Jason Bartlett is not hiding under a rock. Even during the coronavirus crisis.
The former City Hall youth department chief and top mayoral aide — who was fired last month for alleged unethical behavior — announced the formation of an exploratory committee to challenge incumbent New Haven/West Haven State Sen. Gary Winfield.
“Make no doubt about it. We’re putting a team together. We’re going to talk about issues and put together a vision,” Bartlett told the Independent Monday.
He’s starting out with an exploratory committee, as many candidates do, to give him two shots to raise money.
“I feel I have a story I need to tell in the first 30 – 60 days that is more complicated because of some of the things that have happened to me,” including responding to “unfair slander made against me by political opponents,” Bartlett said.
He released an announcement video Monday in a polished 8:26 video (watch it above) in which he takes his firing head on, and turns it into a campaign plank. If he proceeds with a full campaign, Bartlett would seek to challenge Winfield in a Democratic primary for the 10th State Senate District nomination.
He argues in the video (as he does in a legal complaint against the city; read about both sides in that dispute here and here) that he was wrongfully terminated. He cited the example of his mother, a fire marshal who won a wrongful termination suit.
“I too did my job,” Bartlett tells the camera. “I too was lied upon. … A bogus reason was given to terminate me.”
“When I go to Hartford,” he vows. “I will make sure that worker rights are protected, that union rights are protected.”
Bartlett is a former state representative who went on to lead former State Sen. Toni Harp’s successful 2013 campaign for mayor, then became one of his top advisers until she put him on leave in 2019 after a federal subpoena sought records about how Bartlett’s department spent money. His current complaint against the city accuses Harp’s administration of discriminating against him based on sexual orientation.
“Mayor Harp and I continue to have a good relationship. I have no regrets about my time in the Harp administration,” Bartlett said. “I respect her as mayor. I respect what she did as state senator. I learned a lot from her.”
If elected, Bartlett promises in the video, he would focus on youth and education by promoting “restorative practices” rather than expulsion in schools, as New Haven has done; and more hours of instructional time for suspended students. He vowed to create jobs by promoting the creation of a tax-increment financing authority that could float bonds to support infrastructure improvements, for instance on Long Wharf and along West Haven’s waterfront. He called for improved and free bus service.
And he vowed to fight harder than current state legislators for more state aid for New Haven. His video closes with a vow to “go back to the days of Toni Harp, when we had a senator looking out for the people of New Haven and West Haven and bringing money back to our community.”
Thomas Breen Photo
State Sen. Gary Winfield.
Winfield, who won a state representative seat in 2008 and then the State Senate seat in 2014, is running for reelection. He told the Independent Monday that he welcomes challenges, noting that he speaks nationwide about Connecticut’s public-financing system as a model for helping more people run for office.
He noted that Bartlett’s video “starts off talking about criminal justice. I’ve worked on criminal justice for a very long time. It goes on to speak about workers and unions. I’m rated as a top legislator by state unions.
“But there’s always a time for a conversation about my history and my potential opponent’s history and allow people to decide.”
Among his proudest achievements, he said, was his years-long leadership of the ultimately successful quest to abolish the death penalty in Connecticut; and championing legislation that requires detailed racial-profiling data from local police departments and race and ethnicity breakdowns from prosecutors on how they treat cases, the only law of its kind in the nation.
He also mentioned helping lead the charge for a minimum-wage hike when he co-chaired the legislature’s labor committee and introducing a “shared solar” initiative that makes green power available to lower-income people when he co-chaired the energy community. He noted his participation in “raise the age” legislation that led to fewer teens being tried for crimes as adults and shepherding a first-in-the-nation law to allow for racial and ethnic impact statements on pending legislation.
He said he brought a needed outside perspective to criminal justice as the first non-attorney to co-chair the Judiciary Committee.
“Right now,” Winfield added,” I’m preoccupied with the coronavirus, getting information to people, making sure people stay safe.”
Oh thank you NHI for publishing such a knee-slapper of an article in these trying, frightening times We all could use a laugh right about now.