The Political Landscape Following General Election Poses Intrigue

For eternal optimists in politics there was something positive to take away on a number of levels from Tuesday’s general election. The Connecticut Working Families Party won coalition control of the school board, beleaguered Republicans grabbed a school board seat and a City Council seat after shut out from meaningful elections for years and a new political action group Citizens Working For A Better Bridgeport backed several winning candidates both Democratic and Republican. For Mayor Bill Finch not a great day but he has two more years to fight another day with the big prize his reelection in 2015.

Let’s start with the Working Families Party. Operatives achieved their goal that began in 2009, coalescing a political bloc to set policy for the largest school system in the state. It started four years ago when incumbent Republican Board of Education member Sauda Baraka, rejected by the GOP for another term, joined forces with newcomer Maria Pereira, to win the two state-mandated minority-party seats, running on the WFP line. Baraka and Pereira challenged the political establishment in 2011 when the school board, backed by Mayor Bill Finch, asked the state to take control of the city’s beleaguered schools. A new state-appointed board replaced the elected body and a new leader was brought in to supervise schools, national education reformer Paul Vallas, recommended by Connecticut Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor. An ally emerged for the WFP in retired Superior Court Judge Carmen Lopez, a city resident, who left the bench in 2008 and engaged in local governmental concerns focused on the school system. State control of schools was challenged in court. The Connecticut Supreme Court invalidated state control and reseated an elected body. Legendary local hoop star John Bagley, recruited by the WFP, was elected to the school board. It was now six Democrats and three WFP members.

Finch, seeking additional mayoral control of schools, urged voters in the 2012 general election to support his charter revision proposal to appoint school board members. Records were broken for campaign spending including major independent expenditures. Voters, particularly in African American precincts with Barack Obama on the presidential ballot, said no. The vote was a punch to the mayor’s solar plexus.

The small but mighty WFP then focused on 2013 school board elections as a growing agitated electorate wondered about the direction of city schools and the larger question about the city as a whole. The Democratic Town Committee’s endorsed school board candidates were smoked in a September 10 primary by three Democratic challengers backed by Finch political opponents, the WFP, education activists and the unions Bridgeport Education Association and Connecticut Education Association. Fallout from the primary included several challengers to Democratic Town Committee-endorsed candidates for City Council. All endorsed candidates lost.

On Tuesday Baraka won reelection on the WFP line and the three WFP-backed Democratic primary winners also won providing a voting bloc of five (among nine) members to control city schools. Election results show the WFP message and organization appeals largely to working-class voters in heavy African American neighborhoods, but not citywide. The hope for the other minority party spot, and a 6-3 coalition, escaped the WFP.-Still, the WFP achieved its goal, a coalition force in charge of schools.

The Republican Party won a seat on the school board and was within striking distance of denying Baraka’s reelection. Shut out of school board and City Council seats for years, the local GOP sought to tap into the voter anger that advantaged the WFP. Republicans fielded three candidates for school board, Joe Larcheveque, Steve Best and John Weldon, all from the Black Rock neighborhood that features the largest number of Republicans and easily the highest voting district in the city. Fundamentally, however, the three did not run as a team. They ran as individuals claiming the teamwork professed by the WFP/Democratic coalition was not in the best interests of the city: they’re simply a different version of the Democratic establishment seeking power and control.

Interesting strategy, but with pitfalls. When you run as a team you pool resources with a message to galvanize your voter base and like-minded unaffiliated voters and disaffected Democrats. As individuals you’re left to chance, especially with limited resources. And that chance aided Larcheveque because he had a friend in a smokin’-hot City Council race that drove voters to the polls in Black Rock, the battle between Democratic incumbents Sue Brannelly and Steven Stafstrom and Republicans Rick Torres and Phil Blagys. One-third of Larcheveque’s entire citywide vote came from Black Rock School with the largest voting bloc of Republicans. But there was a 150-vote drop from Larcheveque to Best and a 200-vote drop from Larcheveque to Weldon on the Republican line at Black Rock School. Elections are about vote swings. For instance, if 150 or so citywide Baraka voters had voted for Best, the GOP would have two of its members on the school board. Still, Republicans were able to achieve something not accomplished in years, a school board seat and a voice on the City Council in Torres, the leading vote producer at Black Rock School among all the candidates. (Final council results have not been certified pending Friday’s recount of votes from the close election.)

Key to Larcheveque’s support was assistance from the new government reform group Citizens Working For A Better Bridgeport for which David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General, serves as treasurer “concerned with The City of Bridgeport’s governance practices, financial condition, education system, economic development and public services.” Its coalition foundation is based largely to those in opposition to Mayor Bill Finch’s policies.

This midterm election cycle has not been kind to Finch. Last year he lost his school board ballot initiative, the September 10 primary saw a historic rejection of Democratic endorsed candidates, the Working Families Party now has coalition control of the school board and the makeup of the City Council has changed. As we segue into 2014, a state legislative and gubernatorial election year, candidates for the 2015 mayoral cycle will begin to emerge.

The next two budget cycles are key to Finch’s reelection, as well as economic development initiatives. Finch needs to hold the line on taxes. He also needs cranes in the air to feel some love again from voters.

Phil Smith, an OIB reader and student of the city’s political history, has perhaps the quintessential quote about city politics: “Some towns play political softball, other towns play hardball … in Bridgeport they play hand grenades.”

Politically speaking, it could be an explosive two years.