Fact check: Jack Perry’s light-bulb mailer blames the wrong person for your electric bill
Jack Perry’s latest mailer says that with me in office, “higher costs are burning cash,” and that I am “helping costs go up by siding with big price-gouging corporations like Eversource.”
That is not a difference of opinion. It is false.
I do not set electric rates. No single state senator does. Distribution rates are set by the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. The supply price is set by procurement. A large share of the bill is the public-benefits charge and renewable-purchase mandates written into state law by the majority in Hartford. I have been in the minority the entire time. I have voted against the policies that built those charges, and I have spent years trying to take them off the bill.
Mr. Perry has told this story two different ways. In October 2020, his mailer called me “Eversource’s chief defender in the legislature.” In 2026, the same opponent calls me “Ripoff Rob” and says I am the reason rates went up. Both cannot be true. Neither is.
There is a separate problem with this mailer. Mr. Perry does not argue a vote. He puts a name on it: “Ripoff Rob.” He used a different smear in 2020, “chief defender,” and it was just as false. A state senator’s job is to read the bill, say what it does, and vote. Name-calling is what you do when the record will not carry the claim. In my view, a candidate who will put a false name on a neighbor to win a vote has already shown he should not have the job.
The 2020 footnote pointed readers to my own July special-session remarks. Those remarks did not defend Eversource. They said the delivery charge was “insanely overpriced,” that it included profit for the company and the cost of burdensome regulation, and that I had voted against the bills driving the increases. That column is still online.
What the record actually shows
August 31, 2020. Column on the July rate spike and the storm outages. I laid out the delivery charge, the renewable mandates, the Green Bank, and DEEP’s procurement programs, and said I had voted against the bills that caused the increases. https://www.ctsenaterepublicans.com/2020/08/sen-sampson-on-eversource-july-special-session/
October 5, 2020. My response to that same “chief defender” flyer, including the bill he cited and the Take Back Our Grid vote tally. https://sampsonforct.com/wp/2020/10/05/setting-the-record-straight-again/
August 1, 2024. “Connecticut’s energy crisis is the last straw.” I identified the public-benefits charge, the shutoff moratorium that left utilities to recover arrears from paying customers, and the Republican proposals the majority voted down. https://www.ctsenaterepublicans.com/2024/08/sen-sampson-cts-energy-crisis-is-the-last-straw/
August 8, 2024. Press conference calling for a special session. The proposals: cap future power-purchase agreements at 150 percent of the wholesale price, study moving policy charges off the bill and into the budget, and count nuclear and hydropower as Class I so those contracts are not priced as if they were scarce renewables. https://www.ctsenaterepublicans.com/2024/08/sen-sampson-joins-republicans-to-call-for-special-session-on-electric-rates/
August 28, 2024. Second call for a special session, with a public tool for residents to demand one. https://www.ctsenaterepublicans.com/2024/08/senator-sampson-demands-immediate-action-as-constituents-struggle-with-surging-electric-bills/
October 24, 2024. I stood with Scott Pearson of Monroe and helped present his Change.org petition to the Governor. The Senate Republicans release that day put the count at more than 68,000 signatures demanding an end to the public-benefits charge.
My remarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ykQbOPbTo8
January 15, 2025. I introduced Senate Bill 598, An Act Prohibiting Electric Distribution Companies from Collecting Fees Other Than Fees for the Purchase or Delivery of Electricity. That is the opposite of a bill written for Eversource. https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&which_year=2025&bill_num=598
January 19, 2025. NBC Connecticut covered that bill. https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/legislation-takes-aim-at-extra-charges-electric-bill/3477273/
CLICK IMAGE TO WATCH: https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/legislation-takes-aim-at-extra-charges-electric-bill/3477273/
January 22, 2025. With Senator Ryan Fazio, we laid out a six-point plan: remove the public-benefits charge, prohibit purchases at 150 percent above wholesale, count nuclear and hydropower as Class I, separate PURA from DEEP, end incentives that increase electric demand, and study natural-gas supply. CT-N has the press conference. https://www.ctsenaterepublicans.com/2025/01/sen-sampson-ct-house-and-senate-republicans-offer-ideas-to-provide-consumers-relief-on-electric-bills/
CLICK TO WATCH: https://ct-n.com/ctnplayer.asp?odID=24133
Senate Bill 647 is the comprehensive Republican bill on affordability, reliability, generation, and the structure of energy policy. https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&which_year=2025&bill_num=647
January 27, 2025. The Southington Town Council took up a resolution to eliminate the public-benefits charge and to recognize those bills. It passed. Jack Perry, then a member of that council, voted no. On the meeting video he called the resolution a political gimmick and a state issue the council should not sign. The roll call is on the tape: Perry, no.
My statement after that meeting, answering the claims made about me while I was not in the room: https://connecticutcentinal.com/sen-sampson-commends-southington-town-councils-resolution-to-eliminate-public-benefits-charge-from-electric-bills/
September 9, 2026. Affordability press conference at the Capitol. I said what families already know: people are deciding whether to buy medication or pay the Eversource bill.
A running list of my posts on this subject is public: https://www.facebook.com/profile/100057916814551/search/?q=electric%20rates
What Mr. Perry’s own sources do not show
The mailer cites a February 24, 2021 Senate Republicans page, a June 25, 2026 Southington speech, HB 6622, and HB 6003. None of those sources shows a vote by me to raise electric rates, a payment from Eversource, or authority to set a rate. HB 6003 is the 2020 insulin bill. I voted no because a price cap does not lower the underlying cost, and I said at the time it would be turned into a mailer. It was. That vote is already answered on the Correcting the Record page.
The data-center line is the same pattern. The bill voters keep hearing about, HB 6514, is one I voted against.
The choice on this mailer
One candidate has introduced bills to strip non-electric charges off the bill, called for special sessions, stood with ratepayers at the Capitol, and helped deliver tens of thousands of petition signatures to the Governor. The other voted no, as a Southington councilman, on a resolution asking the state to do exactly that.
Early voting runs October 19 through November 1. Election Day is November 3.
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