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Good morning and welcome back to the Tip Sheet, a weekly newsletter from Tom Dudchik’s Capitol Report written by Mike Cerulli.
This week, we’re taking a look at recent comments by an ambitious legislator and how those comments play into the ongoing post-election conversations within the Democratic Party.
Plus, are you on the job market? We’ve got some leads for you.
Let’s dive in…
Democratic soul-searching and the debate over the fiscal guardrails
More than a decade ago, when State Rep. Corey Paris was an undergraduate at Western Connecticut State University, he casually spoke with a campus publication about his plans for an imagined post-presidency. He wasn’t talking about his travel plans for the summer after his tenure as student body president. Rather, he was discussing his plans for a time after leaving the Oval Office.
“After I’m a former president someday, I’ll want a foundation, too,” Paris told the campus outlet back in 2013.
He made those remarks while discussing the Clinton Global Initiative, the foundation established by Bill and Hillary Clinton following the former’s tenure in the White House. Paris interned at the Clintons’ foundation while in college. In his 2013 interview, Paris pointed out the similarities between himself and the 42nd president. They are both natives of Arkansas who were raised in difficult households.
On one level, comparisons between Paris, 33, and a young Bill Clinton make sense. They are both supremely confident, charismatic, and place an emphasis on retail politics. Clinton was sworn in as governor at 32-years old. Paris' ambition for higher office is one of the worst-kept secrets in Connecticut politics – though his sights might be presently set on the number two role. Sources tell the Tip Sheet the third-term legislator has held informal talks with some of the Democrats eyeing a run for Governor.
Aspirational comparisons, however, only go so far.
As much as he might like to point out similarities between himself and the Comeback Kid, Paris seems to break from Clinton when it comes to the intra-party ideological debates that have long divided the Democratic Party. Where Clinton pivoted to the center in his campaign of policy triangulation, Paris seems intent on becoming a leader in the progressive wing of the Connecticut Democratic Party.
The moderate-progressive divides within the American left have become more pronounced in the weeks following the sweeping defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris at the hands of now-President-elect Donald Trump. As Democrats sort through the rubble and confront the prospect of a federal government controlled entirely by Trump-loyal Republicans, an internecine blame game has played out within the party. Prominent voices like Bernie Sanders have argued that the party is captured by corporate interests and not sufficiently focused on the working class. Others have criticized a focus by many Democrats on social issues like transgender rights.
This past Saturday, while speaking on a panel (moderated by the Tip Sheet’s author) about the future of childcare policy in Connecticut, Paris waded into the post-election conversation – throwing an elbow at members of his own party without calling them out by name.
“We’ve talked about this postmortem over the election a couple weeks ago,” Paris said. “The thing that irritates me the most is hearing — and I will say it — I may get in trouble but hearing liberal white men tell me and other members of the Democratic Party that we’re not doing enough to talk about the issues that matter most to working families. It is a lie.” You can watch the whole panel discussion here.
Paris didn’t specifically name any of those liberal, white, male Democrats, but the language he referenced sounded an awful lot like something Ned Lamont said at a press conference the morning after the election.
“Democrats lost a lot of working families,” Lamont said during the post-election presser. He went on to say the results of the national election “ought to be a wake-up call that we got to be fighting for the middle class and fighting for them every day and I think they feel like we lost sight of that.”
The Tip Sheet’s author pointed out that Paris’ language seemed to be referring to the governor. Sharing a slight laugh with the friendly audience, Paris replied, “I didn’t say it was him…It’s Connecticut, there are many liberal white men in Connecticut.”
In Paris’ telling, Democrats like him have been talking about the economic issues most important to working families for years. Those progressives view the more moderate fiscal positions of Democrats like Lamont as a barrier to progress on those issues.
“Connecticut is failing its women and failing its children,” Paris said in an implicit criticism of the guardrails. Along with his criticism, Paris was quick to praise some of the governor’s work on child care. Notably, he held up the work of a blue ribbon panel convened by the governor to examine the issue. Where Paris pressed his fellow Democrats was on actually prioritizing the issue.
Paris is far from the only Connecticut Democrat who is broadly frustrated with the conclusions being drawn following Harris’ defeat. He is also far from the only Connecticut Democrat who is frustrated with the constraints of the fiscal guardrails.
The debate over the future of the fiscal guardrails was bound to dominate the 2025 session regardless of who won the 2024 presidential election. But that debate will now take on increased importance as Democrats navigate a period of soul-searching that could very well impact not just 2025, but the 2026 gubernatorial race and beyond.
Will Democrats listen to Paris and his ideological allies? Will they push for major changes to the fiscal guardrails, perhaps bucking the governor or their own leadership? Or will they look to the president that a young Corey Paris saw so much of himself in and pivot to the center following a shocking electoral loss?
As seen on TV
On ‘Capitol Report’ this past weekend, Dudchik and the panel dove deeper into post-election analysis. They also discussed some recent Twitter sniping from Erin Stewart as she mulls a run for governor.
Watch the whole show here.
Speaking of ‘26…
On ‘This Week in Connecticut with Dennis House’, Dennis sat down with Sean Scanlon to discuss the election and Scanlon’s plans for the future.
You can watch that interview here.
Another week, another recount
The race between incumbent Republican Lisa Seminara and Democrat Paul Honig is headed for a recount this week. Honig currently holds a lead over Seminara, but the margin tightened after a partial recount in the race between Michelle Cook and Joe Canino last week in Torrington. The recount in the Seminara-Honig race will take place across multiple towns in the sprawling 8th State Senate district.
Looking for a job?
As the session nears, we thought it would be a good idea to start highlighting job postings that might be of interest to our readers.
Here are a few we spotted this week:
Do you have a job opening? Would you like to get it in front of the thousands of politically plugged-in professionals who read the Tip Sheet every Monday? Drop us a line and we’ll include it! Email Michael.Cerulli@protonmail.com.
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