Paul Bass Photo
Vincent Mauro Jr. entering Tuesday evening's DTC meeting.
New Haven Democrats voted unanimously Tuesday evening to have Vincent Mauro Jr. continue serving as town chair into a second decade.
The Democratic Town Committe (DTC) vote took place at a meeting in the basement of 200 Orange St. Mauro ran unopposed. He now begins a sixth two-year term, making him the sole second-longest-serving New Haven Democratic town chair since at least the Eisenhower administration. (Until now he was tied with five-termer Susan Voigt for second place.)
Mauro promised to work hard in coming weeks to involve more New Haveners in the political process and respond to recent complaints about lax record-filing: He said he would have the full rosters of all 30 ward committees filed in the city clerk’s office by “some time in May.” And the first modernization of town committee rules since 1977 undertaken and then filed “within 60 days.”
“I put a little added pressure on myself to get this done,” Mauro told the Independent.
He invited anyone interested in joining a party committee to email him at [email protected].
Mauro grew up with politics — specifically town committee politics — in his blood: His father Vincent Mauro Sr. served as town chair for eight years, until 1987. The only longer-serving town chair was Vin Jr.’s late uncle Arthur “The Mustache” Barbieri, who led the local party for more than three decades (in two spurts).
“It is a joy to do,” Mauro, who recently stepped down as the State Senate chief of staff to go into lobbying as his day job, said of serving as town chair. New Haven’s political stability helps the city “solve problems,” he said. “The stability does matter to me, part of keeping New Haven a stable and normal place.”
New Haven’s Democrats dominate local politics, despite a growing base of unaffiliated voters: All contested elected offices from clerk and alder to state legislator and mayor are held by party members. Statewide Democratic office-seekers woo that bloc of voters each campaign season. Earlier this month a DTC-backed slate of candidates fended off a slate of challengers in eight primaries for ward co-chair positions.
Click on the above video to watch Democratic Town Chair Vincent Mauro Jr. speak at length about the Democratic Party and town committee and politics in general, in a March 5 discussion on WNHH FM's "Dateline New Haven" program.
Who should be surprised that an election was held for New Haven Democratic party chair with a single candidate, unopposed?
Who were the New Haven Democrats who unanimously voted for the sole candidate?
I'm a New Haven Democrat. Most of my New Haven friends and relatives are New Haven Democrats. We not only did not participate in this electoral process, but we were not even notified that there was such an election!
Is this to be considered transparency and inclusion, a handful of folks making the decisions for all? That's not democracy!
Shouldn't all Democrats have a voice and a vote in determining who should be the chair of their party? Would that not be the real small-d democratic thing to do?
Too .a y of our elected officials in this city are Democrats who run unopposed. Whenever there are single candidates running for office, WE the People have no choice and no voice. The sole candidates always win by default! Winning by default is a defeat for democracy.
No candidate who wins an election as the sole candidate can ever claim to have a MANDATE from the People, and therefore cannot technically claim to be the People's representative.
We must work very hard to make New Haven into a small-d democratic city. Noncompetitive races are no races at all.
A person on cruches, with all of his handicaps and shortcomings running a marathon alone, always wins the prize, even though he is not the best runner in town!
We need to get more people involved in our politics. We need to get more, newr, younger, more diverse people running for office. We need to have real competitive races. We need a Republican party or some other party to challenge the long-held Democratic party monopoly over our government in New Haven.
This is not to say that there are no good Democratic politicians in New Haven. But we would have a lot more BETTER government officials if we had real competitive races BEYOND the Democratic party primaries!
We would also have greater voter turnout on election day.