Two women speak seated in the audience of a wood-paneled auditorium

Members of the Connecticut Citizens’ Assembly on property taxes participate in an ice breaker. Photo by Allie Barton

Michael Staw had always wanted to serve on a jury, though he had never made the cut. So, when an opportunity arrived in the mail to participate in a statewide nonpartisan citizens’ assembly on property taxes, he signed up.

“Civic duty sounds kind of corny to say,” said Staw, a longtime Connecticut resident from Westport. “But I felt this was kind of like my way to contribute.”

On Saturday and Sunday, Staw joined 98 other state residents in New Haven, drawn randomly to deliberate on approaches to funding essential community services. 

The assembly is a collaboration between the Connecticut Office of the State Comptroller, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM), the University of Connecticut Department of Political Science, and Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies’ Democratic Innovations program.

At Yale’s Linsly-Chittenden Hall and a ballroom at the OMNI New Haven Hotel, the participants learned more about the process and the details of tax policy in the state. And they began the process of getting to know one another for the first of six sessions extending from July through September.

“It looks like we’ve got a bunch of people who are willing to talk about topics,” Staw said. “Willing to — at least in some cases — say positions that may be controversial without fear of being slammed for their positions. I’m very hopeful about that.”

Kenya Rutland, the assembly’s lead facilitator and principal of KJR consulting, encouraged the participants to disagree with respect and listen as hard they want to be heard.

“I don’t have to agree with you, but you know what?” he said, modeling the type of behavior that will benefit everyone. “I want to hear your opinion. That’s huge.”

In packed rooms, participants and speakers expressed enthusiasm. At the first mention of the politically divisive topic of tax reform, the crowd let out an excited grumble.

“This is one of those persistent frustrating challenges,” said Rutland said. “We are not talking theory. We are going to be looking at action.”

State Comptroller Sean Scanlon emphasized that point, vowing to present whatever recommendations the assembly produces to the state legislature.

“This is the opposite of a report that collects dust on a shelf,” Scanlon said, adding how the assembly can help overcome political gridlock. “It’s working together with you to help us find the courage to do what we have to do.”

This is really exciting to give us a platform — a system to try to effect some change.

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Dawris Gomez

Easels with Connecticut Citizens' Assembly posters with logos stand beside stained-glass windows in Linsly-Chittenden Hall -Ch

Photo by Allie Barton

Hélène Landemore, professor of political science and co-leader of the ISPS Democratic Innovations program, designed the assembly and helps supervise it. Democratic Innovations seeks to identify and test new ideas for improving the quality of democratic representation and governance.

Landemore described the assembly as “jury duty for politics” and part of a wave of such citizen-led efforts in the country and around the world. Her new book “Politics Without Politicians: The Case for Citizen Rule” lays out the argument for such bodies, in part because the assembly’s diversity and freedom from electoral pressures could help it see possibilities that partisan institutions overlook.

Participants are not bound by campaign promises, party platforms, or the demands of reelection, she said. They can approach the question from many perspectives and revise their thinking during deliberation. And she suggested that allowing the Connecticut Citizens’ Assembly to govern themselves will mark an important evolution in the movement.

But mostly, she shared her excitement and set expectations.

“You will laugh, maybe some of you will cry,” Landemore said. “You’ll get very, very frustrated. I just want to warn you, you will get frustrated with us, with the process, with each other, with yourself. It’s going to get difficult.”

Joseph DeLong, executive director and CEO of CCM, said the initial idea came from Danielle Chesebrough, the former first selectwoman of Stonington. After leaving office and learning about citizens’ assemblies elsewhere, she approached DeLong over a year ago about whether CCM might help convene one. 

“I have a fairly large board of municipally elected officials all across Connecticut who leaned in and said go for it,” DeLong said, noting how the assembly offers a new way for government to respond to constituents. “Isn’t this what we’re supposed to do — engage our residents and hear from them and respond to the government that they want?”

Landemore contributed her experience with other assemblies and established an interim expert governance committee (meant to dissolve when the citizens took the keys) before the group approached Scanlon, who agreed to participate and granted the project credibility, DeLong said. Michael Morrell, associate professor of political science at UConn, leads the research committee.

Organizers used a lottery and demographic criteria to create a group approximating Connecticut’s population. Attrition and replacement recruitment altered that balance, however, leaving the final group slightly more female, Democratic, and suburban than the state overall, according to organizers. Participants will receive a $1,200 stipend for full attendance.

Jeremiah Wilhite, an airport worker from Rocky Hill, lives in a rental home with his family and pays taxes on two cars. He has lived in Connecticut for seven years and considers the citizens’ assembly a welcome “gateway to civic service.”

“We’re very pessimistic, I think, in this country,” Wilhite said. “And we need to get back to our democratic roots.”

He did not worry about disagreement among the participants.

“I’ve seen a little bit of the sparks as we come together, and people have slight differences of opinions,” he said. “I want to see more sparks. Because that’s how you sharpen a knife. That’s how you get going.”

Dawris Gomez, a Bridgeport resident, hoped that the assembly might “radically reimagine” how Connecticut approaches property taxes, rather than make minor revisions to a system created for an earlier era.

“I think it’s a topic that obviously impacts us greatly,” Gomez said. “This is really exciting to give us a platform, a way, a system, to try to effect some change.”

In response to an assembly member’s question about the likelihood that legislators will act at conclusion of their work, Landemore placed some responsibility on the randomly assembled citizens in the room.

“I think it depends on you a little bit,” she said. “Can you produce something that has credibility, that is convincing, that is compelling? And then it won’t give them a choice.”