Meet Sen. Bob Duff, Senate Majority Leader in Connecticut

[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of The Political Life. I am Maggie Mick and I am pleased to welcome a very special guest this week.

[00:00:24] Connecticut Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff has joined us for today's conversation and he and I are going to do this one-on-one. We will have our talented co-host come back next week. But welcome, Leader Duff, and I look forward to our conversation today.

[00:00:43] Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

[00:00:45] Well, we are in the end of June and going to release this right around the July 4th holiday. I know that you just returned from a trip to Athens, which we will dive into and I think is applicable to our appreciation for our founding principles of democracy.

[00:01:05] But you have had a long and distinguished career in the Connecticut legislature. So can you tell us a little bit about how you entered politics?

[00:01:18] But I also want our audience to hear that you have a day job. Like, you have a full career in addition to a very long time political tenure. So just a little bit about your professional and political history.

[00:01:36] Great. Well, I really appreciate it and thanks for having me on. It's really great to be here. I've been listening to your podcast for a while and you always have interesting guests so hope I can keep up to the standard that you have set with your other guests as well.

[00:01:50] So thank you. I have been in the legislature now for about 20 years. I started in the house. I came in in a special election.

[00:02:00] I worked, I guess back when I was 14 or younger than that. I was got involved in the Democratic town committee in Norwalk and I worked with a guy named Alex Knopp. He was a state representative at the time and he knew I was interested in politics so he would kind of take me under his wing and mentor me.

[00:02:20] And then when he, I interned at the US Capitol for Kristad which was really a great, great experience. And one of my best memories there was Senator Dodd take me on the Senate floor when he was about to give a speech and that was really cool.

[00:02:39] But also was like most interns or other staff, I got to do a lot of the VIP tours so I got to really, really know the building well.

[00:02:48] But then when Alex Knopp became mayor, when he won his seat to become mayor of Norwalk in 2001, he looked at me and said now we got to get you elected.

[00:03:00] And I'm like what the heck are you talking about? I had no idea. I had just gotten married, we just bought our house. I've been really successful in real estate.

[00:03:08] So really though I thought he'd maybe appoint me to the Planning and Doning Commission so I was like what are you talking about?

[00:03:15] And so then that's kind of how it started. So I got, we had a fight for the Democratic nomination and we had a caucus at the time which was we had to load people in a room for two hours a week before Christmas.

[00:03:29] We had the special election in February and then I got sworn in the week after on the first day of the legislative session in 2002.

[00:03:38] That was the day also my wife told me she was pregnant with our oldest during we had a lockdown that day too because it was right after 2001 everybody was really on the edge of their seats on so many things.

[00:03:50] And then in 2004 the incumbent state senator was going to become the director of the Office of Policy Management under the new governor, Governor Raell, because Governor Roland had just resigned.

[00:04:03] And so he decided not to run for election and I decided to run for the state senate which was a bit of a risk because of the fact that it had been gerrymandered Republican.

[00:04:13] So here was a Democrat trying to run for in a Republican seat and everybody said oh that'll never flip over to Democratic even if you win Norwalk, the tailwags the dog with their hand you got to make up those 3000 votes.

[00:04:27] I never never went in and here I am I've been there ever since so.

[00:04:32] So that's kind of the story and then about 10 years ago I got elected by my peers to be a majority leader and it's been a lot of fun and hopefully had made a difference for folks and help folks get their stuff done.

[00:04:45] But the so that's kind of where we are and that's kind of how it started I mean I can go back to my back to the letters I wrote to the to Mara Collins when I was eight years old and he actually wrote me back and that was inspiring to me and I think that was really kind of cool

[00:04:59] and I still have those letters here but it's always been a passion of mine I always love politics love being a political science major and maybe one day I'll go teach politics or political science. When this is on the next chapter by life starts.

[00:05:12] I do think it's interesting when you know young children have the awareness of the leaders that you know they aspire to be like or just have the awareness that they exist and the meaningful work that they're doing.

[00:05:25] Can you name a maybe it was your mayor but a local leader in which you know really made an impact on you and then maybe a national leader that you model your leadership style off of.

[00:05:39] Yeah absolutely and I really appreciate that so I would say you know growing up and I have no idea why.

[00:05:48] The future of the veteran park with development there and she put in development and I might having him write me back I mean that was just really cool that he wrote me back and I know it's a signature because years later we became neighbors and I got to know Bill Collins pretty

[00:06:04] well. And he was a former state rep too.

[00:06:07] And so I you know looking up to him and the fact that he he paid it forward by writing me back and I always felt the same I needed to do with other students when I got elected which is why I was like spend a lot of time in schools to so there's an awareness about who we are.

[00:06:24] But I would also say on the you know Alex not was a was really big for me because he wrote me a letter of recommendation for college and for an internship and all that stuff and.

[00:06:34] John Atkin who was who went to high school and my parents and he was a state senator before Bob generio. He was an influence on me for sure. I would say nationally. You know, growing up, I would probably say.

[00:06:53] I would say Truman to a certain extent because we share the same birthday so it was that commonality but he did turn out to be my favorite president.

[00:07:01] I don't just reading about him but in college I read this really great book that I found that a fair for like probably 25 cents called man of the house by tip O'Neill.

[00:07:10] And I read that and I just could not put that book down it was just really a just a really great book about kind of politics and how how to lead and how to.

[00:07:21] He mentioned back that he mentioned in his book about tip O'Neill thought he was going to win he'd asked he was lying before the election he thought that he was going to win and he said I to his wife I think I've asked everybody for their vote and she said,

[00:07:38] No, you didn't you didn't ask me. And so that always I remember that so I the night before the election I was asked my wife to if I've asked for her vote and so I keep that tradition.

[00:07:51] But I would say that back in 92 was the first time I was a registered voter and I remember in the primary I looked at Bill Clinton I'm like you know I think he's the guy and whenever nobody else did so that was a matter of luck or good instinct

[00:08:07] but probably more luck.

[00:08:08] And, and so I've always felt like, you know, he was he was a good president from standpoint of, he brought the Democrats back out from the wilderness into the White House again so, you know you try to look at that and then I, you know I sport Barack Obama and people to judge and of course I support Joe Biden.

[00:08:27] And, you know so there's lots of different folks out there to look at but you know growing up you I think mostly it's local that you try to look at and know the ones who can talk to you all the time. Yep.

[00:08:40] They're the ones that usher the next generation along. Absolutely. President Truman, President Truman provides the inspiration on the page but it's the local mayor city council members that sees you as the next generation of leaders so that's wonderful that you had so many local mentors.

[00:08:58] So when you made the decision to run for legislative leader. I'm sure that you were a student of Chamber leaders and executive leaders.

[00:09:09] So what gives you the confidence to make that step forward to serve your peers in that way and what qualities do you think that you brought to the job that they felt like they wanted to support for you for you to take on that role for them.

[00:09:26] Well I think in any leadership position you have to really try and support the team and advance the team.

[00:09:36] And to be a good leader means you've got to have a good vision as to where you want to take the team and rally folks around that vision but also make sure you're supporting them because you know in our caucus everybody is their own agent really

[00:09:53] and everybody has their own issues or challenges or successes they want to bring back to their district. And so you want to really help support that you support the legislation that they support or rally around things and help when things are tangled up to help untangle things.

[00:10:17] There's just so many different facets that are exciting about being a legislative leader that I think where you really can at times where people think that they don't have that support you can step in and really show that support.

[00:10:34] I'll give you one example or two is a couple of examples.

[00:10:38] One is there was a one of my colleagues getting kind of beat up by a by a lobbyist and I made a point of saying to the lobbyist if you're going to speak to him that way you're going to speak to me that way and he said I wouldn't do that and I'm like well don't go speak to my colleague that way.

[00:10:54] And that kind of that we reset that lobbyist back to where he needed to be to say that hey this is a state senator.

[00:11:02] And by the way if you're going to if you think you can act that way I know about it and that it's not going to be it's not going to be good.

[00:11:10] And so that and that was what the colleague came up said I really appreciate your having my back that way and you know they they kissed and made up afterwards so it wasn't some long term kind of problem but it was really just kind of supporting that colleague at a time where he didn't feel like he had he might have had that support otherwise.

[00:11:26] Second second was we had a new senator who who at one point was she was staff and then became a senator herself and I think there was an assumption that people thought that you know in a caucus that you just it's it's an easy transition sometimes it's not an easy transition.

[00:11:46] In this particular person still had questions after we broke out of caucus and I think she didn't feel supported. And so she she she just looked like she was upset and I said what's what's wrong she's like I just don't understand this and I need some more information.

[00:12:03] I said OK and I stopped her and it's OK. We're going to make sure we get you the information needed and I pointed her to the person who had that information and she has never forgotten that she's always said Bob was guy who when I had the questions about this since we're going back now 10 years at least that she she got

[00:12:25] So those are some of the ways in which you you do that outside of like you know legislative stuff or legislative vision it's sometimes a little more on the one on one.

[00:12:35] Yeah, I do think that so much everything moves so quickly especially at the state level that lawmakers can feel overwhelmed by the issues of the day or the votes that you know the caucus plans to take up so the fact that you empowered her to feel informed in her decision.

[00:12:55] So I think that's a really good example of what she felt on an issue if it you know if it was a piece of legislation and and took the time to make sure that she felt good about it is a wonderful example of taking care of your team.

[00:13:09] Thank you. Thank you. And that's and that's you know it's interesting because I go back to my role and I know you want to talk about this a little bit but I go back to my role in my real estate career because I've been doing that for 28 years

[00:13:22] I've been in the real estate office before I ran for state rep and I always find that experience even though I didn't really like managing because I'm not the type of a manager in the real estate office.

[00:13:37] A lot of times you are sitting at a desk all day and or unless you're out at open houses things like that but you're kind of like just more stationary I tend to I hate I really don't like that I like to be on the move all the time which I think why I like real estate and why I like being an elected office because no two days

[00:13:52] are the same but in managing it's it's there's a lot of parallels because real estate agents are all independent contractors by law were independent contractors nobody can tell us when we have to be in the office nobody can tell us we got to show up to the salesman nobody can tell us what to do all those kind of things.

[00:14:07] And so being a being and being the manager means you got to herd those cats into a common goal and being a majority leader with the center president means you kind of got to do the same thing everybody's an independent contractor everybody can do their own thing

[00:14:21] can't force people to do things and so the skill sets you kind of take from from the managing job from real estate manager to your leader there's a lot of the similarities there and trying to get people to a common goal.

[00:14:35] And so I always value that experience because it really helped me be I think be more prepared as a leader than I might have been had I not had that experience.

[00:14:46] You took the question right out of my mouth I was going to ask you know what what skill do you apply from your real estate career to being a leader and yes, I think that the independent operative is a wonderful analogy for lawmakers.

[00:15:05] So diving into maybe the 24 general session that we just wrapped up. You want to provide any headlines or big priorities that you are particularly proud of. I do want to get into the AI legislation that was ran in Connecticut but just any any headlines or or efforts that you have taken.

[00:15:33] Absolutely and I'll just give one other thing on the real estate side to if I can Maggie is that I because of the fact that as a real tour you are or real estate salesperson, you are a really a salesperson you you're really about customer service you really about making sure people have a good

[00:15:58] experience or that and they want to hire hire you again.

[00:16:02] That's kind of how I approach being a legislator as well especially my situation also to my colleagues is that you've got to you've got to earn their trust you've got to earn their business you've got to get back to people you've got to follow up with them you've got to make sure while you maybe you can

[00:16:21] maybe you can always make everybody happy all the time. It is it is about being responsive about being communicative about being obviously very honest about being forthright and so again I think in somebody who's in a maybe has a sales background is a little bit of more of a

[00:16:44] advantage to maybe somebody who has maybe a different background because I think you just bring a different skill set to that so anyway I just wanted to bring that up because I always felt that is that's how I treat my office when it comes to responding to meeting requests or constituents

[00:16:59] I really push my staff to say all the time have you followed have you responded in a timely manner have you have you followed up with this person even if you don't have any information have you said we don't have any information yet but we're still working on we haven't forgotten about you or things like that so

[00:17:13] I think that's in that and that goes to trying to get rid of cynicism in government and he just had somebody yesterday who wrote me a message on next door right so people can now find us all over the place and they said

[00:17:27] they said can you what about this particular bridge and once again to get done and I said you know I don't know it's a local bridge but let me find out and I found out and I got back to the person there like I can't believe you actually got back to me I'm like well I said I was going to and that's good customer service and I think that's really

[00:17:42] anyway to get back to your question of the 2024 session you know as people may know and a lot of legislatures across the country is that in the even years we have shorter sessions and some some legislatures don't even meet in the short sessions so it's interesting but I would say one of the things that I'm really proud of this fact is our is our physical condition in this day to connect again we went through a lot of

[00:18:12] long time that the physical condition and can I really wasn't great and but I think a lot of us knew or some of us knew that we had a kind of rebuild we had to kind of we had to go through a period of a little bit of breaking down some walls and moving some things

[00:18:32] and changing some stuff up and then rebuilding the foundation and then building building things back up again and and anybody knows if you've done construction I'm not sure if you've done construction at your house now you're not but you're doing construction and look a little ugly would you agree

[00:18:51] Oh yeah currently sitting in it right it's ugly and stressful and we went through about 10 years of kind of ugly and stressful times in Connecticut because we were finally taking control of our finances and so we were shedding we're not feeling positions we were cutting services we had to rate taxes at some point

[00:19:17] and we made some really difficult decisions but I kept saying that if people just hang with us over the long term it's going to be it's going to look okay and now I mean nobody knew what that was going to look like but it was going to get into a letter we had to get out of it

[00:19:35] and so I would say that I'm just proud of the fact that we're we're still running surpluses our credit rating has been increased a number of times now we have seen a rainy day fund that is completely filled up to the tune of billions of dollars when we had basically zero

[00:19:53] zero dollars in the rainy day fund back in 2012 we are or 2010 11 we are seeing paying down pensions to the tune of billions of dollars that had literally been ignored for decades we've seen new state employee contracts that are saving billions of dollars with healthcare and

[00:20:19] retirement and that we're using technology now so all those things are and for example even for something tangible for the average person people can now go online to make appointments at Department Motor Vehicle so the complaints we used to get for DMV are now gone because people are actually having a pleasant experience I mean go figure right I mean who that has a good

[00:20:45] experience at the DMV but even I when I was registering my kids car made an appointment online to go to knock DMV went in for my regular appointment I was in and out in ten minutes I'm like you know who does that and it was just a great experience so we're really those are some of the things I'm really proud of

[00:21:05] I can get into some of the legislative stuff to the policy but I think the fiscal part of it and kind of how that has kind of changed the perception of Connecticut as last few years is really important.

[00:21:21] I do think it gets back to you I one other fundamental piece of being a realtor and a lawmaker is that you have a fundamental pride in your community and your state.

[00:21:32] And I think that you know the multiple years you worked to turn around the financial condition of the state kind of goes back to also fundamentally why I think you're so talented at both being a realtor and a lawmaker.

[00:21:47] Well thank you I appreciate it just it takes patience and you've just got to try to get people to go with you on the journey and I mean look we needed to do it in Connecticut and.

[00:21:58] You know we didn't I don't know that anybody really understood how the pensions have been so underfunded for so long and the cliffs that we're going to be there and how much that was it was just an impossible situation.

[00:22:11] But again you know Dan Boyle who is governor at the time and he you know he he really made made the legislature make a lot of those hard decisions but we all did it together trying to do what's best for the state of Connecticut so.

[00:22:28] So thank you for that I appreciate your kind words on that. So in terms of the legislative work to your point I mean there were you took on some big issues and the short session that typically are more reserved for the longer session.

[00:22:43] I appreciated how you championed again a member of your caucus Senator Moroni to take on AI and you know he took that on but it was clear from afar in Kentucky and around the country that you were supporting him in his in his pursuit of addressing this emerging issue one of the biggest in our lifetime.

[00:23:07] But you're also very active with national policymaker organizations and their role of bringing together lawmakers from across state lines to chew on these big topics of the day.

[00:23:20] And as kind of a former staffer of one of those organizations I've really wrestled I know I raised this at the wash rag event that we did together you were kind of come and speak out last fall.

[00:23:31] But really wrestling the past six months on wow they took something big they worked on it across you know thanks to the pandemic everybody hops on zoom and just does the work.

[00:23:42] And they did it outside the confines of you know those norms and traditions and platforms that these national policymaker groups and not all of them do policy development.

[00:23:53] But I'm just really curious kind of your thinking around one what happened in Connecticut and almost getting across the finish line and where maybe that issue is going next session.

[00:24:05] But just what you see as kind of the role and perhaps you know we need to think about the speed in which national policymaker groups take on big issues and work on them.

[00:24:16] But just interested in your reflections as a leader who kind of oversaw a big big issue this year in their state with AI. Yeah thank you and I trust Senator Moroney implicitly on these issues and it's funny because when we did data privacy.

[00:24:35] He took that on and learned it and it's interesting because as a you know I used to chair the energy technology committee before they did banks banking committee before they did housing and when your chair of a committee you can really dive deep into the policy and details and things like that.

[00:24:55] As a leader you have to really be a little bit more you know at the 40,000 foot level. Especially as a majority leader I think kind of the role is best analogy is traffic cop and trying to direct a lot of different things.

[00:25:09] And so you know you pick the people who can get the job done and Senator Roni is certainly the guy to get a privacy and get AI done and he's been just you know so great on that issue.

[00:25:22] In fact you know as you know Maggie wherever he goes he fills a room and so and he was just with the lobbyist I'm like no no it's more than just a lobbyist.

[00:25:36] It's actually a lot of people want to hear what he has to say he's like the EF Hutton of AI and a lot of these tech issues.

[00:25:41] So and that's that's an old commercial for people who might not be of our generation who understand who the EF Hutton is but you know he's funny because he once said to me like I blame you forget me into all this stuff.

[00:25:56] He's laughing about it but I really wouldn't have anybody else do it he's just so good at it and for him to put together this kind of multi-stake coalition of Democrats and Republicans and industry representatives and folks you were on on.

[00:26:11] You know the fact that it's just so powerful and you know the fact that the matter is that Congress isn't getting it done and just look at like data privacy.

[00:26:23] We have not we're one of the we're the only industrialized country I believe that does not have a data private national data privacy law I mean that is terrible but you know state legislate as we can only affect with our state so we're going to continue to push it out.

[00:26:41] We're going to continue to push on AI. We had a very comprehensive piece of legislation that passed the Senate did not pass the House. The governor has some injections over it. I think we will continue.

[00:26:54] I know we will continue to work on it for next year session because there was concern that can I go to be the first state in the nation to have an AI bill and I thought that was something we should celebrate not something that we should be concerned over.

[00:27:07] Yeah. We and as a matter of fact Colorado passed the bill. You're going to see California do theirs and maybe some others but there's there's going to be a lot of discussion on AI and I don't think it's something that we should be afraid of but I think it's something we need to tackle.

[00:27:28] And if I could just give one example of you know back in the 90s when everybody when the Internet was kind of like sprouting up and you know the national policy was hands off the Internet it's a emerging technology we should just let it let it evolve and let the market take care of it.

[00:27:45] Okay that's fine but look what look what the aftermath of some of that is which is we don't have even broadband around the country. We have social media that that is not protecting our children that is doing great harm to people's mental health.

[00:28:02] We have data privacy issues around the country we have constantly have leaks and we have data breaches all over the place. I'm not saying that if we done something back in the 90s we would have eliminated those those things but we could have put parameters around those things that would have made us stronger and better and where we may not have had some of those problems we have the Wild West out there and thanks to leaders like James Ruhm and

[00:28:32] Tony and Republicans Democrats all across this country I think that we have a chance to do something but man is it a slog to get it done.

[00:28:43] So I know that you with your participation with you know coalitions like this and national policymaker groups you form these relationships outside of the confines of your state and party.

[00:28:57] How has you know befriending or acquainting with Republicans across the country informed your work in Connecticut and do you disagree or maybe agree that sometimes it's easier to take an idea from a Republican when you're outside the state or work with a Republican

[00:29:15] outside the state and inside the state or how do you apply some of the taking away the party veneer to the work to develop relationships in the legislature with those of the opposing party.

[00:29:29] Well I mean I always tell people it's you know I go I talked to school kids or I talked to senior men's group or anybody in between and I say how many of you think that we're actually throwing chairs at each other and arguing and fighting and you know it's just a bloodbath.

[00:29:43] You have to temper that depending on who you're talking to but but you know a lot of people's hands go up and I'm like well what if I told you 85% of the legislation in the Connecticut State Senate passes unanimously and 95% of its bipartisan like oh my god I can't believe that it's not what I see on

[00:29:59] Fox News or MSNBC I'm like well yeah in the state legislature things are a little different for now at least they're different and hopefully they'll stay that way where people can actually work together.

[00:30:09] And I think as you mentioned earlier I do have the great fortune and opportunity to be on the board of the state legislative leaders foundation and on the NCSL foundation board and the NCSL which is National Congress

[00:30:25] State Legislatures on their executive committee and this term over these two years I get the chair with John Eubanks and from Arkansas he's the co-chair of the standing committees which means we are the chairs of all the committees under us.

[00:30:43] And so you know those opportunities you get a chance to travel with those folks you get a chance to talk with them and you may not agree with stuff on on a policy level but it does talk you do talk a lot about what you can agree on and how to move forward on various things.

[00:31:04] And you know Roger Henshaw and I the speaker of we were both at the Washrag event last October which was a lot of fun I really enjoyed doing that.

[00:31:16] We talked on data policy data privacy issues and other things and our staffs connected and I think they got some stuff done this year in the West Virginia legislature now one is ever West Virginia and Connecticut agree on much.

[00:31:31] But we're able to get some stuff done and really work in a coalition that way.

[00:31:36] And then you know again on the data privacy stuff as we talked about having those coalitions and then working with other legislators across the country on various issues as well that where again we may not always agree on things but we can put those differences aside to work on things we do agree on.

[00:31:57] I was at a conference with some legislative leaders and we're just talking to the speaker and the center president in Wyoming and he was talking about the environment and clean and green energy and he's like you know I think our mission is to leave leave our state better place

[00:32:19] and how we found it and if that means we've got to put in more windmills or more how we ever get the more clean energy. We ought to be doing that and I said to him after his speech I said you know I may not agree with like 30 or 40% of what you said but on the 60% we overlap.

[00:32:38] And I said that's where we should be working together on state issues. And so it's not like there's just wedge on every single thing and so finding that common ground and finding that ability to have conversations and talk to each other is important and I think it's important for the health of our democracy going forward.

[00:32:57] Yes. So you mentioned the AI will come back next year. Are there one or two other big priorities that you think following the election that the legislature will take on next year? Any any preview or work in the interim that you think will build towards next session?

[00:33:17] Yeah I think so. I think we're definitely going to be pushing the AI bill for sure. We're going to be pushing Senate Bill 3 which passed the Senate and not the House which had a just a ton of consumer protection issues in there that for example we could talk about connectivity and affordability for the internet and the pro rated rates for

[00:33:47] streaming services, net neutrality I still think is a big issue trying to get our communities over the dot gov and send it out of work.

[00:33:56] So we're trying to get our communities away from foreign satellites like the DJZ satellites that I'm sorry drones that we have not satellites that are from China, DJG ones and a bunch of other kind of good consumer protection issues as well that was in Senate Bill 3.

[00:34:21] So those two things are going to be certainly hot in front and center this in the next year for sure. I think that there's there's you know fiscal issues because a lot of the ARPA monies run out and some other states are starting to see some slow down.

[00:34:37] I think we're going to be okay. I don't think it's going to be this kind of Armageddon since the ARPA monies out. I would say also we're going to have to continue to look at housing.

[00:34:48] The House Majority Leader Jason Rojas and I have been very very involved. We set up a major leaders task force on housing and that's going to continue to be a big issue for us.

[00:34:58] I mean it's an issue all over country and frankly all over the world. More affordable housing for folks and even just more housing and we're about 100,000 units short of where we need to be.

[00:35:12] And as I say my oldest son just graduated college and he's home and say he's got a good job here in Connecticut and want him to stay home but we don't want him to stay home too long.

[00:35:24] And I'm sure he doesn't want to be home too long either. I'm sure he wants to you know at some point he wants to spread his wings and be more independent but I'm glad to have him.

[00:35:34] Dad wants to find him a house. What's that? And dad wants to find him a house. Exactly. Exactly. So we need to continue to work on housing as a huge issue and unfortunately we've just been moving at such an incremental pace.

[00:35:48] We need to really take a big swing and try to get more done but it's been very very difficult to kind of risk the control from the local governments.

[00:35:58] I would also say too that on a human services side you know health care is always such a big issue and we try to chip away at some of that and mental health is such a big issue for us as well and continue to work on that.

[00:36:13] I would also say that the education and educating our kids especially while secondary pre early childhood education is extremely important and funding that properly is a huge issue that we've got to do.

[00:36:32] Secondary education is obviously very important. I want to see my vision would be to see huge growth in UConn. I've really been challenging UConn to figure out how they can grow more because at this point in our flagship university you need almost a 4.0 to get in and a 1,400 SAT.

[00:36:52] We're losing a lot of kids to other states because UConn just is so competitive right now that we don't have the room. We need to get them the resources to make more room for more students there.

[00:37:02] That's going to be really important from a higher end. I also want to see our state colleges and universities get a better reputation. They need to fill more seats. They need to be more relevant.

[00:37:13] They need to do a better job of attracting more students and some of that I think we need to start looking at. We have debt free community college. We need to really make it debt free without the long list of qualifications.

[00:37:24] We need to be doing the same thing for our state colleges like in our universities like Central, Eastern, Western and Southern. We need to eliminate the debt of enrollment.

[00:37:36] So that's going to be important. I also think an issue that a lot of people don't talk about is homelessness. Connecticut took a lot of great strides over the years to eliminate veterans homelessness.

[00:37:46] We're the second state to do that. We were the first state to eliminate chronic homelessness. Homelessness is a solvable problem and we need to, we can solve that if we have put the resources there.

[00:37:59] Obviously the environment being in a coastal state is huge for us. So dealing with the environment in a way that we can affect it in a small state like we can.

[00:38:10] We can do it. One of the, it's not low hanging fruit, but one of the obvious things is for us is food waste.

[00:38:19] Trying to divert that because 40% of our waste nationally is food waste and that is again something that we can solve especially as it relates to the climate crisis that we're in.

[00:38:29] So again, all those things are issues that we have to deal with. It's difficult at states sometimes and I think you had talked about this in a previous pod is that Congress has huge amounts of professional staff.

[00:38:46] States don't have that. We're bulking up a little bit, but when you're only in session for six months or three months out of the year, it's this is why some of these like task force, you know, the majority of the leaders around the housing or

[00:39:01] Senator Roni's AI and data privacy groups really are important because it gets people talking year round and not just our accession. Yeah, you have to do the prep work to actually get a past during session. Yes.

[00:39:14] So your recent trip to Athens, I believe it was in CSL they have a wonderful track record democracy focus endeavors abroad just your reflections as we celebrate our nation's holiday on that trip and and the principles of democracy that I'm sure that was part of the curriculum.

[00:39:35] Yeah, it was. Yeah, I've been so fortunate and so blessed to be able to go on some of these trips that NCSL and even SLF and others provide and ask me to it's really just just wonderful.

[00:39:51] I would if I can just go back a second to the my trip to Normandy back in 2016 and I still view that as one of the most meaningful trips I ever did.

[00:40:01] And to go spend a week there and learn the whole point of going to Normandy was to learn about Eisenhower and his decision on on Normandy into an in D day and the decisions that led up to that that day.

[00:40:19] And it was really something else and to go to the different places and then to be in the places that the president was just at is really something and it was just to.

[00:40:30] In Normandy there's an American flag flying higher than the French flag and I still have that picture on my phone and that I show people that I'm like where else would you see this and it really is something else and it really makes you so proud to be an American and helps you understand

[00:40:48] the role the United States has had over the last 50 60 years in preserving democracy, strengthening democracy, preserving peace, building a good global economy and why those things are important and why those things are important for states

[00:41:03] and why states need to have awareness and leadership when it comes to dealing and having relationships not only amongst our own states but across the world and other states and other countries.

[00:41:15] So for example last December I got a chance to go visit Germany. We visited state leaders across Germany and developing those relationships are really, really important.

[00:41:26] So we have that and I have that in Ireland and other and other countries as well and I pick up the phone and call people and you can talk about things that are that are that are mutual for both of our places.

[00:41:38] So in the Athens trip this is so I went on a first Normandy trip and I joke that I was on a guinea pig for that and you can only go to the Athens trip if you've been to Normandy.

[00:41:49] So this is the first norm of the first Athens trip. This is called their executive leadership for NTSL their training.

[00:41:54] There's only 12 of us. There were six Democrats, six Republicans and it was really to talk about the birthplace of democracy and I have to give credit to NTSL and the sponsors and also Speaker Robin Boss from Wisconsin.

[00:42:13] I think this was a lot of his doing. He's one of the officers of NTSL. He really pushed us for a long time.

[00:42:21] And so we spent a week really talking about the birthplace of democracy and strengthening democracy in our states and how as leaders, but we strengthen our democracy and how we really ensure that democracy will live on and what is our role of doing that.

[00:42:40] So we had a week. We read stuff. We were we had classroom time. Of course, we visited the the Acropolis and we also went to the clinics. We went to Socrates jail.

[00:42:55] And you know, we had at the end, the last thing that we had to do with Simon was we all had to give a speech about what democracy means to us and how we're going to preserve democracy and what what it is we're going to do.

[00:43:07] And so it was it was quite the trip and really a good connection that that we all had with each other. And it was again, it's always good getting together with colleagues from across the country in a small setting, Democrats or Republicans and hopefully it gets confident to not only our constituents in our states,

[00:43:28] but really the American people that state legislative leaders are coming together. We're protecting what we know is our form of government and we're going to protect into all we can to preserve and defend and save our democracy from whatever is out there right now.

[00:43:45] Sounds like an incredible pilgrimage. It was it was just again so fortunate to be able to have those opportunities.

[00:43:53] Yeah, well, Tim story the executive director and CEO over in CSL. I think that that those types of learnings have marked his career and he really has a special gift of putting those together.

[00:44:06] Oh, absolutely. Yeah, Tim is Tim is great. I mean, he's just he's he's we're fortunate and I'm glad you know I know you know him and I can't say enough about him because he's he came in the CEO of years ago and he's really he's really hit the ground running to make a lot of good positive changes and we wouldn't be here without him for sure.

[00:44:27] Agreed. So final question with the election coming up in November and recognizing that a lot of incredible leaders identified you for your future roles in public service.

[00:44:42] Can you name maybe one candidate who you're just extremely excited about that's running for the legislature and you see as a real superstar down the road. Who's running for the state legislature in Connecticut. Just a candidate you're really excited about.

[00:45:00] Yeah, well we have a few I will say. Let's see.

[00:45:07] We have a great seat in here Phil with Rob Lancer who's running and he's he's worked for a couple of governors he's worked for the comptroller right now she's staff and I think he's he's good up and cover.

[00:45:23] Nick Simmons who's running in Greenwich we've got a lot of good candidates this year and our comments are great as well so.

[00:45:31] Yeah I think I think there's definitely we've got some good candidates this year and you know we'll see if we can take those seats with our folks but.

[00:45:43] But you know we're we're fortunate to have really good senators and we've got to we've got some good candidates as well and I think that in the end we'll see where the voters are but we're going to give them a good choice for sure. Perfect.

[00:45:56] Well thank you leader doff it has been absolutely a treat to have you on and look forward to seeing you this summer at the numerous organizational convenings where hopefully everyone learns a lot and gets ready for the next session and we just are grateful for that.

[00:46:12] Thank you for your leadership and your time today and for our audience thank you for tuning in and hearing more about leader doff's work in Connecticut and across this country and world and we will see you next week.