With 14 prior years of experience as a legislator in the Connecticut House of Representatives, Republican Mitch Bolinsky is hoping to once again defeat Democratic challenger Michelle Embree Ku to be elected to an eighth term.

Bolinsky said he has "worked with so many good people on both sides of the aisle" during his time in Hartford, and that "people want to work with [him]."

"My bills pass unanimously," said Bolinsky. "It may not be as beautiful as we'd like it, but it’s better to agree on something."

First elected in November of 2012, Bolinsky serves as an assistant House Republican leader.

His committee work includes leadership as ranking member of the state’s celebrated Aging Committee, where his perseverance and cross-aisle reach go hand in hand with that of his House majority co-chair’s. Together the two have earned the privilege of working three “Governor’s bills” and a House “Speaker’s bill” over the past four sessions, gaining unanimous, or near-unanimous, passage on each. Their efforts have been recognized with legislative achievement awards from groups like AARP (2025, ‘24 & ‘23), CT Coalition of Resident Councils (‘25), and CT Association for Healthcare at Home (‘23). These and others may be viewed at mitchfornewtown.com/honors-awards.

His other committees include the budget-writing Appropriations Committee, and the State’s Elementary & Secondary Education Committee, reflecting his commitment to fiscal accountability, affordability, and the robust educational foundation that the Bolinsky children were beneficiaries of in Newtown Schools.

On education, Bolinsky stated he is “a recognized special education champion, crossing aisles, advocating, building consensus around science-based early detection and intervention for students on the spectrum, and the one in five having dyslexia.

“It took a statewide movement to legislate & create the Office of Dyslexia & Reading Disabilities in 2024, along with the advocates at Decoding Dyslexia,” said Bolinsky. “It was a multi-year effort, and two bipartisan legislators stuck with it all the way and, to this day, still do. I, working on behalf of a superhero Newtown mom, was one of them.”

Another line of work near to Bolinsky's heart is his work on the Aging Committee. Bolinsky said that he watched both of his parents languish and die in convalescent homes he felt did not take proper care of them, each of them dying of infections during their stays at one. Bolinsky has dedicated a large amount of his legislative career towards helping seniors age in place, in their own homes, and making it easier for the families of those seniors to take care of them. His bipartisan work with the Aging Committtee chair, Democrat Jane Garibay, has produced bills like House Bill 5001 in 2024, which overhauled the state’s elder care system, including requiring more oversight of home care workers, creating a speedier process for accessing Medicaid, and launching a registry to make it easier for consumers to find caregivers.

Among bills Bolinsky has championed are PA 26-74-aging in place policy, the choice for seniors to remain safely in their homes; PA 25-67-co-sponsoring a major prescription drug affordability bill; PA 25-15-conserving 6 Commerce Road, preventing apartments adjacent to local animal sanctuary; PA 24-50-expanding Medicaid to cover biomarker testing and early detection of dementias & cancers; PA24-46-co-sponsoring legislation to provide property tax exemption to disabled veterans; PA 24-39-lead Republican on “Speaker’s bill” improving seniors’ home-based care; PA 24-141-led on “Governor’s bill” to improve nursing home oversight and quality of life; PA 24-127-strengthening Connecticut’s criminal justice response & sexual assault victim protections; and PA 21-168-co-founding the Connecticut Office of Dyslexia & Reading Disabilities within the Department of Education.

Addressing affordability, Bolinsky said, "Affordability matters — more so today than perhaps ever before. Every day, we contend with the nation’s third highest overall tax burden, second highest electric bills, and runaway costs of housing, medical, and insurance. For 30 years, CT's majority party has used its numbers to 'nickel & dime' us with hidden taxes, Public Benefits abuse, fees, and compounding surcharges that add up to outpace most individuals' and families' earnings. This must end and, in every session, I speak to Connecticut's growing unaffordability, and propose legislation to eliminate excessive spending, fees, and waste."

Bolinsky noted that he has never voted to raise taxes or tolling on rides to work — nor does he vote for any budget "that doesn't balance without sleight of hand."

Bolinsky has been a frequent advocate for Newtown when things need to be done locally.

“Together in just the last year, I’ve played an important part in a lot of things that matter to many of us,” said Bolinsky. “A lot of the work was done with not much fanfare to turn a friendly walk in the woods into a perpetual, zero-cost license for Newtown to traverse an unused section of railroad track that’ll soon become our first section of ‘Rail Trail’; with a bit too much fanfare we conserved a sensitive, pristine meadow, by a beautiful sanctuary, from multi-story, high-density development; in May, we literally saved our historic Second Company Governor’s Horse Guard from a governor’s cut, powered by bipartisan respect for its 218 years of living history; and, on Sunday, October 25, my friends at the Alzheimer’s Association will begin calling Fairfield Hills the new home of the 2026, and future, Western CT Walk to End Alzheimer's! I love this job!”

Bolinsky was critical of how little ECS funding, a big part of how towns afford their school budgets, has changed over the years.

In 2013, ECS funding, per pupil have risen to about $16,500 per student for the 2025-2026 school year. Average per-pupil cost rose to about $26,000, a little below the two-thirds share, but close. Instead, at the frozen foundation ECS rates have been frozen at 2013's $11,525, now covering less of costs.

Bolinsky noted that Connecticut’s Limited Access Highway System is more than 65 years old in engineering and capacity. Fairfield County, the state’s economic engine, never completed critical alternative routing to spread exponentially greater volume. “Super 7” and “Super 25” are roads to nowhere. At the same time, freight rail has all but vanished in Fairfield County, leading to exponentially greater truck traffic that does not peacefully coexist with personal vehicle traffic.

“Regular repaving cannot fix the capacity and safety deficiencies of a highway with severe twists and turns, where excessive speed is not met with more aggressively banked curves and more substantial parapets,” said Bolinsky. “We also must embark on a program of preventative maintenance for our rusting bridges.”

According to Bolinsky, he has worked with past first selectpersons pushing to have a long-needed third lane constructed, along with a modernization of the 65 year old highway system with obsolete engineering of exits and entrances, climbing lanes, and left and right merges still present along most of the I-84 stretch between Danbury and Waterbury.

"The third lane keeps getting pushed back a decade at a time for lack of money, engineers, and priorities in other places," said Bolinsky. "Beyond the third lane, that old road needs to meet modern standards to carry larger trucks traveling at excessive speeds to minimize jack-knifing, and modern crash suppression features. If built today, much of that old highway does not meet modern standards."

Editor Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.