ENDORSEMENT: State House

Denise Merrill brings local knowledge, experience to the table

By: Editorial Board

Posted: 11/3/08

State Rep. Denise Merrill is running unopposed for her seat in the Connecticut legislature, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't have given an opponent a run for his money. She is the best candidate for the job because she understands the area and the university, and she works well with other legislators in the House.

Merrill is currently the House Chair of the Appropriations Committee and has served on the Appropriations, Education, and Higher Education committees for over a decade, according to her Web site. She helped pass UConn2000, the $1 billion program to improve the UConn campus, and the university has seen a great deal of positive change from it. She pushed legislation through for UConn in the 1990s and hasn't stopped since.

Merrill is in support of more state financial aid, and she wants to see colleges trim costs and size to help lower the cost of an education. She wants to examine administrative costs, and she wants to see more communication between the community colleges, state colleges and UConn to ease transfer of credits, which would help all the schools better use state higher education funds. She's also a strong supporter of the Mansfield Downtown Project to bring more businesses to the UConn area.

When it comes to the entire state, Merrill doesn't want to cut budgets. She recognizes that the state may have to raise taxes and says that it's something no one wants to do, but she noted that the state needs more money in this unanticipated recession. She offers good solutions to combining but not cutting budgets and believes that there can be more regionalization among towns. Merrill also wants to improve cities and enhance K-12 education. She believes that many problems in diversity in universities are fundamentally socio-economic, so the state needs to improve schools to avoid setting children up for failure. To help cities and improve the environment, she wants to encourage better mass transit. She's pushing for a bus line to run between UConn and Hartford and eventually Bradley international Airport in Windsor Locks.

Merrill knows the Mansfield area, as all three of her grown children went to Mansfield schools. She has the experience of working with the legislature, and she cares about UConn. She's already helped improve the area, and she has even more ideas on making it even better. With this in mind, The Daily Campus endorses incumbent Denise Merrill for a ninth term as state representative.