Hynes2012
This section is for blog posts related to my 2012 run for State Representative in the 114th Assembly District of Connecticut.
Campaigning at the Greek Festival
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 09/03/2012 - 10:48
For the past few years, my wife and I have always looked forward to the Greek Festival at St. Barbara's Church. Over the years, my daughter has gone from looking forward to the loukamades to looking forward to saganaki. This year, she was all about the grape leaves.
She likes to pick up a stuffed animal or some other trinket at the treasures and trinkets, as well as see some of her friends dance.
This was my first year going to the festival as a candidate. It felt a little awkward, because St. Barbara's is the church my opponent goes to and many people there are good friends with her. Yet campaigns are about more than just good friendships and I wanted to talk with people about why they should consider me when they vote in November.
As I spoke with friends and neighbors, I ran into a new friend of mine, the campaign coordinator in the Third Congressional District for the Chris Murphy for Senate campaign. Chris was on his way.
When he arrived, he spoke with voters with an easy and confidence that was truly inspiring. As is often the case with candidates in state wide races, his staff let him know when it was time to head out to the next event. Labor day weekend is a very busy one for politicians. Chris took time for a few last quick conversations and headed off to the next event.
Events like the Greek Festival at St. Barbara's Church provide a great opportunity for people to come together as part of a community. It is a great time to speak with those who seek to represent us, either up in Hartford, or off in Washington. It was an honor to accompany Chris Murphy in Orange.
Labor Day Weekend
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 09/01/2012 - 08:58For my friends who are counting on consumers reviving the economy, it is a weekend to go shopping. To my friends in the labor movement, it is a time to remember struggles for better working conditions, the forty hour work week, and an end to child labor. For others, it is a time for festivals at church, picnics or barbecues with the family, and heading back to school.
For politicians, it is a time of campaigning. I'm working on events, contacting voters and honing my positions on various issues. It seems like every day, I get a half dozen new candidate questionnaires from various organizations. They are good in that they help me think about the issues. Unfortunately, too often, the responses do not become public. So, I'm trying to distill some of my responses into blog posts.
Since it is labor day weekend, it seems like a good time to talk about collective bargaining. The first question in Uniformed Professional Fire Fighters Association's questionnaire says, "In 2008, the General Assembly introduced legislation (SB 685 AN ACT CONCERNING THE CREATION OF A STATE MUNICIPAL FINANCE ASSISTANCE COMMISSION, 2008 Session) that would give extraordinary powers to Special Review Boards when impaneled to assist municipalities in distress. This bill legalized the abrogation of collective bargaining agreements and the curtailment of collective bargaining as possible remedies for these situations. Would you: SPONSOR - SUPPORT - OPPOSE legislation that permits this type of treatment of workers.
I also received a questionnaire from ConnCan. Their questions were less pointed, for example asking if I agreed with this statement: "School administrators and teachers should be held accountable for classroom performance and student achievement". Personally, I can't imagine people not agreeing with this statement. However, it says nothing about what should happen legislatively. How do we determine classroom performance and student achievement? Legislation that bases such a determination solely on standardized tests would be misguided. Legislation that doesn't consider how others, besides teachers and administrators, are accountable to a student's achievement would also be misguided, and legislation that would abrogate collective bargaining agreements or curtail collective bargaining would likewise be misguided.
You see,when we are dealing with key issues that affect our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, we need people to work together. We need firefighters working together to save a structure. One firefighter, by himself, cannot put out a three alarm fire. We need teachers, administrators, parents and members of the community to work together so that our students can be as successful as possible.
Collective bargaining is one way in which firefighters, teachers, and others work together. Collective bargaining should be viewed as part of our first amendment right to peaceably assemble, and for those working in government jobs, it should be viewed as part of the first amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
Granted, there may be times when those bargaining, either for employees or for employers, are not doing so in good faith, yet that does not mean we should curtail collective bargaining.
So, this weekend, I'll do my campaigning, and I'll stay on message about the importance of all of us working together for the sake of all Americans.
Happy Labor Day.
Term Limits
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 21:00Various people have asked me my opinion on term limits and the politically expedient response would be to support term limits. After all, my opponent has served as a State Representative for 14 years, longer than the maximum term for a State Representative in any of the 14 states that have term limits. I can see why people might want term limits, but really, I don't think they are the best solution to the problems we face.
The first issue is, what problem are we trying to fix? The biggest issue seems to be that too often, when a person is in office too long, they may get caught up in their own self-importance and lose touch with the people they are supposed to represent. Instead of imposing mandatory term limits, making elections more competitive seems like a better solution. This includes programs like the Connecticut Citizens Election Program which helps level the playing field between incumbents and challengers, at least in the aspect of fundraising. A stronger fourth estate, both in terms of traditional media and new, online media, provide another opportunity to help level the playing field.
Interestingly, it is often people that would like to see government run more like business that call for term limits, but this seems contradictory. There don't seem to be a lot of companies that have term limits on their CEOs or board members, and many people calling for term limits would probably be upset at the idea of applying them to companies.
Related to all of this is our relationship to government. Many people call for 'smaller government', over looking that our government is supposed to be of, by and for the people. We are all supposed to be involved in our civic life. Often this lack of connection with government, such as people not even knowing who their State Representative is, or bothering to vote in local elections adds to the problem of long serving incumbents and finding ways to increase voter participation is another way to keep elected officials responsive to their constituents.
Unfortunately, yet again, we find a contradiction. Many of the people who support term limits are the same people that support voter identification laws and other laws that make it harder, not easier for everyone to vote.
There is an important downside to term limits that needs to be considered. Long serving incumbents may be long serving because they are, in fact, the best people to represent their constituents. They also bring an institutional knowledge that is important. As an example, states that have term limits of less than ten years generally don't have elected officials who have been through redistricting when it comes around every ten years, so the legislatures need to start over each ten years.
Now, you might feel inclined to chalk up my lack of support for term limits to a different political expediency. You might imagine that I'm thinking about twelve years from now and whether I should step aside, even if term limits are in place.
I won't make any promises limiting the number of times that I'll serve, but I will tell you this: We should always be seeking to find the best person to be our representative. I believe that we must have competitive elections, and it is this desire for competitive elections that got me to enter in the first place. Serving as a State Representative is a civic duty, similar to jury duty or paying taxes. It isn't something we should be seeking to make careers out of, and we should gladly step aside when a better candidate emerges.
Yet tied to that is the belief that every candidate needs to have, that they are the person best able to serve at the current time. I believe I am the person best able to serve as State Representative in the 114th Assembly District in this election. As long as I continue to believe that, and my constituents continue to believe that, I will be willing to serve as State Representative. With that comes the willingness to step aside when a better candidate comes along and I hope I will be able to do that when my time comes.
Renewing the Social Contract
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 00:07Having recently returned from Cape Cod, my thoughts are again occupied with the thoughts and goals of the early settlers, as well as of later visitors to the aforementioned land. In November, 1620, some of the pilgrims signed a social contract with one another to
"covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony"
It seems as if, in these current days, we have lost touch with these founding ideas of a social contract. What are the agreements we rely upon today for the general good of our community? In fact, how do we understand what is the general good of our community? What are the ends which we wish to further?
It seems as if so much of the dialog of these current days is so far removed from these ideas, so far removed from Lincoln's government, "of, by and for the people" that many mindlessly repeat talking points about smaller government without thinking about their own roles in the governments and businesses, as voters, taxpayers, employers, employees, consumers, stakeholders and beneficiaries of the general good of our community.
What social contracts should we be adhering to? How do we get more people to think about their place in the fabric of society? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Unkept Promises
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 08/25/2012 - 14:54"Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow." It was Mrs Dalloway, no Mrs. Ramsey's promise to her son about going to the lighthouse. I am sitting in a trailer in a campground in Truro, MA, not far from a lighthouse, as my wife fulfills a promise to Fiona; taking her shopping in Provincetown. I'm glad my wife has agreed to this, since I really don't like shopping. Also, it gives me a little time to decompress and reflect.
I've been thinking a lot about promises recently and the words from Guys and Dolls comes to mind,
You promise me this, you promise me that
You promise me anything under the sun...
My time on the Cape is an effort to balance two promises. Every year we go to the Cape, and I had promised to spend ten days on the Cape this year. Yet that was before I accepted the nomination as the Democratic Candidate for State Representative in the 114th Assembly District in Connecticut. That acceptance had an implied promise to the people who nominated me, to the people who contributed to my campaign and to everyone who has worked hard in my effort to get elected. I will work hard to get elected and if elected, I will work hard to represent the people of my district.
So, amidst my trips to the beach, I'm spending time contacting people, trying to move my campaign forward. I've worked on fundraising, on setting up my advertising campaign, and refining my positions on various issues. I'll go into more details about some of this later, but today, I want to think more about the promises I've encountered during my campaign.
A lot of people have been telling me, 'if I can do anything to help, let me know." I'm finding that this is too often a brush-off, an unkept promise in the making. It really came home to me when one person said this, and I pointed him to a pile of contribution forms and asked him to contribute to the campaign, even a small contribution. He quickly said, "Yeah, Yeah, I'll contribute" and walked away. I still haven't seen his contribution.
You see, to qualify for the state Citizens Election Program, I need to show that 150 people in the towns in my district are willing to go beyond simply saying they support me, that they are willing to contribute between $5 and $100 dollars. If everyone who had promised me they would contribute had kept their promise, I'd be done with my fundraising now and could spend my time talking with voters about the issues.
But promises are easy to make and easier to break, so I'm still trying to get people to contribute. Yeah, everyone chastises politicians for not keeping promises, and then they go on to break a million promises of their own. Don't believe me? Let's do lunch sometime. How many times have you heard or said that unkept promise?
"But, it won't be fine," Mr. Ramsey said. He was honest, brutally honest, so much so that his son could have killed him if there had been an axe handy. How do we balance honesty and compassion and keep as many of our promises as we can? Like others, I'm still trying to work that out, but perhaps struggling with these little issues, each and every day, instead of just shrugging them off is an important part of what makes life full and meaningful.
