By Brianna Gurciullo, Staff Writer
May 6, 2024
City Rep. Jonathan Jacobson, D-12, greets voters outside the polling place at Stamford High School in Stamford, Conn., on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021.
Christian Abraham / Hearst Connecticut Media
STAMFORD — A Democrat who lost his party’s endorsement last year in a bid for the state House’s 148th District seat wants a rematch.
City Rep. Jonathan Jacobson, 36, is again trying to secure the endorsement of the Stamford Democratic City Committee to run for the seat representing part of Glenbrook, the East Side and the Cove.
Current state Rep. Anabel Figueroa, 62, who is also a member of the Board of Representatives and the DCC, won the seat in a special election last year, becoming the first Latina to represent the state House district.
Both Jacobson and Figueroa sought the DCC’s endorsement to run in that special election. Figueroa won the nomination in a 4-3 vote. She provided one of the votes in her favor herself.
The DCC now has a new roster.
Figueroa ran for reelection to the party committee on a slate called Stamford Dems for Responsive Government earlier this year. While she won her race, most of the other candidates in the “Responsive Government” camp lost to those who ran on a competing slate, Democrats United for Stamford, which was backed by DCC Chair Robin Druckman and Mayor Caroline Simmons.
Eight members of the DCC now live in the 148th District. Five were part of the “United” group. Three, including Figueroa, were on the “Responsive Government” team.
Because of the election results, Figueroa said she doubts she will receive the endorsement to run to keep her seat. She said she plans to gather signatures from registered Democrats in the district to trigger a primary election.
She said she hopes her constituents will give her “the opportunity to go back out there to continue doing what I know how to do, which is to fight and protect, to be vigilant of our needs, our tax (dollars).”
Jacobson, who represents District 12 on the Board of Representatives, said he is making another bid for the state House seat because he sees it “as a great opportunity to better serve my community,”
“I’ve been in public office since I was 28 years old, and in my eight years of service on the Board of Representatives, I think I have done a lot to really improve the quality of life in the city of Stamford,” he said.
Jacobson pointed to ordinances that he proposed and the board passed to prohibit businesses in Stamford from using Styrofoam products, offering plastic carryout bagsand providing plastic straws unless a customer asks for one. He noted that he also spearheaded an ordinance to tighten rules on leaving dogs tethered outdoors and has advocated for installing speed cameras in school zones.
“I believe that my record demonstrates that I have the ability to lead effectively and accomplish the policies and goals I set out to achieve,” Jacobson said.
Jacobson, who grew up in the city, is an attorney who focuses on commercial litigation. He said that if he is elected to the state office, he will step down as a member of the Board of Representatives.
“I don’t think it’s possible for any one person to apply 100 percent of their efforts to multiple elected positions,” he said. “I in good conscience do not think it is appropriate to serve both on the Board of Representatives and in the General Assembly at the same time because I do not believe that I could effectively do both jobs to the best of my potential.”
Figueroa said that may be Jacobson’s opinion, but she believes she has shown that someone can do both roles at the same time.
“I think it’s just a matter of being willing and organizing,” she said, mentioning how she recently spoke on the phone with a constituent about a proposed cannabis dispensary on Stamford’s East Side for about an hour while driving home from Hartford.
Figueroa is one of the most senior members of the Board of Representatives, having first been elected in District 8 in 2001. In 2017, she joined a slate of Democratic candidates, most of whom were newcomers, called “Reform Stamford,” which promised to provide more checks on the city’s executive branch.
Originally from El Salvador, where she was an elementary school teacher, Figueroa immigrated to the United States in her early 20s during the Salvadoran Civil War. She works as a unit coordinator at Norwalk Hospital and leads a health care workers union.
In the General Assembly, she serves on the committees on aging, nominations and commerce. She is a member of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus and the Puerto Rican and Latino Caucus.
After 14 months in office, Figueroa said she is proud to have supported bills to require state agencies to use the terms “Latino,” “Latina” and the gender-neutral “Latine” when referring to the Latin American community; to expand paid sick leave requirements to cover more workers in the state; and to require lactation consultants to be licensed. She said she also supports a constitutional amendment to allow judges to deny bail based on risk.
Figueroa and Jacobson have a tense history as colleagues on the Board of Representatives.
Around the start of 2021, Jacobson filed an ethics complaint against Figueroa alleging that she had retaliated against a member of the city’s Board of Ethics who previously investigated her over a different matter.
The Board of Ethics member was Myrna Sessa, who no longer sits on the board. In 2019, Sessa led a group of ethics board members that investigated Figueroa’s participation in a committee vote on a nominee for chief of police.
The members found probable cause that Figueroa had violated the code of ethics by taking part in the vote because she had a conflict of interest in the matter. Figueroa has a son who is a Stamford police officer.
Figueroa later voted against Sessa’s reappointment to the Board of Ethics, citing concerns about how the board was run. Jacobson has said that he called Figueroa afterward and asked her questions about her vote and her past experience with the ethics board.
Figueroa complained about Jacobson’s questioning to the president of the Board of Representatives at the time, saying she felt “harassed and disrespected.”
“It is not clear to me if his behavior towards me is because of my gender or nationality,” Figueroa said then. Jacobson later said her statement was “outrageous” and “baseless.”
Members of the Board of Ethics found that Figueroa had violated the ethics code by voting on Sessa’s reappointment because she “had a personal interest that created a divided loyalty which influenced or impaired the independence of her judgment as a representative.”
“I have nothing negative to say about her,” Jacobson told The Stamford Advocate this week. “All I can say is that I’m an idealist and I hold all of my elected officials, all the politicians that represent me, to the highest levels of ethical standards.”
The DCC is expected to endorse candidates for state offices on May 22.
May 6, 2024
Brianna Gurciullo
REPORTER
Brianna Gurciullo covers local government and politics for the Stamford Advocate. A Meriden native, Brianna came to the Advocate after four years at POLITICO, where she wrote about federal transportation policy. She is always looking for a dog or cat to befriend when she is not working -- and sometimes when she is working, as evidenced by her photo.
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