Devin Carney has served as State Representative for the 23rd District since 2015. He currently serves in leadership in the House Republican caucus as Policy Co-Chair. He also serves on the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, Transportation Committee, and Education Committee. He formed the bipartisan “Future Caucus” and was awarded the national “Rising Star” award for these efforts. He recently received the “Town Crier” award from the CT Council of Small Towns for his advocacy. He works in finance and serves as Treasurer of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators and on the board of The Kate.
What is the most serious problem currently facing the state of Connecticut? What proposal(s) would you make to alleviate the problem?
The most serious problem facing Connecticut is affordability. Connecticut continues to rank poorly when it comes to this, and we need more legislators who will make it a priority.
This past term, I was able to pass legislation that would reduce income taxes on pensions and IRAs for many Connecticut residents. As in the past, I have proposed various tax cuts and also fought new tax hikes.
I supported the largest tax cut in Connecticut’s history while preserving our fiscal guardrails. These fiscal guardrails have limited increases in taxing and spending and also allowed us to build up a healthy rainy-day fund while also paying down about $8B in long term debt. This was a huge success borne of bipartisanship back in 2017 when the state was facing a fiscal crisis. If the guardrails were to be drastically scaled back, we would lose a lot of the progress made – particularly with the paydown of debt. We still have roughly $80B of debt, much of it is unfunded pension debt. We owe it to our current and future taxpayers to continue on this path.
I have always fought against new mandates on our municipalities that would lead to higher property taxes and a reduced quality of life. There have been efforts to force educational and zoning mandates onto our communities, which would require additional costs, thus adding to our property tax burden. There have also been efforts to create a statewide property tax and make the car tax a statewide tax (the proposed formula would have raised ours), which I successfully defeated.
Many constituents were shocked by the cost of their electric bills and reducing utility costs must be a strong focus of next year’s session. I would reduce the public benefits portion of electric bills by moving some of the mandated costs to the state budget. Eversource and PURA must be held accountable to ratepayers. I would bring them back to the table to figure out the most cost-effective way to handle power purchase agreements, delivery charges, and energy diversification. We can move towards a cleaner future while also balancing cost.
‘Book-banning’ has been a significant issue in the community—where do you stand on the matter?
I do not support banning books. I actually think a healthy dialogue about different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences needs to happen more in public education at age-appropriate levels. As far as I know, there have been no successful book challenges in Connecticut. Unfortunately, this issue has become increasingly political, and I anticipate my opponent will focus on legislation I voted against in the Education Committee that would have required Boards of Education to create new state mandated subcommittees and processes that were not asked for by any of the school districts in the 23rd.
When commenting on the bill in question, the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education and Lon Seidman, the Democrat Chair of the Essex Board of Education, stated that boards already have policies and procedures in place to deal with book challenges and employ librarians who have the appropriate training to oversee things. Lyme-Old Lyme Schools use CABE policy services, so I would expect they would have similar guidelines. I have discussed this very issue with our superintendent and there appeared to be no concern about current practices and no books have been banned.
I firmly believe this should be left to the experts and not to Board of Education members (who are also volunteers) who want nothing less than to be thrown into a controversy over a book. Parents also deserve a say in what their own kids read/don’t read. There is a reason the legislation did not move past committee, did not have the strong support of majority caucus leaders, and was also opposed by Democrat Representative and public-school teacher Chris Poulos. It is incredibly disingenuous to equate it with book-banning, which my opponent has tried to do. Let’s just let kids read and let our school boards continue to focus on our fantastic educational system.
Why are you running for this position?
I am running for re-election to continue to provide effective, independent, and competent leadership for our district.
Connecticut is entering another year of fiscal uncertainty as ARPA funds have dried up and there will be attempts to drastically undo our guardrails. We need legislators who understand the budget process and have the institutional knowledge to successfully promote fiscally sound policies.
I want to put an extra emphasis on energy policy next year and work to get us on a better path forward that works for ratepayers first. I plan on joining the Energy & Technology Committee to be able to most effectively articulate change.
I want to continue focusing on reducing costs for seniors, families, and small businesses and to continue supporting our small towns and local public education. There have been many attempts to supersede local control by requiring top-down state mandates and we need legislators fighting for our unique communities and their values.
We deserve legislators who are willing to work on a bipartisan basis and to focus on doing what’s right for their districts. Many candidates, including my opponent, pledged to not join a ‘moderate caucus’ and to disavow the Connecticut Business and Industry Association in their quest for the Working Families Party endorsement. I would never sign a pledge like that because it puts you in a narrow political box. Instead, I received the Independent Party cross-endorsement for my independent views and approach to legislating. I have never blindly supported legislation because the title sounds good or some special interest group supports it, but rather read every detail of every bill, do my homework, and do what I believe constituents would want. That’s the type of service and representation people expect.
I take this job incredibly serious and, unlike many in politics, I focus on ideas, not political party or personality. I have always done that and those who know me know that. I am proud of the work I have done, and it has truly been the honor of a lifetime serving the 23rd District. I am asking for voters to, once again, support me.