State Rep. Pat Dillon at WNHH FM.
The New York Mets are on a hot streak, winning 15 of their last 17 games.
Pat Dillon is on a hot streak, too, winning 19 of her last 19 campaigns for state representative.
Now the Mets are looking to keep the streak going and make the playoffs. Dillon is looking to keep the streak going and serve four full decades helping to make laws in Hartford.
Baseball has changed since Dillon was growing up in Flushing, Queens, and cheering for the scrappy team that captured the imagination of a scrappy borough. That hasn’t stopped her from savoring the team’s red-hot season this year, even if the hedge funder-owned team of multimillionaires is no longer the “miracle” underdogs of 1969. It hasn’t stopped her from believing.
“Yes,” Dillon acknowledged, baseball has changed, but “I still root.”
Politics has changed, too, since Dillon won her first term as a state representative in 1984. That hasn’t stopped Dillon from believing in the ability to tackle tough issues through the political process.
She points to this year’s legislative session as an example of how, in her view, she and the Democratic team made a difference.
Dillon is running for a 20th two-year term representing the 92nd General Assembly District, which includes Westville, West River, and upper Westville/Amity/Beverly Hills. A League of Women Voters volunteer named Lesley McGuirk has filed papers to challenge Dillon as an independent in November’s general election. (The city clerk’s office confirmed that McGuirk submitted more than the 84 needed voter signatures to qualify for the ballot; the office has forwarded McGuirk’s petitions to the secretary of the state’s office for a final review.) No Republican is on the ballot. Alder Darryl Brackeen has decided not to pursue an anticipated challenge.
Dillon spoke about this season’s legislative accomplishments, about why she’s continuing to seek to serve in elected office, and about the New York Mets, during a conversation this week on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
She cited her work as co-chair of the Appropriations Committee’s health subcommittee in shepherding the passage of a new office of gun violence prevention to focus on “applied research” about what’s working in the field. “It’s going to be separate from what we already do in other departments. Right now we’re funding boots-on-the-ground programs that are really important. There was a strong constituency this year for doing evidence-based research” to help steer future funding to efforts that are saving lives.
She spoke of money she was able to help bring home: $2 million to retrofit a new early-education center on the Boulevard, $1 million from the federal infrastructure bill (flowing through the state) for safety upgrades on treacherous Forest Road, $3 million for Meals on Wheels. She spoke of the legislature’s doubling of municipal aid to New Haven through the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program and an expansion of mental health services, especially in schools.
Baseball players tend to give canned answers when asked questions by on-air interviewers. In that respect, politics does not imitate sports, at least in Dillon’s case. She pivots to nuance.
For instance, on “Dateline,” she was asked about the current debate over whether “experience” is a liability or a strength in an elected official. Challengers this political season are arguing that incumbent politicians are “the problem,” that their legislative experience makes them less qualified to serve in office. Incumbents are arguing that lawmakers learn over time how better to negotiate and pass laws and deliver results for constituents.
Dillon didn’t offer the expected answer. She didn’t say that serving in office a long time automatically makes someone a better legislator.
The proof, she said, is what happens on the state Capitol field.
“Some people only see things through their own lens, so they don’t learn,” Dillon said. “We had some great new legislators. And we have some great veterans. It’s a great mix.”
Click on the video to watch the full conversation with State Rep. Pat Dillion on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”
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