Hard-hat Democrat

By Scott Benjamin

SOUTHINGTON – The Panera Bread – the one with the terrific Greek Yogurt – was once a diner where his mother waited on tables after the 40-minute drive from Torrington.

Jack Perry looks out at the much-traveled thoroughfare off of Inerstate-84, Exit 32 - the commercial retail hub of this suburb of 43,500 people - and says, “I remember when Queen Street didn’t have turn lanes. I remember when there were cows around Southington.”

He has lived in town since 1993, when Southington native Rob Dibble was pitching for the Cincinnati Reds.

“Pratt & Whitney moved out in the early ‘90s and that really crippled us,” Perry remarked about the departure of the operations of the defense contractor that is based in East Hartford.

“We had to slowly build back the tax base,” laments Perry, who is seeking the Democratic nomination in the First Congressional District – 27 municipalities in the metro Hartford region.

He describes his mother, Sylvia Sikorska, as “strong, independent.” She emigrated from Poland, was married at age 18, and got her Green Card and became a citizen about three years ago.

Perry’s biological father – whom he describes as abusive and drug-dependent – departed when he was a one-year old. Eventually, Perry would have two brothers and two sisters.

Sikorska also waited on tables at a diner in Danbury, relying on friends and family to care for her children.

“The welfare program is something I grew up on,” Perry commented. “I’m proof that those programs do help people. Nobody wants to be on them, but they do help people get ahead.”

In his fatherhood speech during his 2008 presidential campaign, Democrat Barack Obama said: “We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child — it’s the courage to raise one.”

Remarked Perry, “Every kid needs parents in their life. Not having my biological father, there was a struggle.”

His adoptive father, Kurt Holyst, runs a landscaping business and has been a paragon of civic virtue.

Perry commented, “He always has given back without expecting to be praised.”

He has followed in Holyst’s footsteps.

Stacey Dolan, who coordinates the Southington Talks social media site, recruited Perry for her Fresh Start program. She was moving homeless people into apartments, but needed trucks to get their belongings to storage bins and then to the new homes.

She said Perry, who started a dumping and recycling business soon after graduating from Southington High School, “provided the trucks and manpower” for four or five years.

Today there appear to be too many Democratic voters with a doctorate who can recite sections verbatim of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Of the five candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in the First Congressional District, Perry, 35, is the only one wearing a hard hat in their web site profile photos.

Perry proudly says, “I can take apart a diesel engine and put it together and get it running. I don’t think there are many members of Congress that can do that.”

His business – HQ Dumpsters & Recycling - grew to more than 50 employees and 37 trucks. He sold it about two years ago to WPM and now serves as the director of operations.

Perry said through the first 10 years he didn’t raise prices.

Yet throughout his tenure his employees received regular pay increases.

Perry said he would “not fight” his workers if they wanted to form a collective bargaining unit.

“However, I think I give them more than what they would get with a union,” he commented. “The big companies don’t take care of their workers. My employees are like an extended family.”

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan recently wrote, “[The Democrats]main split isn’t only between left and way-left but between those who don’t seem to know why they’re in politics and those who do.”

Perry says he knows who he is: A Bernie Sanders guy.

“As you get older, you get more progressive,” he explained. “When you’re young you don’t care so much about health care. When you have children, you worry about education. Those are core Democratic values. I don’t think it is just the education piece [regarding the Diploma Divide]. I think it is maturity.”

Perry opted not to run for a third term this year on Southington’s Town Council and instead concentrate on getting elected to Congress.

True, the last two members to be elected from Connecticut to the U.S. House – Jim Himes of Greenwich in the Fourth District in 2008 and Jahana Hayes of Wolcott in the Fifth District in 2018 – did not serve as mayor, first selectman or in the General Assembly before ascending to Washington.

Still, this seems like a huge jump.

Democratic State Party Secretary Audrey Blondin of Goshen represents a small portion of the First District on the party ‘s State Central Committee, and she said had never heard of Perry.

Perry said his interest in running for Congress began shortly before New Year’s.

“Someone my age who is tired of the Democratic Party said that they’re not addressing issues we’re facing,” he related. “Mutual friends started to say the same things. The Democratic Party has failed and Trump is ending up with a second term,”

Perry said that during his four years on the Town Council he “fought for accountability” by changing bidding practices and ensuring that the Republican majority followed Robert’s Rules of Order.

Former Town Council Chairman John Barry said, “Jack is not afraid to speak up to people in authority.”

Incumbent, Democrat John Larson of East Hartford initially captured the seat when Tom Brady had just become the starting quarterback for the Michigan Wolverines.

The other challengers are Hartford Board of Education member Ruth Fortune, former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin and state Rep. Jillian Gilchrest of West Hartford.

Incumbent congressmen would rather eat stale Pumpernickel for eight months than have to face a primary challenge for the party nomination. This would mark the first time an incumbent has had to wage a primary, according to Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie.

Of the challengers, Bronin appears to be the one who has the skills to write the correct question on Final Jeopardy.

Blondin said mark it with a Sharpie: Right now the race is a “50/50” proposition between Larson and Bronin for the Democratic nomination.

Blondin said, for example, Bronin was “extremely well-received” among Torrington Democrats when he campaigned for the municipal candidates shortly before the November 4 election.

Republican Matt Corey of Manchester, a former U.S. Senate candidate who earlier challenged Larson in the First District, said, “I think Mayor Bronin could bring in a base of younger people. He has raised a lot of money in a short period of time.”

Mark Pazniokas of CT Mirror has reported that Bronin netted $1.18 million during the most recent quarter while Larson amassed $800.000.

Blondin said Gilchrest has the next highest profile among the challengers.

“She is very smart, but the problem is that this is a money driven race, and sooner or later” she will have to decide if she wants to risk her state House seat.

However, is Larson the favorite to win an anticipated primary next August?

Said state Rep. Bob Godfrey (D-110) of Danbury, the Deputy Speaker Pro Tempore, “I haven’t seen any indication otherwise,” However, Godfrey acknowledged that he doesn’t live in the First Congressional District.

Exclaimed Corey, “Larson has a loyal following in Connecticut. It is going to be a tough feat” to unseat him.

Perry said congressmen should be limited to five terms – 10 years.

“When I am [Larson’s age, 77], I ‘m going to be fishing,” he said.

Newt Gingrich and the Republican House caucus underlined term limits in the 1994 Contract With America platform. It hasn’t happened.

Besides Perry has loaned his campaign $500,000, which is the equivalent to the investment for a new small business. If you took that step, wouldn’t you want to stay in business for more than 10 years, particularly if it was successful?

Perry said that being a congressman would be akin to being a volunteer.

He said Bronin had earlier spoken to Southington Democrats about running for the Democratic nomination for governor, an office that he also sought in 2018, and opted for the congressional race just because incumbent Democrat Gov. Ned Lamont of Greenwich is running for a third term.

Perry remarked, “He is trying not to grow stale.”

Just out of Southington High School, Perry started his business in 2008, when Southington native Carl Pavano was struggling on the mound in his final season with the Yankees and the Great Recession had begun

He said today that business would probably fail.

“The main thing though is the cost of everything,” he explained. “A garbage company is very capital intensive because of the cost of the equipment and garbage trucks. The market is more competitive as everyone is trying to survive and we even have publicly traded companies in the state now that make it harder for mom-and-pop operations to compete.

He added, “There is also more regulation now and it has increased the cost to do business and needing to comply with the changed regulations and requirements. In the garbage industry we deal with recycling commodities that are changing and are very volatile now and the rebates on recyclables drastically affect the rates.”

Perry said that there is a “strong demand” for new housing, which “shows that Southington is a town that everybody wants to live in.

Why not? The town ranks 40th in total area out of the 169 municipalities in Connecticut. It has distinct villages – Plantsville, Marion and Milldale.

The Aqua Turf is the place to go for a wedding reception. The high school sports organizations have held their banquets there for decades. Bill Raftery was at the rostrum long before he was courtside with Ian and Grant to call the Final Four.

But Perry remarked that the Millennials and Generation Z voters can’t find housing that fits their budget.

He said that along Southington’s Berkeley Avenue and Orchard Lane there are the smaller homes that were built after World War II.

Why can’t we have more of that? Perry said other states have “smaller developments” and provide “incentives” for developers to do that.

Trump has proposed extending the 30-year mortgage to 50 years.

Perry opposes that plan, saying, “It will make mortgages too risky. Also, more than likely interest rates will be higher.”

He said The New York Times has reported that the average age for a first mortgage is 40.

“With a 30-year plan you’re 70 when you are done paying off your mortgage,” Perry commented. “Most people want to be debt free by that age. With a 50-year mortgage they won’t be able to achieve that even if it lowers the average age for a first mortgage to 30.”

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni recently stated that the Democratic success in the 2025 elections was at least partly due to most Americans being “rightly upset about the cost of living, desperately want some help and are utterly unimpressed with Trump’s performance along those lines.”

Said Perry, “Nobody has extra money.”

“Yes, the stock market may be doing well, but those are the corporations,” he remarked. “That is great if you own stock, but a lot of these people don’t own stock.”

“I feel Gen Z is giving up without even trying,” Perry remarked. “Gen Z doesn’t want to go to college, have all this debt and then go home to live with mom and dad.”

Perry said the rise in prices is due to “trillions of dollars pumped into the economy” during the pandemic and the work-from-home culture that resulted.

He said with fewer people driving to an office, there was less need for more than one car.

“The car market was crazy,” he remarked. “People also had money to remodel their homes. Remodeling renovations were at an all-time high in Southington.”

How to you reduce inflation?

Former Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson wrote a book on the Great Inflation in 2008. He stated that Republican former President Ronald Reagan gave Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker political support to increase interest rates to the point of 10.8 percent unemployment in October 1982 so that the cycle of inflation would be broken.

Said Perry, “Raising interest rates is a very slippery slope. I don’t think it is going to fix our problem.”

Southington is where U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Hartford) first got elected. He went on the municipal Planning & Zoning Commission in 1995 and then defeated a 14-year Republican incumbent a year later in the 81st state House District after canvassing some of the homes four times.

Perry commented, “He is somebody I’ve heard a lot about from people who worked with him and knew him then.”

Perry, still in grade school when Murphy entered the General Assembly, said back then he was “more worried about playing football and getting a new video game” than attending political rallies.

In 2005 Murphy moved to Cheshire in the Fifth Congressional District and a year later defeated Republican Nancy Johnson of New Britain, who at that time had served longer in the U.S. House than anybody in Connecticut.

Perry said he met Murphy five years ago when he spoke with members of the Southington Democratic Town Committee.

He commented, “I’ve run into a lot of people who have said that you’re the first politician to knock on my door since Chris Murphy.”

Resources:

Interview with Jack Perry, Patch.com, on Saturday, October 25, 2025.

E-mail interview with Jack Perry, Patch.com, on Tuesday, October 28, 2025.

Phone interview with Jack Perry, Patch.com, on Wednesday, November 12, 2025.

Phone interview with John Barry, Patch.com, on Wednesday, October 22, 2025.

Phone interview with Matt Corey, Patch.com, on Thursday, October 23, 2025.

Phone interview with Stacey Dolan, Patch.com, on Friday, October 24, 2025.

Phone interview with Bob Godfrey, Patch.com, on Monday, October 20, 2025.

Phone interview with Audrey Blondin, Patch.com, Wednesday, November 5, 2025.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

“Who’s Got The Power, by Dave Kamper, 2025, The New Press.

https://deciding-to-win.vercel.app/Deciding%20to%20Win.pdf

https://www.politico.com/story/2008/06/text-of-obamas-fatherhood-speech-011094

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/tr...

“The Great Inflation and its Aftermath, Robert Samuelson, 2008.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/opinion/trump-elections-virginia-new-york.html

https://ctmirror.org/2025/10/06/bronin-larson-fundraising/

Kevin Rennie, Daily Ructions.