State Senate Incumbent Stephen Harding
Stephen Harding was elected to his first term representing the 30th District in the State Senate in 2022 after four terms serving the people of the 107th House District.
Rep. Harding serves as the Minority Leader of the State Senate on behalf of the Republican Caucus. Steve is the Ranking Member of the Legislature’s Environment Committee, and as a member of the Judiciary Committee, Education Committee, and the Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee.
After graduating Summa Cum Laude from Albertus Magnus college, Harding pursued his law degree at New York Law School in Manhattan. After graduation from New York Law, Harding was admitted to the Connecticut Bar and currently operates his own law practice locally.
Harding has served the town of Brookfield in various capacities. He has served on both the Zoning Board of Appeals and Brookfield Board of Education, where he chaired the Board’s Policy Subcommittee, and is a member of Brookfield Cares. Harding has volunteered as a coach and is an executive board member of the Brookfield Baseball and Softball Association.
Harding has been a resident of Brookfield for nearly 30 years, where he currently lives with his wife, Kelly, a New Milford Public School Teacher, son, Carter, daughter, Piper, and golden retriever, Kennedy.
Top Issues:
- Affordable Energy
- Reducing taxes and fees
- Cost of Living
- Supporting our police
- Open Space protection
- Preventing High Density Housing Development in our local towns
Those are the fiscal guardrails. I was so proud as a state representative to support those guardrails in the 2017 bipartisan budget. What that's done is we've capped out volatile revenue from being spent in a budget year and directed [it] towards paying off our debts and our pension obligations, as well as putting money into our general fund reserves, which currently sits at about $4 billion. Back in 2017 it was at zero. We only have recently gotten into this strong financial shape, and I support the effort to continue to do that.
I support finding money within our budget. Currently, we incentivize or prioritize social programs, but I don't support removing our guardrails to make those investments. In my opinion, it will lead us to the economic distress our state had not that long ago, when our state was forced to implement some of the largest tax increases in our history.
What’s the right balance between debt reduction, tax relief, and social spending?
I think it currently stands where it is. We're in the right direction. Now is not the time to move away from that.
What's your understanding of the housing situation in this district and the conflict between proponents and opponents of affordable housing mandates?
The reason I'm against it is it doesn't balance the ecological and environmental aspects of our district, particularly the northwest corner. Goshen is a great example. It's a watershed for so much of the state. It has a lot of open space and beauty, which is necessary for our ecology across the northwest corner. If you force affordable housing on small towns like Goshen at a 10% rate, you're going to lead to significant environmental hazards that no one is taking into consideration.
There is a group the legislature seems to be co-partnering with to use affordable housing mandates to integrate Connecticut.
Desegregate Connecticut is the group that you're addressing. Frankly, I disagree with almost everything they push. I find their efforts are more politically based than they are truly affordable rent and affordable housing costs or mortgage payments for home buyers. And if you want to have a discussion about that, I'm 100% in favor. It's hard to purchase a home here. It's hard to find affordable rent here. I think that frankly speaks to a lot of aspects of affordability in our state in general, like we talk about taxes and we talk about government bureaucracy and forcing our residents to pay so much of it. I think we have a lot more of a discussion frankly about that and the burdens our government on hard-working individuals. But their agenda is to force affordable housing in towns like Goshen, in towns like Salisbury, in towns like Sharon and in Kent and in Morris. And I'm opposed to that. I'm absolutely opposed to it.
Let's move on to utility rates. There's a new part of the electric bill called Public Benefit?
It's actually not a new charge. It's always been there. It's just been further baked into your cost. Most people did not know it. Now it's starting to see the light of day, which is a good thing, because people are understandably upset about this additional payment they make that frankly has nothing to do with their usage or payment of electricity in their home.
In my opinion, it's a charge that should be removed. How it works now is, you have all these social programs and all these energy subsidies, many of which relate to different wind and solar initiatives and the like, that is being based on this public benefit charge. There are some programs that I think are worthwhile, but instead of baking it into the rate payers' costs, that should be in our state budget.
Yeah, and it's unfortunate. I disagree with these actions. I would have fully supported the COG being able to purchase and operate the facility because I think they would have been fully invested in finding a way to address the waste that's collected right here in the state as opposed to shipping it out to Pennsylvania, which is not only environmentally unfriendly to all of us, but also extremely expensive. And with the hauler's acquisition of Torrington Transfer Station as opposed to the COG, it doesn't really alleviate that problem. [The people] deserve a solution that is going to address their waste in an environmentally efficient manner and affordable manner. I think that pathway exists, and I've worked with DEEP on that, to invest in our existing waste-to-energy facilities throughout the state and expanding the infrastructure there to take on more waste. Northwest COG being able to purchase the Torrington Transfer Station would have been a big win towards that goal.
I can only hope that whatever decisions are made that we may disagree with, can be overridden legislatively, if that comes to it.
I think that there's a lot of options and that's one of them that can be explored. But I don't believe that's the only solution. I think [there’s a] potential option [of] making our waste pickup more efficient and environmentally friendly and affordable. I'm always open to implementing those ideas in conjunction with the communities and the neighbors of the towns. But I also believe that we deserve a broader solution than simply just that.
If you speak with the leading biologists, they will tell you the only way you're actually going to resolve and address the bear population in the northwest corner efficiently and effectively is through a regulated bear hunt. And so I support that effort. I think it's necessary because the [bear] population has grown to a point where it's unsustainable and it's dangerous, particularly in the northwest corner. I have two young ones at home, so I know what it feels like as a parent having bears within close proximity of your house and being nervous about your son, your daughter waiting at the school bus. I have supported legislation providing property owners and farmers relief through a permit program with DEEP and making the laws far more clear when it comes down to someone protecting themselves and protecting their family and pets from bears. But there's more that needs to be done. And I think the key piece to that is a bear hunting season that's overseen and well regulated.
How can we address the lack of primary care doctors for adults and children in the northwest corner?
I think one is creating sustainability within our health networks. Sharon Hospital is a great example of that. A lot of doctors, even though they may have been offered strong salaries, competitive benefits, did not want to settle down here in terms of investing their practice and their expertise because of the lack of stability. I have supported further regulation towards protecting rural medicine, rural hospitals, and I also support prioritizing funding towards those medical associations and hospitals, because if we can create a sustained practice area, create stability within our hospital systems here in the northwest corner, I think we can go that much further in being able to attract future medical talent.
Do you see the decline in local newspaper outlets as a problem, and if so, what would you do to help reverse the trend?
I think that, yes. I'm fearful of it because without the local outlets like yourself, many readers don't have the ability to stay on top of the local issues. Gigantic conglomerates regionalize [their] coverage, so it doesn't allow the readership to key in on local issues, which ultimately becomes more important to them than almost anything else, because it impacts your daily life and your children's daily life.
