This week on the Wheelhouse, Connecticut's number one primary.

The first congressional district.

We've got the Democratic Party candidates, all four of them right here.

For Connecticut Public.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

This is the Wheelhouse, the show that brings politics to the people.

We got your weekly dose of politics in Connecticut and beyond right here.

And today, we're focusing on the high profile race for Connecticut's first congressional district, not the race in November.

We're talking about the upcoming Democratic primary.

It's August 11th, early voting already underway throughout the hour.

We're sitting down one on one with each of the four candidates seeking your vote.

There's obviously absentee ballots that you could do now as well.

And then early in-person voting, which will happen this week here in August.

Throughout the hour, sitting down one on one with these candidates.

And we're going to hear directly from each candidate about the issues shaping this race, from affordability in health care to immigration and the future of the Democratic Party.

Our first guest is Congressman John Larson, who was first elected in 1998 to.

The district includes Hartford and surrounding suburbs, as well as parts of Litchfield and Middlesex counties.

Congressman Larson, thank you for coming on the Wheelhouse.

Great to be with you, Frankie.

Great to have you on the show.

Hey, you've represented this district for more than two decades, as you said.

Why are you the best person to serve Connecticut's first district?

Well, I think it's not a question of being the best.

It's a question of being the most effective person to serve the district.

And first and foremost, I never forgot where I came from.

I grew up in public housing, was a public school teacher, and then have been involved in public service most of my life.

And I think I have a real understanding and sense of the community.

I've been in Congress after this year, 28 years, only eight of which we've been in the majority.

And of those eight, only four were in the.

Where did we have the House and Senate and the president?

And of those four, there were ten years apart.

And yet we've been able to do more for this district over $1 billion.

We brought home to the city of Hartford just over the last four years.

And all 27 towns have received money from the federal government.

My leadership, I'll now be in a position where I'll be going back to Congress, not as a new member, but as the chair on the Powerful Ways and Means Committee of Social Security that impacts all 330 million Americans.

It's I'm focused on that because these are the people that I grew up with.

These are this is the reason that you go to Congress to have impact on working class families and the people that need it the most, and in this economy, who needs it the most?

People that are on fixed incomes, like the elderly and like children, and there's no other program like that other than Social Security.

Is your concern that they're going to cut Social Security.

Is that, no, they're going to try to privatize it, which is even worse.

That's why they send Elon Musk over to Social Security.

That's why Doge, that's what it was all about.

And imagine having two people.

I give them credit for this.

Who stepped down rather than let Doge and Elon Musk into everyone's personal data and information?

That's why we took the Republicans on in the committee.

And, you know, it's what they did by looking at people's records.

And then three whistleblowers have come forward and said that they've stolen the records and used them, used them for political reasons.

They've stole them for data purposes.

And some have even indicated that a lot of that data is in an insecure cloud.

All the more reason why we need to be back in the majority, and they refuse to have these individuals come before Congress.

And we have something called a resolution of inquiry that the minority can utilize in this instance.

It's been on the book since 1879.

They voted that down after three times.

We brought up for it myself and Rich Neil.

And then every Democratic member of the Ways and Means Committee said, we demand they come before us.

They did away with a rule that's been there since 1879.

And for the uninitiated, what you're referring to is when you got your trademark angry face, your red, your red face, when you got excited and you said, Where's Elon Musk?

That's what you're talking about.

You're trying to get him to to testify.

Exactly.

Well, he was supposed to be before the committee under this resolution of inquiry, as I said, that was it's been there since 1879.

Imagine these Republicans were more worried about Hunter Biden and Hillary Clinton, but something that impacts every single American, knowing that they're going after your personal information.

And what does data mean to Elon Musk?

Let me tell you what it means.

In the Social Security trust Fund, there's 2 trillion, $700 billion.

Even that makes someone who then was making 500 billion.

Now the first trillionaire salivate thereafter privatizing that.

That's a big payday for Wall Street.

We talk about 28 years since you were elected the first time, 1999.

Let's go back.

There is when you first started representing the first district and began that congressional journey.

When we talk about going back there, I want to say the gas was $1.11 a gallon.

Buying a typical house, as I understand it, would have been $150,000.

And then from 1999 to 2024, I saw this on a government website here.

Average health insurance premiums rose about 342%.

So a lot of folks out there are concerned about everything getting more expensive these days.

Is this inflation or is there something deeper happening?

I think it's deeper.

It is inflation, of course, but it's deeper.

And listen, we passed the Affordable Care Act back in 2009, 2010, and then the Republicans attempted to appeal it, repeal it over the next ten years.

They didn't succeed.

We reinstated it.

We're beyond that.

At this point, health care and more and more individuals are realizing it is a human right, and we've got to have government step in and do Medicare for all.

That's where we're headed.

And you know what?

You know who we're going to find as a partner in this, the business community.

Why?

Because they recognize the costs are out of control and they're rising on a daily basis.

And doesn't it just make plain common sense to have one entity negotiating costs for the entire country, like we have with Social Security and Medicare for the elderly?

So why not Medicare for all, so that everybody has that opportunity to make sure that they are getting quality health care throughout, that benefits all of society, and it will benefit the business community, as it will the working class.

When we have something that makes sense.

Like this.

And we've been through it all.

I mean, in the Affordable Care Act, the House passed public options twice.

We couldn't get it through the Senate, but nonetheless it was in there.

Now it's time.

Rather than going back and reinstating the Affordable Care Act that Trump just last December tried to throw out, you know, putting 15 million people off of insurance and another 21 million seeing their cost double.

We stood up.

And frankly, when we did, we're joined by four Republicans and got a discharge petition out.

And then we went to take a vote.

Trump blocked and said, just give me two weeks and I'll be able to get one of them off of that and that bill will go down.

You know what happened?

He didn't get one of them.

They were joined by 13 more because people all across the nation were speaking out.

Stations like yours, Frankie, were carrying this information and people were going, hey, what's going on here?

I can't afford to lose this.

And that, I think, had that.

And two things that intensified people's understanding and feeling about how important health insurance is.

And when you add to that as well, women's reproductive rights being struck down by the courts.

I mean, I was proud to be Senate president in Connecticut when we were the first state to codify Roe versus Wade.

And so what we see is women all across the country also recognizing that there has to be universality when it comes to health care, and it is a right and a responsibility, and it's a federal responsibility to make sure it's there in all 50 states.

We only have a couple more minutes with you.

So I want to make sure I get a couple of things in here relatively quick.

You talked about what people think.

We know an overwhelming majority of Americans don't seem to be happy with either party.

And Kamala Harris might get blamed for what happened in 2024.

Democrats a lot of a lot of a lot of blame being thrown around.

What do you think about the state of the party, and do you think that people are going to have faith in you if elected?

Well, I think you're doing it.

I think it's pretty straightforward, and I'm very proud of Akeem Jeffries.

I'm glad he's coming here.

But it's not enough for Democrats just to be against Donald Trump.

And certainly no one has taken on Doge or Elon Musk or Ice, or this president is in legal war more than I have.

But if you're not for something, if you can't demonstrate to the American people what you're going to do, if you're not demonstrating to them how you're going to resolve those kitchen table issues.

What are you going to do about my kids education?

How will they afford it and those who have received it?

How will they pay for it?

How are they going to get housing in the future?

How are they going to be able to achieve that American dream if they don't have affordable housing, if they're not able to be first time homebuyers, what are you going to do if you're not able for them to afford education or a basic trade in and get into a job?

These are the things that the Democrat Party has to do, is step forward with a very specific agenda.

And by specific I mean saying, and we will do this within the first 100 days.

We can't just criticize Trump for what he didn't do.

We have to demonstrate what we will do.

And when we do that, I think people will come back to the parties.

It's the most alarming thing for every American.

Should be that in the last election, more people didn't vote than voted for both presidential candidates combined.

That's how authoritarianism rises, and we have to be steadfast against that.

And the only way to do that is to tell people what you stand for and then accomplish it.

We talked about the fact that you've been here now 28 years, so it's 14 terms.

People don't necessarily like what people serve 14 terms, right.

They may want term limits or something like that.

You're okay with Bernie Sanders.

Your age comes up.

People say that you're 78 or you're getting closer to 80 or whatever.

And then I think the calls kind of became louder after you had that partial seizure in February of 2025.

So, well, what do you say to people that.

First of all, let's take the partial seizure and then all the whispers that somehow he was hiding thing I never missed a day of work, number one.

Number two, easily treatable with medication.

I'm on your show today.

Do I look okay to you?

And I don't know about this district and debating, etc., but all the whispering about that was, you know, take it for what it is.

But it's not about your age.

It's about your effectiveness.

It's about your the energy that you bring to the job and the people that you're actually fighting for.

And when you reach a position and we're in a position of seniority.

And so here we are as a delegation, we've never had a chair of appropriations in 250 years.

We've never had a chair of Social Security in over 90 years.

Now, the state of Connecticut is in a position to have chairs and key committees, and we want them to step down or step aside because of their age.

Know how effective are you and what are you going to be able to deliver?

And with all due respect to the other candidates, you know, my argument is not with them.

My focus is on Donald Trump, but they are not coming in as freshmen going to be they won't even have a committee assignment until January, whereas will come in as chair of a committee and be in the room when the decisions are made, and therefore being to amplify the people of your district's voice and be an asset for the state.

At the same time, I think when voters think that through, they're not going to be thinking about the age, they're going to be thinking about the effectiveness.

Who can do the most for the state at this particular time, irrespective of your age, who can do the most for the state?

All right.

So Congressman Larson says that you might be able to take a seat one day, but it's not going to happen right now.

He's saying you've been listening to Congressman John Larson.

Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.

My pleasure, Frankie.

So great to have you on the show.

After the break, we're going to continue our conversations with the other Democratic candidates running for Connecticut's first congressional district.

Stay with us.

This is the Wheelhouse from Connecticut public.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

Today, we're hearing directly from Democratic candidates seeking to represent Connecticut's first congressional district.

The primary is August 11th.

We just heard from the incumbent, John Larson.

Luke Brown is the former mayor of Hartford who served two terms.

Mayor Luke Brennan, thank you for joining us.

Mayor, we've spoken quite a bit together as reporter and mayor.

You served as mayor of Hartford from 2016 to 2024.

Why leave municipal government for Congress and why is now the right time?

Well, you know, I left the mayor's office two and a half years ago.

I served as mayor for eight years through some of the most challenging times in the city's history, from starting and and inheriting a city that was on the edge of bankruptcy and then leading through the pandemic.

I loved that job, but I felt like eight years was the right amount of time to do it and then pass the torch.

And this is a race I would not have expected to run a couple of years ago, but I think the world changed when Donald Trump got elected for a second time.

You know, a president who is a con man and a criminal and I think a would be fascist.

And he won.

And I then saw the Democratic Party respond with what felt to me like not nearly enough energy or clarity or strength.

And I think so much is at stake right now that we have to build a Democratic party that is strong enough to defeat Donald Trump, to defeat the MAGA movement, and to make the bigger changes we need if we have a chance of fixing this mess.

Help me understand the calculus in taking the next step.

It sounds like Congress might be the way forward, because, as you're saying, you're you're looking to lead the Democratic Party in a fight against Donald Trump.

That's better than, say, trying to run for governor or stay in municipal office.

You'd rather just do it from that position.

You're saying, I think the threat to our democracy, the threat to, you know, working families in the middle class is coming from Washington.

It's coming from the Trump administration, and it's coming from the fact that we have not built a Democratic party that's strong enough to defeat the MAGA movement.

And and I think the Democratic Party would be so much stronger if more of our leaders recognize that part of leadership is knowing when it's time to pass the torch.

So I think the stakes are so high right now, and I respect everybody who has served in Congress for decades.

But I do think this is a moment when we need that renewal.

We need some new perspectives, and we really need some new energy.

Something I think about at the hyper local level is how mayors deal with crime.

We talked a lot about crime, as it were, happening in the city, or steps you would take to try to combat it.

So we talk about leveraging local groups like the compass Piece builders to patrol neighborhoods, or efforts to keep illegal guns off of the streets that come in.

How does that kind of policy now going to translate to the federal level?

So how do you sort of leverage what you do locally and those connections you made and then now deal with lawmakers in Washington, D.C.?

Well, first of all, you know, the issue of gun violence is not an abstract issue to me.

I've gotten a lot of living rooms with parents who have lost kids to gun violence.

I've been to a lot of funerals where kids are grieving their friends, and we did a lot in this city.

Building partnerships, helping to strengthen community violence, intervention groups, building things like hospital based intervention and building, you know, both law enforcement and community violence prevention, a system that has helped to bring down gun violence dramatically.

And we saw what it can look like when the federal government is actually a partner in that efforts.

And now we're seeing what it looks like when the federal government is scaling everything back.

I mean, Donald Trump is dismantling the ATF.

They are making it easier for gun gun dealers to put illegal weapons into dangerous hands.

They are making it harder to trace weapons.

They've pulled back the funding for community violence intervention.

So down in Washington, I think this is a great example of why it would be helpful to have people who can bring a mayor's perspective, having been on the ground doing that work and recognizing how much it can matter if you have a federal government that's a real partner, and who can also be out there as a vocal advocate for building a movement to do those things.

You think that municipalities like Jacksonville, Florida or Little Rock, Arkansas, where there might be crime numbers and people don't look at them that way because it's not like a liberal city.

Do you think you can sort of try to effectuate change in cities like that and introduce groups like the compass piece builders, those kind of groups, those neighborhood kind.

Of first of all, I think some of the cities you mentioned, I haven't looked at the numbers recently, but I think some of those cities have some of the highest levels of gun violence.

I spent a lot of time with mayors from across the country, and cities across the country deal with the same challenges.

I think there's absolutely room to build common ground.

And I think the the work of trying to strengthen violence prevention is not a Partizan issue, but we do have to build a Democratic party that is strong enough to do it, because the Republican Party has no interest in doing it from everything I can see.

Another thing about your time as mayor is the state bailout.

In 2017, the state stepped in to help with Hartford's half $1 billion of debt.

Nearly ten years on, how do you look back at that experience and really how you manage the situation?

Because it did happen before.

You pretty much got there, a lot of it.

Yeah, yeah, I think, Frank, as you as you know and remember, when I became mayor, the city was on the verge of bankruptcy and with a real possibility of having to file bankruptcy, which would have decimated city services, it would have slashed pensions for retirees, it would have crushed municipal employees.

And we did a lot of hard things.

You know, we made some really tough decisions.

Our community came together to make those hard decisions.

Our unions stepped up in a big way, and I'm deeply grateful to them.

We asked our corporations to step up and put real money in real skin in the game.

And of course, we built that different kind of partnership with the state.

I think what we did differently in my time as mayor when I first came in was we were honest about the size of the problems.

We didn't pretend that this was something we could fix by just continuing to do the same thing the city had always done.

I think the city had kicked the can and and hidden those problems for a long time, and my team and I refused to do that.

And I think that's what we need in this moment.

There's so much broken right now.

We have corruption that is out of control.

We have an economy that is only working for the wealthiest few.

You have costs going through the roof.

And again, we have a Democratic party that has not been able to win.

You know, we lost not just the white House, but the white House, the Senate and the House.

And so if we're not willing to be honest about how broken things are, then we don't have a chance of fixing them.

And so it's that same spirit of saying, let's acknowledge the reality of what's broken, and then let's get serious about fixing it.

As one congressman, though, like, what can you do to help people in Connecticut that are dealing with affordability issues?

We've known that the government has had to the excuse me, the state government has had to come up with essentially a slush fund to try to make up for some of the cuts that have happened.

So how can you help on an issue like health care?

Look what I think every single Democratic member of Congress needs to recognize is that the mission right now is to build a movement outside the walls of the Capitol.

This isn't just about what's happening in a subcommittee rooms.

It's are we out there, you know, building a movement for an agenda that's going to make our economy work again.

And to me, there's two big things.

I mean, first, when we take control of the House, again, we need to do everything possible with every bit of leverage we have to stop the damage Trump is doing, because the reckless war in Iran is driving up costs his, you know, cruel cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act are driving up the cost of health insurance.

The tariffs across the board have driven up costs.

So the first thing we have to do is stop this president from doing stupid and reckless things that make things worse.

And then I think we need to be loud and clear and courageous about an agenda that is focused on big things like health care, housing, electricity.

Those are all issues where the federal government, Congress could do a huge amount to change the game if we were willing to do it.

And I think the Democratic Party has been too cautious about tackling those issues in a serious way.

A lot of the things we're hearing in debates before this show airs, there would have been two debates in a week where you all were squaring off the four candidates in this race, and a lot of them are talking about money that you're getting into your campaign.

They're saying it's coming from billionaires and executives.

What do you see about your fundraising efforts and criticism from your challengers?

Look, the first thing I think it's important for everybody to understand is on day one of this campaign, I said that I would not take a single dollar of corporate PAC money in this race or in any future race for Congress, because there's just a huge problem with the amount of corporate PAC money that floods our system.

And it's why it becomes so easy for people who've been in office for decades to just stay there.

And it makes them complacent and cautious, because if you've been there forever as an incumbent and you take corporate PAC money, you open your campaign, you hang an open sign on the door and the corporate PAC money just comes rolling in.

And it's so easy and comfortable that people don't make the big changes.

So when people are looking at your financial advantage, you help us understand the strategy that you all have as a campaign, like, how are you trying to fundraise as best as you can tell us?

Like, what's the strategy?

Who are you taking money from?

Sure.

So I mean, I and thousands of people who have supported this campaign, given everything from $1 or $3 up to the maximum contribution for the primary of $3,500.

And I'm grateful for that support.

And anybody who supports me knows what they're getting, which is somebody who is going to fight for universal health care, for milking the wealthiest Americans and corporations, pay their fair share and actually pay what they owe by closing the crazy loopholes, abolishing Ice, investing in housing, you know, and yes, fighting to protect Social Security.

I think anybody who supports me knows that throughout my career, I have been focused on fighting for fairness in the Obama administration.

I was part of the team that helped to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect Americans against financial abuse.

By the way, in a in the face of a flood of corporate PAC money and and banking lobbyists who were trying to defeat that in Afghanistan.

I served on the anti-corruption task force.

And then for eight years, people saw me work 24 over seven fighting to lift up a city that I had been left behind.

And I think in a lot of ways screwed over for a long time.

So I think people know who I am.

They know who and what I fight for.

And I've been clear in this race again about what I'll fight for.

And it's for an economy that actually works for working families in the middle class.

I want to wrap up this conversation here.

If elected, what committee assignments would you seek and why?

Just help us understand your first couple of years.

Well, obviously it's every two years you have an election, so that's always going to be fun if you win.

But just help us understand maybe the first year on the ground to DC.

Yeah.

I mean, the first thing I want to say, because I think this is really important, is that the the mission right now is as much outside the walls of the Capitol as inside.

If we don't win back so many people who have given up on our politics and gage young voters who have decided our politics doesn't work, get back so many people who gave up on the Democratic Party because they didn't see us fighting for working families, then whatever happens in the capital isn't going to matter as much.

So a big part of its outside the walls of the Capitol.

But like I told you in the Obama administration, I was part of the team that helped to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Donald Trump has now dismantled that.

I'd love to be part of rebuilding that and that work that could be done at the House Financial Services Committee.

It's also a committee where you could do a lot of work on housing opportunity and housing finance.

You know, as mayor, I put a huge focus on getting housing built of all kinds, thousands of units.

And I and I've also seen that the federal government is not as good a partner as it should be in getting that housing built.

So that's another area where I'd love to dig in on.

That's the same committee where you could do some of that work.

You've been listening to Luke Broden, former Hartford mayor and Democratic candidate, the endorsed candidate for Connecticut's first congressional district.

Luke, great to have you on the show.

Thank you so.

Much with you, Frankie.

Thanks.

Our next Democratic candidate for the district in US one is going to be Ruth Fortune.

She's an attorney and also serves on the Hartford Board of Education.

Ruth, welcome to the Wheelhouse.

Thank you.

It's great to be here, Frankie.

Great to talk to you.

And I myself, as a child of immigrants, I'm fascinated by your immigration from Haiti to the US.

And that you were at one point, as I understand it, undocumented yourself.

I was for a decade.

Can you tell us about that?

We came here on a tourist visa.

Overstate the visa became undocumented, and I live with a constant fear of deportation.

At one point, when I was 13, I had learned English in a year.

Was very proud.

A friend mentioned to me that I sounded very Haitian, and in my teenage brain I panicked.

I thought, I can't be undocumented and sound like an immigrant at the same time.

That's like inviting scrutiny and potentially being found out and deported.

So when my friends were listening to Shakira and Destiny's Child, because Beyonce had not yet gone solo, I was boring audio tapes from the library to minimize my accent and sound more American.

So little did I know that 25 years later, the Supreme Court of the United States would say, if you speak with an accent, if you work in a low wage job and you look the way I do, you can be targeted.

So a lot of what's happening now.

They literally were my worst fears for a decade.

So then I guess that begs the question, is this a big reason?

Is your is the way that you think about immigration the stigma associated with it, some of the things that you had to go through.

Is that a reason why you would want to run for Congress?

It is one of many reasons.

Certainly everything that I had worked for is under attack, and they are because of traits about myself that I cannot change.

I was very focused on giving back in ways that I can, but also very focused on my career.

Prior to running for office, I was in a private firm.

It's a very demanding work.

I'm still with that firm, though.

I'm not practicing full time right now, and I was very focused on being a first generation wealth builder because as an immigrant, I take that very seriously.

My mother and my father, they sacrificed so much so I can have an education.

And I thought that with that education, not only do I help them, but my kids should have that and more.

And for me, that was generational wealth.

Then Trump came back into office and I thought to myself, what is what's why is it worthwhile trying to leave my kids generational wealth, potentially, if they will inherit a country with less opportunities and less rights than I did, then they would be in the same situation.

My parents were in Haiti, needing to flee their own country to go find better life elsewhere.

And you know, one night my husband said to me, you know, if you don't run for office, I'll run for something because we need to do more.

And this is something you would be so good at.

It's just time to do it.

Really important conversation to have, because a lot of people would say that the Democratic Party and in this race, we've heard the candidates, including yourself, have a lot of criticisms for the Democratic Party about whether they're going further enough to sort of stop what they see as an unwinding of a lot of programs here in America.

So I guess when we get there and we talk about the Democratic primary, where would you say you fall on a spectrum of sort of like progressive to liberal to moderate?

Where would you say that you fall?

I'm pretty progressive.

I think the role of government is specialty nowadays is to ensure that we have a structure where people can work hard and actually get ahead, and a strong enough safety net for anyone who falls on hard time to be, to have something to catch them, right?

Any of us can fall on hard time at any time, I say.

My family, we're solidly middle class.

I save in 529 to my children's education.

We go on vacation.

We can be charitable.

If my husband and I go through a long period of severe illness or long term disability for some period of time, we could face bankruptcy because we don't have real health care system that would provide quality health care without potentially taking on tons of debt.

Ruth, when we have lawmakers on the show, as we often do, and we have these Congress people on, often I ask them about the work that they do in the US House, which can be a tumultuous place when you have so many lawmakers there.

I remember talking to Johannah Hayes about gun legislation, and they would pass gun legislation in the House, and then the Senate would stonewall them.

And now you're talking about being in the minority if you were a Democrat.

So how would you approach that life if you were elected, like how you can get things to pass, particularly in a place where things might business, might not necessarily get done all the time.

You don't always win every fight that you pick.

But I think fighting the fight from a principled stance is how you win more people over and being relentless.

I see Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley from Massachusetts write her bill at first did not get out of committee, did not get the support needed to extend TPS for Haitians.

Then she went through a discharge petition and it did not move for a really long time.

I remember calling every one of our Congress members here in Connecticut to urge them to vote for it.

Congressman Larson voted finally voted in support the day after I called him to vote for it.

And it wasn't until the Supreme Court listen to the oral arguments on TPS that finally she got enough votes in.

The bill passed through the House, right?

While the discharge position passed and the the House footed for the bill.

Now it's in front of the Senate.

So being relentless with what you know really helps people, there's just no other way around it.

And focusing on what we want versus being afraid of what we don't want.

I hear so many people in the course of my one year running say, you're so terrific, you're so inspiring, you're so great.

You're so you understand what's happening.

But, you know, I just don't want Larson to win another term.

I said, well, I am an alternative to Larson.

You should consider voting for me because you think I'm the right solution.

But if you're so focused on being against someone instead of being for what you want.

It's just that much harder to get to the goal that we want.

And I could you said TPS, that's temporary protected status.

And that's been something that the Trump administration has targeted since day one of the first administration to.

So something you could see conti Families across Connecticut continue to struggle with affordability.

I'm sure you talk about this a lot in debates to the week before that.

We're airing this one that you all had across health care, housing, child care and more.

What would your priorities be if you can help us sort of understand if you get elected?

I've talked about this quite a bit.

One of the things, in addition to lowering costs, because there's two pieces to this, right.

There's the cost and then there's what are you bringing in?

We've had stagnated wages for a long time.

The federal minimum wage at $7.25.

Connecticut is higher, but we need a federal minimum wage.

That is a living wage.

For me, that's $25 an hour, and it's not some arbitrary number I came up with.

It's what research and data shows.

People need to be able to afford the minimum cost of living.

And I want that tied to inflation, because we know even low levels of inflation are actually healthy for the economy.

And it happens.

It's inevitable that there will be inflation.

So the people earning the least need to maintain their purchasing power.

And that's raises the floor for all of us.

We have teachers now who are earning less than that.

We have other people with professions.

We're earning less than that.

If the minimum wage is a livable wage, that means everyone who works can make a living wage.

And the people with higher skills and in fields where we need the most can earn even more.

So that's one way to get more money into the people's pockets with dignity.

In addition to that, I would like to see more housing being built.

We did the House and the Senate just passed a housing bill without the president's support.

But it's hard to actually build more housing because the labor force, which is mostly immigrants, a lot of them undocumented, they're too scared to show up to work because they're being demonized and hunted down, literally by Ice agents.

So we have these goals.

We know what the struggles are, but we keep having other policy objectives that are contrary to us achieving those goals.

Living wage, fully funded public schools and tuition free trade schools and public colleges.

This is the first three of Ruth's values on your campaign website.

What role should the federal government play in expanding workforce development?

A lot the federal government can, in addition to making trade schools tuition free and public colleges tuition free for families earning 250,000 or less.

We can have more work developments into schools, more partnerships with high schools so that students can see what the opportunities are.

There's college, there's military, there's the workforce, there's trade schools and vocational schools.

Those are areas where we can invest more.

We can have more grants to go into exposing students to more opportunities like I had in high school.

I got to go to Syracuse University as a junior in high school that summer, take college classes paid for through some federal grant that made it so that when I graduated high school the next year, first in my family to graduate high school, college was a given because it felt so familiar to me.

I had been there and I succeeded.

I didn't have parents who could tell me what to do and how to navigate campus life, but I went there.

I had a head start.

Because of that experience, the federal government can do a lot more to ensure that students with families that cannot expose them to more, get that type of access and exposure.

What's your closing message to Democratic primary voters ahead of the August 11th primary?

I've always believed that we have a path to win this election, but we cannot win without your support.

We need 20,000 votes to win.

It sounds like a low number and a high number at the same time.

The reality is primaries are very low turnout, especially in Connecticut.

For this district.

It will be the first primary for 28 years for this seat.

And somewhere between 25 to 40% of voters will show up.

20,000 of you going out and voting for me will guarantee that we win this election.

And it cannot just be the people who always show up and vote when we do have primaries.

If you've never voted in the primary because you're too young, you're under 46, so there's never been a chance for you to vote in one.

This is your opportunity.

If you've never seen yourself represented by someone who's asking for your vote.

This is your opportunity.

And get your friends.

If they're not registered, they can register to vote up until the day before the primary.

If they're registered as unaffiliated, they can change their registration to Democrats so that they can vote.

Go get your friends and go and vote because your future depends on it.

The same way my future and my children's future depend on what we do now.

You've been listening to Ruth Fortune, candidate for Connecticut's first congressional district attorney and a member of the Hartford Board of Education.

Ruth, thank you so much for joining us here.

Thank you for having me.

After the break, we're going to hear from one final candidate in the race.

Stay tuned for State Representative Jilian Gilchrest with more Wheelhouse next on Connecticut Public.

This is the Wheelhouse from Connecticut Public Radio.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

We're continuing our series of conversations with the Democratic candidates running for Connecticut's first congressional district.

Our final guest is Jillian Gilchrist, Connecticut state representative who serves West Hartford and was first elected in 2018, also a former member of that town's board of education.

Jillian, thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me.

So great to have you on.

Literally been running this race for nearly a year now.

Jillian, when I say running, we found out you were a candidate when you posted a video on your Instagram announcing your candidacy while exercising.

Why was that moving?

Why was that the move that you made?

And what made you decide that this was the right time to run for Congress?

Sure.

I wanted to announce from somewhere comfortable, and the track next door to my house is a place I'm comfortable with.

It was the right time because this country is a mess right now.

And while I'm horrified by Donald Trump and what his administration is doing, I'm also really frustrated by the Democratic Party.

And so I wanted to jump in to try and change things from the inside out.

Much of that legislative work focuses on women, children and families.

You're a social worker.

What's this moment like for families or for women right now?

It is a really hard time for both.

Women are scared.

Women are angry.

They're frustrated.

Their rights are being stripped all across this country, and then families are really struggling to afford their basic needs.

They want to be able to provide for their children, and that becomes harder and harder every day as grocery prices are going up, as electric electricity costs, as housing costs continue to rise.

There's so much there, you know, so much there ahead of you if you get elected to.

So where's like one area of not necessarily affordability, but on those women and family and children sort of health issues that you could or even affordability issues they could sort of focus in on right away.

So at its core, it's getting profit out of so many spaces.

I mean, I get where a capitalist society, but right now profit is what is dominating everything at the expense of so many.

And so when we're looking at health care, we need to flip that system and make sure people can access the care they need.

When we're looking at the workforce, we need to make sure people are paid wages that they can live on.

And so the federal government needs to step in and rein in the ridiculous profit that a few are making it, the expense of the many.

And there's a shortage of affordable childcare in Connecticut.

What role should the federal government play in that, if at all?

Sure.

So I think we need an investment like we made in public education decades ago.

Childcare should be a federally funded program.

People need it not only to work, but to make sure their kids get a head start on K through 12.

And so the system as it stands right now doesn't make sense, nor does it work.

We're not paying our child care workers enough and families can't afford the care.

So you need the federal government to step in and fund some of this.

And how can they make a difference?

Because I know Rosa DeLauro has been working on legislation forever to have sort of that permanent child tax credit.

Is that something you would go for in the interim?

Would you partner up with certain lawmakers?

Would this be a committee of interest or something to you?

Like what would you do right away to in order to help these children?

Sure.

And I appreciate the question, because I think that's what distinguishes me from the other candidates, is that it's the way I go about policy change.

And so I think we need to be working on campaign finance reform the entire time we're working on any other policies, because right now our country is being run by corporations and billionaires who don't actually care about affordable child care.

Right.

And so we need to be working on that.

And then it's getting in there, and it's me working with Democrats who I align with to push on our leadership, to make sure this is a priority of the party and to push until we get the change.

Immigration remains a major political issue.

If elected, what actions are Congress take to protect children in custody and specific?

Well, I think what's been incredibly frustrating is to see so much money thrown at ice, which is now a paramilitary for the Trump administration, abducting people off the streets when that money could have been invested in an immigration system all along that actually functions in this country.

And so certainly children should not be separated from their parents.

Not only does it cause trauma right there, but with the previous work I've done, there's a lot of things like human trafficking that are taking place and horrible things that are happening to these children, and our country should take no part in that.

A lot of the jobs that you've had and now obviously your chief job here now as a lawmaker, or maybe you would say mom's your chief job, so maybe I should I should rephrase that, but what are you going to be using in order to to try to be effective in Congress?

Will it be that experience?

What can you take from being a lawmaker to help you there?

Sure.

So with being a mom, it's a multi-tasker.

It's being able to keep track of multiple people's schedules in your head at all times.

Teenagers like.

God bless.

You and your own and making it all run right and work.

And then as a lawmaker, it's really my coalition building skills.

It's my understanding of the various dynamics that take place in a legislative body, and my passion for an interest in public policy that actually helps people.

Local reporters are remarking about how you and the other Democratic primary candidates are sort of, I guess, on a lot of the ideological issues in the in this race.

I don't know if you would agree with that, but would you?

Do you guys have similar views, or would you say that your priorities differ in certain ways?

I think people are using the same language, but I don't think we agree at all.

And I think we, the voters need to follow the money.

And so you've got two candidates, John Larson and Luke Brennan, who are taking very problematic money from corporations and billionaires.

And I think that is telling of where they're going to be on policies.

And so with me, I'm not taking that shady money, and I'm pushing for actual health care reform, increased wages for folks holding corporations accountable.

So if you're concerned about the money and you're talking about campaign finance reform, how does a Jillian Gilchrist win that in that situation?

How do you take donations.

Like what's the strategy play.

Tell us a little bit about how you can get elected in that regard.

I mean, it's it's been fascinating to be a part of.

And we'll see if and if it works.

I've been taking money from individual people and we've been door knocking.

We've been doing a grassroots campaign to get the word out there, because you can't take from CEOs who run data centers.

If you're then going to want to hold data centers accountable.

And so we're trying it in a different way.

We've never seen a four way primary.

So we'll see how this plays out.

What's your message to voters who are still making their minds up at this time?

I think my message to voters is we need we can't just use the words of new energy and change.

We actually need to elect people who will get down to Washington and look at how that works and question it.

We can't have folks who just slide right into a broken system.

And right now, Congress is not functioning because Democrats and Republicans are bought.

And so we need to elect people who are going to work with others to get that money out of the way.

We got some time here.

So help me now give me a little bit of a blueprint going forward here.

I guess we're going to tell the future here.

But if you're elected, what are you going to do?

First thing you get down there in D.C.?

Sounds like you want to get to know the landscape.

What are you going to be working towards at that point?

Sure.

So first thing I'd be doing is meeting with as many Democrats as possible in the House and then in the Senate, and then meeting with Republicans to understand who I align with what has been worked on before.

So, for example, going back to the childcare, okay, what policies have you pushed, what have been the barriers?

How do we get around that?

Who are the outside groups we work with?

And I think it needs to be a three pronged approach.

Democrats need a plan for the future.

So as soon as we get power and Trump is no longer an office, we can be pushing to take action.

It's also holding Donald Trump and his administration accountable for the things they've done.

And then it's looking at the various agencies that he's torn down in apart and figuring out how do we rebuild and rebuild better.

Going forward.

You've been critical of Democrats in the regard.

When we're talking about money here, what else?

Is there anything ideologically you'd like to see out of your colleagues that are Democrats, or at least down in D.C.?

I know you don't want to prejudge them before you get down there, but just kind of help me understand ways that Democrats could be doing better in your mind right now.

I'm frustrated that oftentimes, to me, Democrats are reactive to what the Republicans say.

So for instead of being firm in our values.

So, for example, reproductive health, trans rights, our value, my value as a Democrat is that everyone should be able to make the decisions that are best for themselves and their bodies hard.

Stop.

And so I want to see Democrats be firm in that and defend those values and not always be reactionary.

We've reported in the show on the past about memos that were sent in Congress telling Democrats, hey, maybe we stay away from certain issues that aren't sort of populist sort of issues.

Trans rights would be one of them.

So how do you respond to that?

Are you going to be something that's going to be out front and trying to help out trans people?

So what's so interesting is other memos have illustrated that the Republicans use that quite a bit as a wedge issue.

And so while Democrats don't need to lead on it, you need to be responding and staying true to who we are.

And so I will never shy away from defending people and their rights.

And it disappoints me when Democrats take a memo like that and decide not to stand up for the people they serve.

Jillian, it's so nice to talk to you here today.

Once this air is going to be about a week to the primary.

So what are you going to do in that last week or so?

I'm going to be out there door knocking.

So I hope I see people at their doors.

We'll be on social media.

And it's just getting the word out because this is a very important election for people to vote in.

Even though Senator Jillian Gilchrist, Democratic candidate for Connecticut's first congressional district, she's a member of the state House of Representatives.

Jillian, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

And thanks to all the candidates who joined us for these one on one conversations Jillian Gilchrist, Ruth Fortune Luke and John Larson.

The Democratic Party primary for the first Congressional District is August 11th.

Early voting is already underway.

You could vote by absentee.

You could also do it in person right now.

So want to know more about voting in Connecticut?

Head to this website: myvote.ct.

again.

That's myvote.ct.gov.

And if you missed any of our conversations throughout the hour, you can catch up at.

Wheelhouse or download The Wheelhouse on your favorite podcast app.

Today's show was produced by Chloe Wynne, edited by Eric Aasen.

Our technical producer is Eugene Amatruda.

Thanks to Tess Terrible, our talk show visuals and operations teams here at Connecticut Public.

Download The Wheelhouse anytime on your favorite podcast app.

I'm Frankie Graziano, this is the Wheelhouse.

Thank you for listening.