State Representative Matthew Lesser (D-Middletown), who is currently on leave from Wesleyan, is advocating for fair hiring processes and the environment in his first term in the Connecticut House of Representatives. In a time of economic difficulty for the state, Rep. Lesser, who has no plans to graduate from the University, is also pushing for fiscal responsibility.
“The two big issues this year are the economy and the state budget,” he said. “We have an $8.7 billion dollar budget deficit that we need to balance somehow, and we need to do it in a way that protects the most important services.”
In an interview, Lesser criticized Governor Rell’s current budget proposal, which fails to account for the state’s current budget deficit.
“The Governor is required to balance the budget, and she balanced a $6 billion dollar budget deficit when the actual deficit is $8.7 billion dollars,” Lesser said. “That means there’s just a lot of work to be done. We have a lot of tough choices and need to figure out what we want to do.”
While Lesser is determined to eliminate wasteful state expenditures, he is committed to maintaining funding for certain programs, particularly education.
“I think that my biggest priority is protecting funding for education, because we’re going to be paying for that twenty years down the line,” he said. “We want to make sure that we’re not making short-term decisions that hurt us in the long run.”
Lesser’s stated commitment to fair hiring practices is reflected in one of his current bills, which will prevent employers from looking at an applicant’s credit history before they decide to give the applicant a job.
“You may have defaulted on a student loan, and you can’t get a job,” Lesser said. “Everyone who has been laid off from their job and fallen behind in their bills, they won’t get hired. Not because they’re a bad employee or they’re irresponsible or they won’t show up on time, just because they have bad credit.”
The other bill that Lesser has sponsored is called “An Act Concerning the Freedom to Dry.” If passed, it would bar any statutes that restrict the right to use solar power to dry laundry. The public hearing for the Right to Dry law will be held Tuesday, February 17.
“This bill is addressing the problem where people who live in a condo complex or a homeowner’s association are prevented from putting clotheslines up,” Lesser said. “When they can’t do that, they have to use clothes dryers… Allowing them to put up a clothesline allows them to help the environment.”
Although he is only in his first term, Lesser’s initiatives are garnering plenty of attention. His bill to eliminate restrictions on clotheslines is being publicized and lobbied for by the Sierra Club of Connecticut, and his bill to eliminate employer credit checks has recently been featured in USA Today.
According to Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) President Mike Pernick, who managed Rep. Lesser’s campaign, students should be proud to have a member of the University community in the Connecticut Congress.
“On election day, there were about 100 Wesleyan students who were out campaigning for him,” Pernick said. “The reason he is there is because of Wesleyan and that’s something we should be proud of.”
As Rep. Lesser noted, students should continue to be involved in the democratic process, both on campus and at home.
“It’s a lot easier than you think to get involved either in Middletown or in your hometown,” he said. “There aren’t huge barriers to people getting involved. I started showing up at Democratic Party meetings just a few years ago. If you work hard and you know what you’re doing, you can do whatever you want.”
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