The odd number years are off years for state politicians as new legislative terms begin and - in 2011- a new Governor takes office.
That will not be the case in New Britain in the early weeks of 2011 as the new Governor has summoned the state senator for a commissionership and the Legislature has selected the 25th State Rep for Democratic State Auditor.
A short time after March 1 the familiar names of DeFronzo and Geragosian will be gone from the New Britain state House delegation. State Rep. Tim O'Brien (D-24) will be the senior member and incoming Human Services Chair Rep. Peter Tercyak (D-26) the only veteran of past legislatures left. State Rep. Betty Boukus (D-22), who represents a sliver of the city in District 15, will also remain to represent New Britain voters. While it may seem longer for the current crop of NB legislators, these kinds of State House changes occurred here just eight years ago when incumbents stepped down and DeFronzo defeated Tom Bozek for the Senate seat.
What is different now is the new system of public financing. Given a six-week election cycle the special elections here and elsewhere will again test the citizens' election program. Participating candidates will need to meet 75% of the donor and dollar requirements of a normal election cycle. The candidates will need to be very good and very fast at securing the small dollar contributions to do the public financing.
On top of new faces in the Legislature the coming reapportionment will most certainly alter the borders for Legislative and local voting districts by 2012. New Britain voters will be seeing a lot of changes in who represents them and where they live on the political map.
Related stories from Herald and CT Mirror
http://www.newbritainherald.com/articles/2010/12/29/news/doc4d1aad3a6706c379794614.txt
http://www.ctmirror.com/story/8829/geragosian-ward-named-new-state-auditors
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