Hartley, Joan V.

First took office January 2001
Term ends January 2013

State Sen. Joan V. Hartley

D, 15th District

Hartley, Joan V.

Contact:

Hartley@senatedems.ct.gov
Official Website
Facebook
860-240-0006

Education:

B.A., Elms College, M.A., Trinity College

Committees:

Public Safety (co-chairman), Appropriations, Executive and Legislative Nominations, Insurance, Legislative Management,

District Town(s):

Naugatuck, Prospect, Waterbury

Occupation:

Legislator

Quicklinks:

2010 Election

Campaign Expenditures:

$30,380. Hartley did not participate in the state's public campaign financing program.

General Election Results:

Joan V. Hartley (D)14,178(84.8%)
Theodore J. Derouin (I)1,871(11.2%)
Blair F. Bertaccini (WF)675(4%)

Primary Election Results:

0(0%)

Election History

Hartley won an open seat in 2000, succeeding Republican Thomas F. Upson. Beginning in 1984, she also was elected to eight terms in the House, succeeding John G. Rowland.

Background

Hartley's conservatism wears well in her Naugatuck Valley district, where many Democrats switched sides to vote for Ronald Reagan in 1984, the same year she was elected to the General Assembly. Not so in the Senate Democratic caucus.

Hartley has been a frequent defector on fiscal issues, leaving Democrats one vote short on veto overrides when Republican M. Jodi Rell was governor. A consequence is that she was stripped of her post as co-chair of the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee in 2009. in 2011, she was named co-chair of the Public Safety Committee.

One source of Hartley's conflict was her conservatism, but she also appeared to pay a price for embarrassing leaders with her objections to a major bonding program for the Connecticut State University system.

In 2009, she voted with Democrats to override Rell's veto of the Sustinet health program, but she disappeared from the chamber the same day on an attempt to override Rell's veto of a health pooling bill. Without her vote, the override failed by a vote. In 2008, she voted to increase the minimum wage, but opposed mandating that private employers offer paid sick days.

She was the only Democrat in the Senate to vote against sweeping reforms in 2005 that created public financing for campaigns and banned contributions from lobbyists and contractors. In 2011, she was one of three Democratic senators to vote against a budget negotiated by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Democratic leaders.

Personal: Hartley is married and the mother of two.

Financial Disclosure

 Hartley reported no income outside her legislative salary. Her husband, James Hartley, is a partner in the law firm of Drubner & Hartley and a financial firm, Verus Financial. They own homes in Waterbury and Middlebury.She reported an account with UBS Painewebber, but not any specific securities.She filed a confidential addendum listing any debts exceeding $10,000. She declined to release the addendum, as is her choice under the law.A note on financial disclosure: Every spring, officials are required to disclose the ownership of real estate, the source of any income exceeding $1,000 in the previous calendar year and securities worth more than $5,000. They also are required to file an addendum in which they report any debt of more than $10,000; this may by law be kept confidential. 

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