The following essay was written by Eli Sabin, one of three candidates running in the Aug. 11 Democratic primary for the 92nd State House District. I hate that there is outside money attempting to influence the 92nd District state representative race. I have no relationship with the outside group funding mailers supporting me and five other Democrats around the state. As I said in the Independent on Thursday, I am asking this outside group to stop spending on this election. We need campaign finance reform as soon as possible to get this kind of stuff, including the PACs supporting Rep. Dillon, out of our politics. I want to take this moment to share more about why I decided to run for state rep.  When I was 19, I got elected to our Board of Alders. Before my term began, I bought a necklace that reads “Tikkun Olam,” which means “Repairing the world” in Hebrew. Tikkun Olam is a core tenet of my Jewish faith which calls on all of us to help others, serve our communities, and fight for justice in a broken world.  On the day of my first inauguration, I put the necklace on, and I’ve worn it each day since to remind myself, especially in difficult moments, of the faith and family values that have led me to public service. Over the past eight years, I’ve tried to live up to the obligations of Tikkun Olam. Through college, in my first full-time job, and then during three years of law school, I spent nearly all of my free time at community meetings, protests, and events around our city; at public hearings, rallies, and meetings at the state capitol; and working on policy proposals for the Board of Alders, the Progressive Caucus, and Connecticut Voices for Children. In my summers off from school, I worked as an intern in the U.S. Senate, for the National Economic Council at the White House during the last year of the Biden administration, and at the Connecticut law firm Koskoff supporting lawsuits against the Trump administration’s abuses of power. My commitment to Tikkun Olam is also what is driving me to run for state representative this year. I believe that our state can be better, and that there is more we can do to give all of our kids a great education, to lower the cost of living, and to protect our most vulnerable neighbors  from the cruelty of the Trump administration. The work I’ve done at the state capitol over the last eight legislative sessions has shown me that change on these priorities is possible, and I’m running because I believe it’s not going to happen unless we bring an organizing mentality, new ideas, and more urgency to the fight. That’s what I plan to do. My commitment to serving our city is also why I ran for re-election to the Board of Alders last year, even though I was graduating from law school this May and didn’t yet know what I would do afterward. For four years while I was on the Board of Alders, starting in 2022, I worked to build a coalition in support of Downtown for All, a plan to build more affordable housing in downtown New Haven. The goal was and is to encourage the development of more homes to stop high rents from pricing families out of our neighborhoods. Downtown for All was New Haven’s most ambitious affordable housing legislation in years. As my colleagues on the Board of Alders can tell you, building the coalition behind it and writing the legislation was slow and difficult work. Every several months it seemed like the effort might fall apart. Last year, I had to decide whether to run for re-election to the Board of Alders. Downtown for All had not yet passed, though it was very close to the finish line. But I had no idea when it would move forward in the legislative process for public hearings and a vote. This put me in a very difficult position. I felt that if I announced that I was leaving the Board of Alders, the coalition behind Downtown for All would unravel, and the legislation would die. That would mean the important affordable housing reforms in Downtown for All would not become law. Inaction would mean less affordable housing getting built in our city, and more families being pushed out of our community or into eviction or homelessness. I believed my obligation was to do everything I could to pass Downtown for All. So I ran for re-election and continued to work hard on the legislation. Finally, the proposal came up for public hearings in October and November. Dozens of residents came out to testify in favor of the plan. With the outpouring of community support, Downtown for All passed in early December and was signed into law in mid-December. I resigned shortly afterward. A special election was called and Christine Kim, who I had recruited to be a ward co-chair, replaced me and is doing a great job. After Downtown For All passed in mid-December, I started thinking seriously about how I could do the most to serve our city in the years to come. I decided I wanted to move to Westville, where I went to synagogue and played little league as a kid and attended high school, and to consider a run for state representative. I planned to take some time to talk with neighbors about whether that might make sense. In late December, I signed a lease for an apartment. The day after I moved, incumbent State Rep. Pat Dillon started to make calls asking people to support her for a 22nd term. That sped up my decision. I called some neighborhood leaders I trusted to ask for their advice.  The folks I talked to told me they thought we needed new voices to address the challenges facing our community. With their support, I decided to run. Over the past eight months, I have knocked on nearly 6,000 doors, held more than a dozen meet-and-greets, earned endorsements from the two ward committees that held straw poll votes (Ward 26 and Ward 3), and released detailed policy platforms. I have done my best to listen to our neighbors, develop solutions to the issues facing our community, and build the coalitions that we’ll need to make change. On Tuesday (or when you vote early this weekend!), I am asking for your vote because I want to continue fighting for my hometown. I would be honored to do that work alongside you as state representative for the 92nd District. The post Opinion: Why I’m Running For State Rep appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less