Julie Kushner

Democratic State Senator Julie Kushner was first elected on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. She represents the over 100,000 residents of the 24th State Senate District towns of Danbury and portions of New Fairfield and Ridgefield.

In the Connecticut General Assembly, Julie is Senate Chair of the Labor & Public Employees Committee, Vice-Chair of the Public Health and Childrens Committee, and serves as a member of the Appropriations, Education, and Executive and Legislative Nominations Committees.

Born in Hamburg, Iowa, Julie grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska and graduated from the University of Wisconsin. She moved to Danbury from New York City in 1993 with her husband Larry and her three children, who all attended Danbury public schools. In addition to her three children, she has four grandchildren.

Julie has been fighting to make workplaces fairer, safer, and more equitable for all workers for more than 40 years. She began her professional life working in college as a secretary, and quickly discovered that the women in the office were not treated as equals with the male employees.

That experience led Julie to a life of advocacy, organizing workers and building coalitions to achieve pay increases, improve health care, and secure childcare benefits for working Americans. Julie believes there are solutions to all our problems that can be achieved with public policies if you are willing to collaborate, be fair, and be persistent.

Julie was elected Director by the members of the United Auto Workers, Region 9A covering the New England States, a portion of New York and Puerto Rico. Julie was co-chair of the Connecticut Working Families Party, and she served as a delegate or alternate delegate to every Democratic National Convention since 1996. She is a member of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, a member of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and a lifetime member of the NAACP.

Julie is committed to the fight for America’s working people by securing better employee health and safety, public pre-kindergarten, tuition-free college, paid family and medical leave, meaningful investment in local infrastructure, protection of the local environment, and promotion of women’s and family issues.

In her tenure in the legislature, Julie has championed passage of a number of proposals to protect working families, from establishing a Paid Medical Leave program to increasing the minimum wage, codifying prevailing wage, ensuring a just transition to a clean energy economy by protecting the rights of renewable energy industry workers and more. Julie also continues to co-chair the Working Group on Indoor Air Quality in Public Schools which prioritizes funding clean air initiatives in schools, and the Taskforce on Cancer Relief for Firefighters which established a fund to provide support for firefighters who develop cancer in the line of duty.

Julie campaigned on a platform of paid family and medical leave, affordable healthcare, and defending a women’s right to choose, and she is passionate on the issues of healthcare, pay equity, and public education. She believes elected officials must always exhibit honesty and integrity, and that her constituents and colleagues must be able to count on her word. She prides herself on her accessibility and her ability to engage in respectful discourse.