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05/28/2014 12:00 AMAlex Taubes, a Madison resident and Yale Law School student, won the Democratic nomination for state representative at a party caucus earlier this month. The Democrat will seek the 101st House District seat, which includes Madison and a portion of Durham, presently held by Republican Noreen Kokoruda, who has been nominated by her party and will seek re-election in November.
Taubes moved to Madison when he was in the 2nd grade. He attended Ryerson, Jeffrey, Brown, Polson, and Daniel Hand High School (DHHS). While at Hand, he was a member of the debate and quiz bowl teams, a peer advocate, and a violinist in the DHHS and Shoreline Youth Symphony orchestras.
Taubes graduated from Boston University, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. He was president of the Debate Society and won the national championship with his partner during their senior year. That year he also was the top-ranked individual speaker on the national debate circuit. Today he is an assistant coach of the Yale Debate Association, the top-ranked debate team in the country.
After college, Taubes worked for a full year in the chambers of Judge David Tatel of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The following year he entered Yale Law School, at which he has focused on state and local policy issues in addition to his legal studies.
This June and July, when not campaigning, Taubes will be working at a summer job in New York City and commuting home to Madison. He'll be working at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, a non-partisan law and policy institute that seeks to improve our systems of democracy and justice. He will be working in the Democracy Program, which focuses on voting rights and elections.
At his nominating caucus, Taubes related "a few stories about why I am a Democrat and why I'm running in this election." Among them are his experiences volunteering as a law student at the New Haven Court.
"I've come to understand how suffering and injustice isn't contained within our cities, but exists in our small towns, too. I've met applicants from Guilford, North Branford, and Madison while working there," he said.
During this campaign, going door to door, he added, "I've seen problems we read about happening in the cities, [but they] are present here, too, in Madison and Durham.
"I've met working families struggling to get by and pay their mortgage. I've met seniors worrying whether they can afford to stay in their homes. And I've met young people who grew up here but are burdened by student loans, lack of opportunity, and our astronomical cost of living," he said. "We have a lot to do to get our economy working for everyone."
Taubes said, "I'm also a Democrat because I believe we can do something. I'm proud that our state leads the nation in raising the minimum wage. I believe we can create a Connecticut where children who grow up here can stay here, find a job or start a business, buy a home, and raise a family. In this campaign, I will focus on our great state's strengths-our schools, our environment, our people-because they are the key to its untapped potential."