McKinney, Goldberg Vie For Senate Seat

By John Voket

When Newtown voters go to the polls November 4, they will have two choices for state senator, including the challenger who is cross endorsed by the Working Families minor party.

The Republican incumbent is Senator John McKinney. According to his official state bio — he has no campaign website — his elected service includes nine years on the Senate Transportation Committee.

In that time he was an advocate for changing the state’s transportation policy to address long-term challenges of increasing congestion and rising gasoline prices. In 2005 and 2006, Sen McKinney supported major transportation initiatives that will improve I-95, replace all 342 Metro-North rail cars, and create a new Metro-North maintenance facility to service them.

He relinquished that committee post upon being chosen as the Senate Minority Leader in June 2007. Sen McKinney remains a ranking member on the General Assembly’s Environment, Legislative Management, and Executive Nominations Committees. He previously served on the Appropriations and Housing Committees.

In 2007, he helped author and pass Jessica’s Law for Connecticut, a law that establishes mandatory minimum jail sentences for convicted child sex offenders and takes aim at the growing threat posed by online child predators.

A parent of three children who attend Fairfield public schools, Sen McKinney is committed to ensuring a high quality of education for all of Connecticut’s students.

An advocate for job creation, affordable housing, and inner-city economic development, Sen McKinney was named the 2007 Legislator of the Year by the Bridgeport Regional Business Council.

He has been recognized as an “Environmental Hero” by the League of Conservation Voters for his efforts to pass legislation aimed at preserving Connecticut’s open spaces and cleaning up Long Island Sound.

Sen McKinney was raised in Fairfield and is the youngest of five children of the late Congressman Stewart McKinney and his wife Lucie. Congressman McKinney, who represented Connecticut’s fourth congressional district in the US House of Representatives from 1971 until his death in 1987, served as Republican Leader in the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1969 to 1970.

Sen McKinney, 44, graduated from Fairfield Prep in 1982, earned a bachelor of arts degree from Yale University in 1986 and received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Law, with honors, in 1994. Prior to being elected to the General Assembly, Sen McKinney practiced law at Cummings and Lockwood and was a law clerk to Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Richard N. Palmer.

He is a former member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Women and Families in Bridgeport, and currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Westport/Weston Family YMCA and Operation HOPE, was formerly on the advisory board of the Fairfield Theatre Company, and is a member of the vestry of Trinity Church in Southport. Sen McKinney and his family help provide housing and care for people with AIDS through the Stewart B. McKinney Foundation.

He lives in Fairfield with his wife, Megen, and their three children, Matthew, Graysen, and Kate.

Challenger Martin Goldberg

The endorsed Democratic and Working Families state senate challenger, Martin A. Goldberg, is an attorney who specializes in taxation and business law, estate planning, and probate. According to his campaign bio, in addition to work for his clients, he teaches courses in taxation and business law at the University of New Haven College of Business, where he is an associate professor.

He is on the advisory board of the Connecticut Forum, and is a member of the Fairfield Affordable Housing Committee and the Fairfield Democratic Town Committee.

Mr Goldberg, 54, earned his bachelor’s degree in English at Clark University, a master’s degree in journalism at Boston University School of Communication, a law degree at University of Connecticut School of Law, and a graduate law degree in taxation at New York University School of Law.

The candidate grew up in Stamford, and now lives as an “empty nester” in Fairfield with his wife, Cindi, an attorney, chef, and teacher of both law and cooking.

According to his position statement, Mr Goldberg is a supporter of universal health care, and believes Connecticut has the wealth and the will to institute universal health care here regardless of any federal initiatives.

In his experience as a tax lawyer, Mr Goldberg says the more complicated the tax law gets, the more inequitable it becomes. He believes excessive property taxes penalize the middle class, burden local businesses, and harm the urban centers on which the entire state depends for industry, health care, and culture. Perhaps most importantly, he states that excessive property taxes have a destructive effect on land-use decisions.

Mr Goldberg says individuals should have health care as a matter of right, including the right of females to have reproductive choice. He states that all adults should have the right to the full dignity and privileges of marriage regardless of their sexual orientation. His candidacy has been endorsed by Love Makes a Family, and he has vowed to fight for the expansion, rather than contraction, of the rights recognized by the Connecticut Supreme Court in the Mock and Kerrigan case.

His website is: www.mgoldberg.com.