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10/17/2016 08:55 AMVincent J. “Vince” Mase, Sr., is the unaffiliated candidate for 86th General Assembly (GA) District. The Northford resident wants to bring his decades of middle class work experience as a letter carrier, combined with his labor attorney’s insight and union leadership experience, to Hartford to represent North Branford/Northford, Wallingford, Durham, and Guilford.
Mase joined the Nov. 8 state election ballot as a petitioning candidate on Aug. 10 and calls himself the “unknown candidate.”
“I’ve been a Democrat my entire life, however, because I decided at the last minute to get involved in the race, I could only go on a petition. That’s why I want to people to know, if you like this guy, vote for him in Row 5G. I am the unknown candidate, but anybody who’s met me will tell you, ‘Vinny Mase, he’s a family man,’” said Mase, married 49 years, with three adult children (a U.S. army surgeon, an attorney, and a child psychologist) and five grandchildren. “As a mailman, a common laborer, and a union official with a middle-income wage,” Mase said he, with his wife, “were able to support our family and point our kids in right direction.”
Mase is current president of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 19. After 30 years as a letter carrier, Mase retired and entered Quinnipiac Law School in 1999. In 2003, he began a second career as an attorney and has an East Haven practice.
Now, Mase is working to get his views out to the constituency and bring change to the 86th District.
“Sometimes, a person can make a difference,” said Mase. “I think there’s somewhat of an apathetic view in the 86th District,” including “bashing union workers and union contracts, and blaming Connecticut’s problems on unions not wanting to give back.”
A union member since 1974, Mase said, “Bashing unions is a statewide problem. If you look at many Republicans, they’re anti-union. They talk about good paying jobs, but don’t put their money where their mouth is. As Democrats, we’re firm believers in union middle class and raising the wages.”
Mase supports Connecticut’s recent $220 million tax incentive deal to keep Sikorsky/Lockheed.
“What Lockheed is going to do is keep at least 8,000 people employed, keep current suppliers in business, and possibly other suppliers,” said Mase. “There are 300 small suppliers that are going to benefit for next 16 years [and] these employees will have better buying power and more services in their community. It’s an upward spiral.”
Mase is in favor of state bonding projects like September’s wave of 41 allocations totaling $680 million.
“It puts people to work and also buys down the [budget] deficit,” he said. “Let’s look at the alternative—let’s not do anything. We have to do something until we succeed. We now have a cornerstone; start building on [it]. If it means bonding projects to do it, let’s roll up our sleeves and do it.”
He said Connecticut’s continuing budget deficit isn’t an indictment of Democratic leadership.
“There are so many variables to the budget. Obviously, they haven’t done everything to balance the budget, but one of major things they’re talking about is putting a cap on spending,” said Mase. “If you go back to Lowell Weicker, he brought in state income tax to take care of union pensions. Well, since then, pensions have been growing. Weicker, Rowland, and Rell—all of three of those Republican governors created problems with union pensions. [Governor] Dan Malloy inherited that, and in 2013, he did something about it.”
Saying Connecticut’s middle class is shrinking and the low income class is growing, Mase supports raising the minimum wage to help boost low-income earners into the middle class, kick-start the economy, and bolster the budget deficit.
“If we raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, it would help low-income people [and] hopefully raise them to middle-income level, and raise revenue for the state,” said Mase. “If a person’s making $200 a week, the state gets income tax on $200. Raise that to $600, and that would bring in more taxes and help Connecticut out of this recession.”
Mase said consumers will help small businesses carry wage increases, explaining, “When oil goes up, when gas goes up, the business winds up passing that on to the consumer, instead of one person taking the brunt of it on their own.”
Mase wants to assist senior citizens facing increasing living costs.
“I want to listen to plight of seniors in my areas to find out what I can do to help,” he said. “I, too, am a senior citizen, so I can understand that point of view. And I can certainly understand the plight of working class parents putting kids through school and college.”
Mase is “a firm believer in public education” who supports teachers, saying, “Teachers don’t get compensated enough and are certainly under-appreciated in many areas.”
Mase said he would work to resolve “gridlock in Hartford.
“As a branch president with 700 members, I have to put my personal feelings aside and make decisions that represent and improve the work life of our people. In Hartford, I can do the same thing,” said Mase. “I’m a labor attorney...I fight for working class people. Low income and middle class people deserve more out Connecticut than we’ve been getting past 20 years. Let everybody pay their fair share. Let’s put people in Connecticut back to work.”