Sacramento Politics: Lloyd Connelly

February 22, 1992
Sacramento Urban Journalism Workshop, Sacramento Bee

Connelly projects down-to-earth feel at meeting
Connelly dresses casually for talk with students
Connelly perhaps capital's most respected politician
How growing up poor shaped Connelly's politics
Poor-boy Connelly now fights horrors of poverty
Irate Connelly bashes Wilson for kicking the poor

Assemblyman Lloyd Connelly's appearance Saturday was most surprising for one in his position. Sitting in the Assembly chambers, Connelly, D-Sacramento, wore blue jeans, denim shirt, partially mussed hair, holding a diet Coke can.

True, it was not a meeting day, but if he had been wearing a suit as usual he would still project that down-to-earth feel.

Connelly's easygoing attitude and unorthodox demeanor is what makes him arguably Sacramento's most respected politician.

Connelly has been an advocate of sound education and social programs that enable poor people to eventually become independent and self-reliant.

To really understand Connelly, you need to know his background. He was born and raised in Del Paso Heights, a low-income neighborhood in northeast Sacramento. Poverty was a constant companion to the youthful Connelly, who during the bone-chilling nights of Sacramento winters would wear all his clothes to bed because the heating was so bad.

Connelly and his family lived on Aid To Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) throughout his youth. His parents were divorced, and his mother was often unable to work because of illness. During his high school years, he attended Grant and Norte Del Rio high schools.

He has always been interested in politics as a whole. "I can remember when my mother was very sick one occasion, and we were talking presidential elections. She was very excited about (John F.) Kennedy."

"The next day," he says, "I went to school, and my ninth-grade teacher came up to me. He gives me this lecture saying 'It's a real shame that either Nixon or Kennedy is about to be elected president. Things have never been better in this country.'

"Right then, I knew that his values were not mine. He was obviously a conservative Republican, and we were out of touch."

From that day on, Connelly became very much interested in politics. He was involved in political clubs while in high school, and became active in the anti-war movement during the '60s. Later, he became a student-body president at American River College.

Connelly is critical of Gov. Pete Wilson's proposed welfare cuts. "I think it's terrible," he said. "It's a disproportionate cut and a burden on people who are weakest in society.

"And it's also hypocritical. Wilson has not yet asked for a reduction share in high-income people."
"It's tough enough to live on the aid at present. With the 25% cut, it will be virtually impossible," he says.

Education is another issue high on Connelly's priority list.

"The thing to do is identify education as a solution," he says, adding: "Let's decide that we are going to do a better job with education and family planning."