showed that she had been trailing Rell by only six points.

Democratic Dreamin’

Sen. Looney pointed to specific measures he and other Democratic party leaders had hoped to pass into law but couldn’t without a governor of their own party. A personal crusade of his was to create a state version of the national earned income tax credit. That plan would give the working poor a break on their taxes — a reverse kind of government aid pioneered by President Bill Clinton. It sounds like a politically palatable “tax cut” rather than a government benefit or handout.

Two years ago, “when we had the money,” legislative leaders pressed the idea in budget negotiations, Looney recalled.

“We tried to make it part of the deal,” he said. “She said it was a deal-breaker.”

A Democratic governor could also open the gate to more aid for urban schools and a “recognition that the major issue facing our state” is the achievement gap, Looney predicted.

Sen. Harp (pictured) focused on PILOT, or payments in lieu of taxes, the program that is supposed to reimburse cities for the tax revenue they lose for hosting not-for-profit universities and hospitals that benefit the region. A Democratic governor would be open to reimbursing cities with more than the 60-some-odd percent each year they receive now for the amount lost, she predicted.

She and other Democrats echoed their party’s gubernatorial candidates in speaking about rebuilding urban economies — Connecticut has ranked last in the nation in job growth since the last Democratic governor left office in 1990.

Roland Lemar spoke, too, about boosting mass transit and about property tax reform, issues that Democratic governors in other states have embraced.

Not So Fast?

But Democratic candidates for governor in Connecticut have made the case for property tax reform and other New Haven-friendly issues for five straight gubernatorial elections — and lost every one.

That’s why New Haven Board of Aldermen President Carl Goldfield was more measured in his reaction to the Rell bombshell.

“In my most hopeful moments I think we’ll get somebody who’s really dynamic and will change the direction of the state ” toward property tax reform and away from “more massive highway projects and long commutes,” Goldfield said. But he noted the tendency of voters to choose otherwise in gubernatorial elections. And, he observed, “I don’t think any of the Democrats who are running [for governor] are particularly exciting and have great statewide name recognition.”

New Haven’s Democrats haven’t always presented a united front in governor’s races, either. Leading black Democratic voters, along with many rank-and-file voters, broke from the party to support Republican-turned-independent Lowell Weicker in 1990. In 2006, some local Democrats backed hometown gubernatorial candidate John DeStefano’s opponent in a primary.

“If we become divided because of our support for one candidate or another, we could lose sight of our responsibility to represent the people in a budget year that will be challenging enough as it is,” State Rep. Dillon cautioned. As of now, no one gubernatorial candidate appears to have emerged as a frontrunner for New Haven’s support.

Even if Democrats do win the governor’s office, there’s no guarantee the victor would deliver for cities. Or that Democrats would fight any less with each other than they did with Republicans. Just ask the Democrats in Massachusetts. In Connecticut, suburban Democrats haven’t always seen eye-to-eye with urban Democrats. (Toni Harp argued that in the past decade a new coalition has developed uniting cities with inner-ring suburbs experiencing urban problems.)

Finally, Connecticut might have even less money to spend in 2011 or 2012 than it has now — and at least count, it’s $624 million in the hole. Democrat or Republican, a governor may not have a lot to offer cities, even if she wants to.

Given the economic outlook, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano — who as the Democratic gubernatorial candidate against Rell in 2006 saw great potential for cities being helped by Hartford — was decidedly unmoved by the Rell announcement.

“I don’t think in and of itself it means anything particularly,” he said Monday night by phone from San Antonio, where he arrived to attend a National League of Cities convention.

“We have all of 2010 to go through. The state is going to have problems in the current year financially. We have a lot of living to do before we get to [the 2010] elections … No matter who the governor is, there is a reality to our circumstances now. The state isn’t growing. You’re going to have to make some hard choices. In some ways, no matter who’s governor, those choices will frame a difficult time.”

And in two years, when federal economic stimulus runs out, the state might find itself wallowing in even deeper red ink, DeStefano has warned.

No wonder he continues to express no interest in running for governor this year. Even with the uber-popular Rell out of the picture.

“I feel very good about the agenda in front of us [in New Haven],” DeStefano said. “I’m excited about school change. For me in New Haven now, that’s the place to be.”