The congressman from the 4th District is Jim Himes, a Democrat elected in 2008. Though he represents one of the wealthiest areas of the country, Himes grew up in different surroundings. Born in Lima, Peru, he spent his early years in Peru and Colombia, where his father worked for the Ford Foundation, the automotive pioneer’s international development organization. Around the time of his 10th birthday, after his parents divorced, he came to the United States with his mother and two sisters and settled in Pennington, N.J. His early experience in Latin America had an enduring effect. He speaks fluent Spanish and maintains a deep interest in the region. Himes earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and then got a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford. When he returned to the United States, he went to work for Goldman Sachs as a financial analyst. He spent 12 years at the powerful investment house, and left the company in 2002 as a vice president. The following year, he joined Enterprise Community Partners, a Columbia, Md.-based nonprofit dedicated to alleviating urban poverty. Beginning in 2004, he managed its offices in the Northeast. Read More

The congressman from the 4th District is Jim Himes, a Democrat elected in 2008. Though he represents one of the wealthiest areas of the country, Himes grew up in different surroundings. Born in Lima, Peru, he spent his early years in Peru and Colombia, where his father worked for the Ford Foundation, the automotive pioneer’s international development organization. Around the time of his 10th birthday, after his parents divorced, he came to the United States with his mother and two sisters and settled in Pennington, N.J. His early experience in Latin America had an enduring effect. He speaks fluent Spanish and maintains a deep interest in the region. Himes earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and then got a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford. When he returned to the United States, he went to work for Goldman Sachs as a financial analyst. He spent 12 years at the powerful investment house, and left the company in 2002 as a vice president. The following year, he joined Enterprise Community Partners, a Columbia, Md.-based nonprofit dedicated to alleviating urban poverty. Beginning in 2004, he managed its offices in the Northeast.

Like many other Wall Street executives, Himes moved in 1998 to the affluent suburb of Greenwich to raise a family with his wife, Mary. He became active in the town Democratic committee after the 2000 presidential election, and served as committee chairman from 2003 to 2007. On Sept. 11, 2001, Himes left his Goldman Sachs office against company orders to provide assistance to victims. In 2006, he worked as a campaign volunteer for Democrat Diane Farrell, who finished roughly 7,000 votes behind Rep. Christopher Shays, a GOP moderate who had withstood repeated Democratic assaults on his seat. The following April, Himes announced his own campaign against Shays, promising the third competitive race in a row in this Democratic district.

Himes set a torrid fundraising pace, aided in large measure by his Wall Street connections. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also made him one of its top prospects in 2008. After easily dispatching a minor challenger in the August primary, Himes focused on Shays and the Bush administration and attempted to link the two over the Iraq war. Himes embraced the national Democratic establishment, frequently reminding voters that he would appear on the same ticket as presidential nominee Obama. The efforts of national Democrats helped Himes slightly out raise Shays, and the DCCC further tipped the scales by investing $1.2 million in the race.

Sensitive to his district’s politics, Shays made his own overtures to Democrats, running ads that touted him as the candidate with “the hopefulness of Obama” and “the straight talk of McCain.” But he made a questionable move in September 2008, when he echoed McCain’s claim that the fundamentals of the United States’ economy were strong. Himes and the DCCC criticized that assessment amid widespread economic suffering in the district and nationally, but Shays stuck to it and even reiterated it at a debate in late October. In past years, Shays’ moderate record and seniority on Capitol Hill helped him weather severe political storms. But in 2008, the surge of enthusiasm for Obama’s candidacy provided a powerful final push. Himes defeated Shays 51%-48%. He won the district’s urban regions by substantial margins and also managed to stay competitive in the affluent suburbs that tend to break Republican.

Himes has taken a centrist approach in Congress, supporting Obama’s major priorities but also asserting his independence. He riled some Democratic leaders when he joined several other junior lawmakers in July 2010 to form a working group to propose large spending cuts in defense, energy, housing and agriculture. He also explored ways to put his Wall Street background to use. On the Financial Services Committee, he worked with Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., in March 2009 during the furor over bonuses paid to executives at AIG International Inc. and other firms receiving federal rescue money. Their measure required all future compensation to be performance-based; it passed the House but stalled in the Senate. When the committee took up a sweeping financial overhaul bill, he helped craft a provision regulating the complex financial instruments known as derivatives. As the bill entered delicate House-Senate negotiations in 2010, Himes faced criticism from consumer advocates who said he and other centrist Democrats backed weaker derivatives controls passed by the Senate and intended to appease Wall Street. Himes argued that the legislation still took significant steps to crack down on abuses at investment firms.

Republicans hoped that Obama’s absence from the ballot in 2010 would give them a shot at unseating Himes. But the GOP nomination went to state Sen. Dan Debicella of Shelton over the more moderate former state Sen. Rob Russo of Bridgeport. Himes wasted little time in portraying Debicella as an inconsistent extremist, saying that Debicella had welcomed federal economic stimulus money in his district while criticizing the Democrats’ stimulus bill. Debicella raised questions about Himes’ centrism and called him a “rubber stamp” for liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Debicella was able to raise $800,000 in the campaign’s last few months, but he was no match for Himes, who again relied on his Wall Street connections to bring in more than $3.3 million. He won with 53% of the vote.