Paul Bass photo
Green Party gubernatorial candidate Michelle Bicking at WNHH FM.
Get ready to ride the rails from Sprague to New Haven in half an hour — aboard the Michelle Bicking Express.
That high-speed 66-mile train ride would become a real-life option if Bicking can convince enough people to write in her name on the Nov. 8 ballot and then if she can convince legislators to back her plans.
Bicking is the Green Party’s candidate for governor. She’s running a write-in campaign. (Find out more about that here.) She faces incumbent Democrat Ned Lamont, Republican Bob Stefanowski, and Independent Party candidate Rob Hotaling.
A social worker and doula, she’s campaigning on her experiences in the human services field. She said state officials too often lack that experience, which she called central to making policy decisions that affect people’s lives.
Governor is “a position of service,” Bicking said during an interview Tuesday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. “Clinicians’ central focus is looking at root causes.”
Asked about her policy priorities, Bicking led with mass transit. She proposed creating a statewide high-speed rail network that would connect people not already served along the I‑95/I‑91 corridor from any point in the state to another within 60 minutes.
“I want someone from Sprague or Pomfret to get to New Haven in 30 minutes,” she said.
She said she would finance the program not through tolls, but with federal infrastructure dollars and possible bonding.
Bicking also promised to pursue a single-payer universal health care system if elected governor. She spoke of the “donut hole” of people who make just enough money not to qualify for subsidized insurance; and of donating her services to refugees and others who haven’t been able to access mental health services. “The model has worked in other countries,” she noted.
She was asked about Vermont’s experience passing single-state single payer, only to ditch it when the population base proved too small to financially sustain the program. Bicking said she would explore an inter-state compact to serve a larger population.
Education also ranks high in Bicking’s platform. She’s running on free higher-ed through trade school or college, as well as increased funding for disadvantaged districts. “No teacher should have to dig into their pocket to pay for school supplies,” the former first-grade teacher said. She said she’d pay for added costs through higher income taxes on top earners and 20 percent of the state revenues brought in by the legalized sale of recreational cannabis.
★ Just published a new episode of Dateline New Haven with Paul Bass: Dateline New Haven: Green Party Gubernatorial Candidate Michelle Bicking. Listen: https://t.co/wCK5v6PRan
— wnhhlp (@wnhhlp) November 1, 2022
Dateline New Haven: Green Party Gubernatorial Candidate Michelle Bicking https://t.co/IE16cj72Zo
— wnhhlp (@wnhhlp) November 1, 2022
Click on the video to watch the full interview with Green Party gubernatorial candidate Michelle Bicking on WNHH FM’s“Dateline New Haven.”
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