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April 28th last year brought the Naugatuck police department’s fifth encounter with Judge of Probate Peter Mariano for either “a welfare check, and/or alcohol issue,” according to a police report from that day. More would follow.

Mariano, who is seeking a sixth four-yer term in November, had a woman removed from his home earlier in the year. According to an officer who responded, the judge “picked up some broad from New York” and needed the police to get her out of his house.

The chief clerk in Mariano’s court called the police on April 28th after an alarming conversation with the judge. “Here we are again,” the Naugatuck officer tells Jennifer Finlay. In the video above, Finlay explains the dire situation she has tried to manage and contain.

Jennifer Finlay and Andrew Finlay are listed with Mariano as members of Hillside Real Estate, LLC. The business was formed in 2020, according to records filed at the Office of the Secretary of the State.

When Mariano arrived home on April 28th, Naugatuck officers were waiting at the bottom of his driveway. Before agreeing to exit his car, Mariano told the police officers on the scene that he is the probate judge. Mariano failed the two-part field sobriety test and refused the blood alcohol breath test when he was taken to the police station. He told the officer, according to the police report, “I’m scared at how high it’s going to be.”

Mariano, a Republican, is challenging party-endorsed candidate Rosa Rebimbas in an August 9th primary in the district’s four towns, Beacon Falls, Middlebury, Naugatuck, and Prospect. Democrats in the district nominated Mariano as their candidate after he served four days in jail in May.

Because Mariano won the Democratic nomination in May, a win in the August 9th Republican primary leave him without an opponent in the November election.

Published July 18, 2022.

Republican nominee for governor Bob Stefanowski is supporting right wing Leora Levy in her primary bid against party-endorsed Senate candidate Themis Klarides Stefanowski and Klarides are known to have a frosty relationship. Stefanowski faced down Klarides and her top political adviser and husband, Greg Butler, in a tense meeting in Madison as the race for governor was beginning. Party insiders have concluded the Stefanowskis and Klarides-Butlers hold each other in low regard.

Stefanowski rejected demands that accompanied negotiations to name Klarides as his running mate. Klarides retreated to the race for the U.S. Senate race. The 22-year former House member won the party convention in May with an underwhelming showing. Republicans Peter Lumaj and Leora Levy easily qualified for an August primary.

Levy, a top pro-choice Mitt Romney supporter a decade ago, has become a virulent Trumpian since annis horribilus 2016. The former steak pitchman nominated Levy to be the United States ambassador to Chile. The Senate slow walked Levy’s nomination to oblivion.

Levy, a Cuban immigrant, has become (or revealed herself as) a strident xenophobe in this campaign. She hailed the Supreme Court’s June decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Stefanowski has worked to assure voters he can be trusted to support Connecticut’s statutes upholding a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. Stefanowski’s two $2,900 maximum contributions to Levy suggest Stefanowski may not believe mean what he says. Klarides supports abortion rights.

Stefanowski has also donated $4,000 to Lumaj, who is battling Levy for votes from conservatives and Trump supporters who are registered Republicans.

Stefanowski made his contributions to Levy on June 21st. One was designated for Levy’s August 9th primary campaign, the other for the November general election. The donations are gifts to Governor Ned Lamont, Stefanowski’s Democratic opponent, worth far more than $5,800.

Published July 15, 2022.

Republican nominee for governor Bob Stefanowski is the rare Northeast Republican who has turned abortion to his advantage in a campaign ad. The Madison Republican released an ad Friday with a theme that surpasses party loyalties and ideology: that ol’ devil hypocrisy.

Stefanowski’s 40-second ad highlights Democratic Governor Ned Lamont’s invitations to businesses in states banning abortion to move to Connecticut. A stinging payoff follows the surprising setup. It’s last November’s video clip of a petulant Lamont announcing his wife, venture capitalist Ann Huntress Lamont, is in Nashville setting up new businesses because Connecticut is so complicated to do business in. The spontaneous confession by a wounded Lamont that his wife has deemed her husband’s leadership a failure retains its power to perplex the viewer.

Nashville is a city in Tennessee. Tennessee is notable for more than attracting Lamont millions in investments. It’s also one of the states that bans abortions in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. It’s a state, Stefanowski’s female narrator announces, “where a new law will prosecute doctors who perform abortions and jail women who get them.” A state, Lamont believes, no one who supports a woman’s right to determine her own reproductive healthcare would want to invest in.

With four months until voters again decide between Stefanowski and Lamont for governor, let us stipulate to a few facts. Neither Stefanowski nor Lamont is a naturally gifted politician. Each is more weathervane than signpost. Both have risen to the top tier of state politics because they are rich and willing to spend their fortunes on their own political ambition. When campaign consultants create a moment that makes one of them appear clever and the other craven, it is worth pausing and examining it.

The Lamonts are undoubtedly spending Friday night at the kitchen table in one of their homes in Manhattan or Greenwich, or on the island in Maine, sifting through their vast portfolio of investments and placing sell orders for stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments they own in companies headquartered in states that restrict or ban abortions. A camera crew will record their transformation of convictions into action, the video suitable for ads of their own. Or they will recreate the scene later with flattering lighting, appropriate makeup, and a script.

Nothing the Greenwich aristocrat does will heal the self-inflicted wound of his November 2021 announcement that Connecticut is such a hard place to do business that his wildly successful capitalist spouse has broken camp and headed to Tennessee to add to their fortune. It remains the great gift that Lamont gave Stefanowski in this dreary rematch. The challenge for Stefanowski is to highlight it in ways that make it seem fresh and revealing. Today he did.

Prepare for a ferocious air assault by Lamont on Stefanowski to change the subject.

Published July 8, 2022.

Poor Leora Levy. The Greenwich Republican has contracted a virulent case of campaign madness. The Republican National Committee member from Connecticut sent an email Wednesday claiming she is running against the next Liz Cheney. If only.

Levy, who in ads highlights her own immigrant roots while disparaging others’, has engaged in rhetoric that she might have called “vulgar and ill-mannered” when she was an active Jeb Bush supporter. Today she wrote in a hyperbolic solicitation:

The reference to the heroic Cheney appears to be a heavy-handed and inapt comparison with Themis Klarides, the party-endorsed candidate for the Senate Levy will face in an August 9th primary. Levy lent $250,000 to her campaign in the early going and paid herself back shortly before the party’s May convention. Levy is said to be apprehensive of an imminent Klarides media buy.

Referring to Klarides, Levy writes in her frenzied message:

Levy concludes,

Levy appears to have paid no attention to Klarides’s 11 terms in the state House of Representatives and her months as a candidate. Substantial ideas of any sort are rarely associated with Klarides’s decades in politics.

Cheney has emerged in the last 18 months as a tireless defender of freedom under the rule of law, a ferocious protector of the Constitution and the peaceful transfer of power. Those are virtues that now enrage Levy, a refugee from tyranny and beneficiary of liberty.

Published July 6, 2022.

Naugatuck Probate Judge Peter Mariano faces a hearing before the Council on Probate Judicial Conduct this Friday, July 8th. The rare hearing is in response to a complaint initiated by Judge Beverly Streit-Kefalas, the Probate Court Administrator. The hearing follows a finding of probable cause by the Council on Probate Judicial Conduct after reviewing Judge Streit-Kefalas’s complaint.

Mariano was arrested four times in 2021 on charges of driving under the influence and driving while his license was suspended. The five-term incumbent was sentenced to four days in prison. Mariano’s pleas agreement included suspended sentences and 18 months of probation.

Republican delegates to their May nominating convention nominated state Representative Rosa Rebimbas as their endorsed candidate in the district’s four towns. Mariano is challenging Rebimbas in an August 9th primary. The district’s Democratic delegates nominated Mariano as their candidate in November.

Mariano’s authority to practice law was placed on inactive status in April 2021. His February 2022 Application for Reinstatement to practice law remains pending before the Superior Court.

Published July 6, 2022.

Some Republican voters have received an invitation to participate in a poll this week–a push poll. Some responses caused the survey to conclude abruptly.

Here are the first questions:

Then the questions reveal the purpose of the survey.

In your opinion, which Republican Senate candidate has the best chance of defeating Senator Richard Blumenthal in the general election in November?

Do you think of Leora Levy as a liberal, a moderate, or a conservative?

The following is information about Leora Levy that you may hear of see in the news or in advertisements. Select whether the information makes you more or less likely to support Leora Levy for U.S. Senate.

Despite being a representative to the Republican National Committee for Connecticut, Leora Levy donated to Senator Richard Blumenthal. 

Leora Levy escaped Castro’s communist Cuba with her family in 1960, embraced American capitalism and went on to become one of the first female commodities traders in this country. 

Leora Levy is a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump.

Leora Levy is a political insider whose civic engagement has been raising money for politicians, including Democrats. 

Leora Levy has flip-flopped on abortion. She claims to be pro-life, but prior to becoming a Republican candidate Levy told the Connecticut Post, “I believe in a woman’s right to make that decision herself,” and “abortion is not really on the top of anybody’s list.” 

The following is information about Peter Lumaj that you may hear of see in the news or in advertisements. Select whether the information makes you more or less likely to support Peter Lumaj for U.S. Senate.

Peter Lumaj is a conservative businessman who sled communist Albania to start a successful business and create jobs in America.

Peter Lumaj is a perennial candidate, having run for Governor, U.S. Senate, and Secretary of the State, losing badly each time.

The following is information about Themis Klarides that you may hear of see in the news or in advertisements. Select whether the information makes you more or less likely to support Themis Klarides for U.S. Senate.

Themis Klarides has a Connecticut gun permit and participates in sport shooting. In the legislature, Klarides voters for additional fun control measures following the Sandy Hook massacre. 

Themis Klarides did not vote for Donald Trump in 2000, instead writing in “the Connecticut Republican leader.”

Themis Klarides is a pro-choice candidate who has voted to support abortion rights with exceptions but opposes late-term abortions.

Do you think of Themis Klarides as a liberal, a moderate, or a conservative? 

Themis Klarides’ husband is the top lawyer for Eversource Energy.

Themis Klarides has seen what’s wrong with government. Klarides is the only one with the experience to hit the ground running to make an impact in the U.S. Senate from day one. 

Themis Klarides did not vote for Donald Trump in 2020, instead writing in “the Connecticut Republican leader.”

Themis Klarides is a pro-choice candidate who has voted to support abortion rights with exceptions but opposes late-term abortions.

Themis Klarides worked as a WWE Ring Girl to pay her way through law school. 

Themis Klarides is the only Republican who can defeat Richard Blumenthal in the general election for U.S. Senate because she can garner support from all parties, not just Republicans. 

Themis Klarides has won 11 elections in a Democratic district, while her Republican opponents have lost every time. 

Themis Klarides is a proven fighter who stood up for small businesses and has always fought for lower taxes. 

Themis Klarides believes crime is out of control, which is why she is the only candidate in the race who’s been endorsed by the Connecticut State Police Union and the Fraternal Order of Police. 

Themis Klarides will fight to close our southern border and end trafficking of humans and drugs that make our communities less safe.

With Washington politicians failing to reduce our cost of living amidst skyrocketing inflation, Themis Klarides has proven she can get things done. Klarides has fought to lower taxes, fees, and other costs for Connecticut families for years and will continue do so in Washington. 

Themis Klarides was the first and only woman be elected as Connecticut House Minority Leader and took on Governor Malloy and won. Klarides will take that same fighting spirit to Washington. 

Knowing this information….

If the Republican primary election for U.S. Senate was held today, and you had to make a choice, who would you vote for?

Do you consider a candidate’s position on abortion to be the absolutely most important issue or are there usually other issues that you consider to be a higher when you choose who to support in an election? 

Are you willing to vote for a candidate who has a different  view than you on abortion so long as you agree with the candidate on most other issues? 

And if the Republican primary for U.S. Senate was held today and Donald Trump endorsed Leora Levy, who would you vote for?

Do you support or oppose using tax dollars to pay for abortions for women who cannot afford them?

Are you a cord cutter, meaning you view most or all of your television programming through alternative internet-based or wireless services like Roku, Amazon Fire TV, or Hulu?

In a typical week, how often do you actively watch the Fox News Channel?

If you had to choose, do you consider yourself more of a Trump Republican or more of a traditional conservative Republican? 

Published June 29, 2022.

Republican Leora Levy told the Connecticut Post at the 2012 Republican National Convention when asked about abortion, “I believe in a woman’s right to make that decision for herself.” One of three Republicans competing in the August 9th primary for the party’s U.S. Senate nomination, Levy declared a decade ago, “Abortion is really not at the top of anybody’s list.”

The Greenwich Republican sees abortion as a powerful wedge issue in her race against party-endorsed candidate Themis Klarides and Fairfield Republican Peter Lumaj. Truth has lost its meaning for Levy, who was a prominent supporter of Jeb Bush during his 2016 presidential campaign before becoming an enthusiastic booster of Donald Trump. who Levy characterized as “vulgar” and “ill-mannered.”

On Monday, in the aftermath of Friday’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Levy’s campaign proclaimed her “the only pro-life candidate in the race….” That will come as news to Lumaj. Like Levy, he also opposes legal abortions for women. Klarides, who served in the state House of Representative for 22 years, is unequivocally pro-choice and does not support a parental notification law for minors seeking abortions.

The stench of opportunism pervades Levy’s crowing over the Dobbs decision. The Republican National Committee member wrote:

None of these thoughts appeared to have occurred to Levy a decade ago. If abortion was vexing her last summer, Levy did not say much about it in her brief and unsuccessful campaign for a special election for the State Senate. Broadcast debates among the three Republicans running to challenge Democratic incumbent Richard Blumenthal ought to be memorable, with a stage littered with each other’s quotations.

Published June 27, 2022.

Webster Bank executive Rob Hotaling will kick off his Independent Party campaign for governor in New Haven Saturday afternoon.

Hotaling is a member of the Independent Party. The party, with more than 30,000 registered members, gave its endorsement in 2018 to Republican Bob Stefanowski. The Madison Republican would like the party’s nomination in his rematch with Governor Ned Lamont, a Democrat.

The rules governing the Independent Party have been in frequent dispute among its shifting factions. The party’s chair, Mike Telesca, sounded unlikely to support Stefanowski’s attempt to win the party’s endorsement later this summer when he spoke with CT Insider’s Jordan Fenster last month.

A tussle over what rules and statutes govern the party nominating process is likely to continue.

Published June 22, 2022.

Democrat Muad Hrezi may not have submitted enough verified signatures to force the state’s first primary against an House of Representatives member, but his petitions from West Hartford include a couple of prominent Democrats.

State party vice-chair Adrienne Billings-Smith signed Hrezi’s petition. Billings-Smith is also a member of the West Hartford town council. Billings-Smith was named Nextstar’s 2022 Connecticut Woman of the Year. Her signature on the primary petition shows there are some insiders who want to pull down the state’s high hurdles to ballot access.

So does Tracey Wilson, the wife of former state senator Beth Bye. Wilson is a retired high school history teacher and serves as West Hartford’s town historian. Wilson is probably aware that Connecticut is among the most difficult states in the nation for a candidate to gain access to the party primary ballot. Bye serves in Governor Ned Lamont’s administration as commissioner of the Office of Early Childhood.

Bye served four terms in the Senate for eight years but declined to be sworn into office for the fifth two-year term she had sought with tens of thousands of dollars in public funds. Instead, Bye joined the Lamont administration with a pension boosting commissioner’s job in the office she helped create, causing a special election to be called and more public funds to be spent on campaigns in the winter of 2019.

Lamont provided an early endorsement of incumbent U.S. Representative John Larson’s bid for a 13th term. Al lis long forgiven between Lamont and Larson. Larson supported Joseph Lieberman in his 2006 primary campaign against Lamont. Larson supported Dannel Malloy over Lamont in bitter their 2010 Democratic primary race for governor. Larson, a deft collector of special interest campaign money, cited Malloy’s support for campaign finance reform in the Stamford Democrat’s race against the self-funding Lamont.

Larson supported Lamont in his 2018 campaign for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Lamont, at Larson’s persistent urging, brought the veteran congressman’s brother, Timothy Larson, into his administration as the head of the Office of Higher Education, where he has lately struggled to explain why he authorized expenditures from a restricted fund. Timothy Larson followed the Bye trail and declined to serve the term in the State Senate he’d recently asked voters to honor him with and took a pension boosting job in the administration.

A hearing on Hrezi’s action to be placed on the August 9th primary ballot begins Wednesday morning.

Published June 21, 2022.

Muad Hrezi’s challenge to Connecticut’s restrictive ballot access laws begins two days of hearings in Superior Court on Wednesday morning.

The First Congressional District Democratic challenger fell several hundred signatures short of the number of signatures he needs to qualify for an August primary against 12-term incumbent John Larson. Hrezi’s complaint relies on claims that the requirements of the state’s election laws to participate in a primary are unreasonable. “Connecticut has the most restrictive laws for access to the primary ballot of any State in the United States when it comes to the office of U.S. Representative. No state requires a candidate to get more signatures in a shorter amount of time than Connecticut,” according to Hrezi’s complaint.

Hrezi also raises the two-day delay in Secretary of the State Denise Merrill’s office providing the petitions required to begin collecting signatures. The law allows 42 days for the process, the delay in the at Merrill’s office reduced that to 40 days. That may be the most persuasive argument Judge Cesar Noble hears from Hrezi on Wednesday and Thursday. Judges enjoy wide discretion in elections law procedural disputes. Judge Noble could restore the two days Hrezi’s campaign lost and allow his campaign 48 hours to collect more signatures.

Larson and his campaign committee have intervened as defendants in the case, joining Merrill, Governor Ned Lamont, state Democrats, and two Democratic registrars of voters as defendants.

A ruling is expected Friday.

Published June 21, 2022.