The Senate Democratic majority’s close ties to the Connecticut AFL-CIO on issues ranging from jobless benefits for strikers to universal paid sick days is about to be tested by an AFL-CIO leader’s effort to unseat a Democratic senator.
The target is Sen. Douglas McCrory, D-Hartford, a school administrator and former public school teacher whose fiery support for charter schools last year has put him at odds with teacher unions.
Shellye Davis, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO and president of an AFT local that represents paraprofessional educators in Hartford, opened a campaign last week against McCrory, who is unaccustomed to competition.
McCrory was unopposed in 2018, 2020 and 2022 after winning his Senate seat in a special election in 2017, but he already has two challengers for the Democratic nomination in 2024: Davis and Ayana Taylor, both of Windsor. And Mayor Danielle Wong of Bloomfield said Tuesday she is “actively engaging” in conversations about running.
The battleground is the 2nd Senate District, which covers the North End of Hartford and portions of the city’s two racially diverse northern suburbs, Bloomfield and Windsor.
The district is solidly Democratic and has been a base of Black political power for more than half a century, beginning with the election of Boce W. Barlow Jr. as Connecticut’s first Black state senator in 1966.
Why the sudden competition for McCrory, the winner of seven terms in the House of Representatives before succeeding Eric D. Coleman, who left the Senate to become a judge?
“I just think it’s time in the 2nd Senate for a senator who pays attention to every place,” said Taylor, a member of the Board of Education in Windsor and the niece of McCrory’s predecessor. “I am a champion of public education. I am a champion of equity. It’s time for a change, time for a new voice, someone who is going to to do the work that’s necessary.”
She opened her campaign on Dec. 6 after “due diligence” that included seeking local town committee support and consulting with Davis, who she says gave no sign of preparing to run herself.
Taylor said she already has raised more than the $17,300 in small-dollar donations to qualify for public financing. She is in the race to stay.
In response to Taylor’s quick fundraising, the Senate’s top Democratic leaders, Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney of New Haven and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff of Norwalk, hosted a fundraiser for McCrory earlier this month.
“It is a bedrock principle that we protect our incumbents,” Duff said.
But not to the degree that they discourage challengers.
“Clearly, we would prefer there not being a primary, but it’s not our position to tell people not to run,” Looney said.
It is Davis’ challenge that could pose a certain awkwardness for Looney, who controls the Senate agenda and is both a key ally of labor and a reliable defender of Democratic incumbents against challenges.
Looney said he can be true to both principles by backing McCrory for reelection while continuing to support the AFL-CIO’s legislative agenda — even if that might mean passing a bill sought by McCrory’s opponent.
“We will be continuing to push a pro-worker, pro-union agenda in the Senate,” Looney said. “I don’t know of anybody other than me who has been more more active on that front over the years, and that’s certainly not going to change.”
Other Democrats with ties to labor or Hartford say the Davis challenge could complicate the labor agenda and relationships within the Senate Democratic caucus, though none were willing to comment on the record, preferring to stay out of the fight.
McCrory, the co-chair of the General Assembly’s Education Committee, describes himself as a supporter of “school choice,” including charter schools, calling them a welcome option for parents of students in struggling schools.
“I’m about holding people accountable, and I’m about change and doing what’s best for those who can’t do for themselves,” McCrory said in a recent interview. “People are upset with me, because I am doing my job. I am getting attacked for doing my job.”
According to the Connecticut Charter Schools Association, nearly 11,000 students attend 21 public charter schools in Connecticut. Two thirds of the students come from low-income families, and 94% are students of color.
Last year, as the committee prepared to vote on Senate Bill 1096, a measure easing the approval process for new state-funded charter schools, McCrory publicly attacked teacher unions for opposing the bill.
McCrory accused the unions during the committee meeting of being heavy-handed, noting that an email from the Connecticut Education Association told committee members that their votes on SB 1096 would be on the CEA legislative scorecard.
“That has placed a bull’s-eye on each and every single one of our backs,” McCrory said.
He urged passage after a 30-minute speech that ended with him shouting.
“I think it’s time for us in this state to give our parents a choice and give these children a chance,” McCrory said. “I want this vote to be taken by roll call because I want everybody to have to put their name on it! Let this country and let the state know where you stand.”
The audience applauded, and the bill cleared his committee, but it never came to a vote in the Senate.
Davis said her campaign was not about charter schools or McCrory but a desire to give voice to constituencies, such as paraprofessional educators, whose voices go ignored at the state Capitol.
“What I am doing, I’m speaking for people that have issues and things that haven’t been resolved. Some people haven’t had their voices heard even though they were speaking,” Davis said. “So this is something I feel down in my soul that needs to happen. Sometimes, other people can do things a little different.”
She is running with the support of Ed Hawthorne, the president of the state AFL-CIO.
“Shellye’s dedicated her life to serving the kids that are often forgotten — the kids with disabilities, learning disabilities, behavioral problems — as a paraprofessional, and she goes in every single day and sticks up for those kids,” Hawthorne said. “She has a track record of sticking up for working people as a union leader and sticking up for the people that are so often forgotten as a para educator.”
Davis is not the first AFT leader to seek a seat in the General Assembly — or challenge an incumbent Democratic senator. Edwin Vargas Jr., a former president of the affiliated Hartford Federation of Teachers, unsuccessfully challenged Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford, in the 1st District. Vargas later was elected to the House.
When McCrory was elected to the Senate, he was succeeded in the House seat by Joshua Hall of Hartford, a Democrat and HFT officer. Hall now is the assistant principal of Weaver High School.
Two Democratic senators who won open races in 2022 are AFT officers, one the top statewide official. Sen. Jan Hochadel, D-Meriden, is the leader of AFT Connecticut. Sen. Martha Marx, D-New London, a home-care nurse, is president of a local that represents nurses.
Two other Democratic senators, Sen. Gary Winfield of New Haven and Sen. Jorge Cabrera of Hamden, work for unions and a third, Sen. Julie Kushner of Danbury, is a former regional official at the UAW. (Winfield voted with McCrory on the charter schools bills. Kushner was opposed.)
Hochadel has not made an endorsement, but she offered fulsome praise Davis and her motivations for opposing McCrory.
“I think all of us, when we run, we want to see a change,” Hochadel said. “That’s what I know about Shellye. I don’t think she is doing it out of spite. I don’t think she is doing it out of one issue or person. She wants to do it for her district.”
Marx said she believes McCrory deserves reelection.
“I told Shellye, ‘I’m supporting Doug,’” Marx said.
