Together, the House of Representatives and the Senate constitute the Connecticut General Assembly (CGA). The General Assembly enacts legislation dealing with state appropriations and finance, public welfare, the environment, public works, housing, education, civil and criminal laws, and other matters. The Senate tries all impeachments of executive and judicial branch officials. In Connecticut, members of the state’s legislative body, the General Assembly, must be at least eighteen years old and reside in the district they represent. Senate and House members serve two-year terms. Candidates were asked to respond to questions developed by local Leagues of Women Voters (LWV). Candidates enter their replies directly into Vote411, and replies are not edited by the LWV.This is the link to the CGA website: https://www.cga.ct.gov/A sample ballot of the races and candidates you will see on the General Election ballot is posted on the Secretary of State’s website prior to the start of Early Voting on October 19. You can use this link to keep checking: https://portal.ct.gov/sots/election-services/town-ballots/ballots
Candidate Name
Jennifer Leeper
You Tube Video
Campaign Website
leeperforfairfield.com
Campaign Email
Jennifer@leeperforfairfield.com
Campaign Phone
(203)307-5461
Instagram
@leeperforfairfield
Facebook
www.facebook.com/LeeperforFai...
First elected in 2020, Jennifer serves as Chair of the Education Committee and as a member of the Environment and Appropriations Committees. She attended Wellesley College, earning a Bachelor’s in Political Science and Religion and then a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. Jennifer previously worked as a policy and data analyst at the CT State Dept of Education and as a school administrator in New York City. Jennifer served on Fairfield’s BOE. She is married to Nick and mom to their 2 boys, who attend Fairfield schools.
Top of mind for Connecticut residents is the cost of living. Inflation has only gotten worse and interests rates higher alongside steep cuts to federal assistance. As your legislator, I have worked hard to tackle affordability and maintain economic stability. We made the state’s largest income tax cut, expanded tax exemptions for pension, annuity, and IRA retirement income for our seniors, and established the $712M early childhood endowment to help families afford childcare and stay in the workforce.
Uniquely, this past year in the face of devastating federal cuts, we created a $500M fund to help offset the life-altering impacts for residents losing their food assistance and healthcare.
We need to balance how we grow our economy, incentivizing more businesses to grow here, which helps keep taxes down, with the impacts that growth has on development. The state made millions available to support infrastructure needs alongside this work.
I serve as the Co-Chair of the Education Committee. While we have secured hundreds of millions of additional dollars to fund education, these efforts have not kept pace with inflation. I serve on Gov Lamont’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Ed Funding and look forward to advancing innovative ways to fund our schools, advance accountability, and address our teacher shortage crisis.
As co-chair, we directed millions of dollars to high-dosage tutoring, created a Civics Seal of Education and Engagement to be earned on high school diplomas, and we paused the state’s racial imbalance law to prevent state-induced redistricting. I look forward to tackling the issue of screens in our schools to ensure educational practices are aligned with optimal student learning.
I also serve on the Appropriations and Environment Committees, where I fight for every possible dollar to be returned to Fairfield and for policies that protect and sustain our environment.
As the Education Committee Co-Chair, I am responsible for the School Construction program for the state. I literally have a seat at the table negotiating these dollars with the Executive branch. I work alongside the Fairfield delegation to ensure we bring home every dollar possible for our community to offset the burden on property taxes. If re-elected, I would continue to do this.
Thankfully, Fairfield has achieved a moratorium on 8-30g developments, and our Town Plan and Zoning Commission is, for the first time, holding proactive planning meetings. In 2024, we passed the most meaningful reform to 8-30g since the law's inception. It incentivizes small-scale middle housing and makes a moratorium easier to achieve. With smart planning and transparency, Fairfield can leverage these incentives to ensure future development is appropriately placed and scaled to stack future moratoriums. At the state level, we ensured additional infrastructure funds would be made available for communities, like Fairfield, just for doing this planning work. There are no state requirements for density and no penalties for not adhering to the plan. This is the forward-thinking work we need at the local level with the necessary state financial assistance.
There are no simple fixes to the high utility rates; we need more generation, and ideally clean generation. It was devastating when the Trump administration halted our 80% complete Generation Wind Project. While it was eventually restored, the delays and chaos only drove up the cost. I support additional nuclear options, more robust storage to shave high-demand peaks, and continued solar subsidies. These all have the impact of lowering costs and increasing reliability for ratepayers. We did remove large components of the Public Benefits portion of consumers’ bills and have successfully brought that portion of the bill down.
I believe additional state aid toward education is a significant lever to reduce property taxes, given school budgets are often the largest budget driver for communities.
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