Wesleyan Student Protest a Washout

There was more media than protesters at an event planned Tuesday by Wesleyan University students in Hartford to express their anger over the hiring of former Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano as executive director of the state's Elections Enforcement Commission.

The only , held outside the offices of the commission on a cold, wet and dreary afternoon, was Mansoor Alam, a spokesman for the students who planned the picket. The class of 2015 freshman who drove from his home in Cheshire held a hand-lettered cardboard sign saying, "Seb Elect Enf Com?"

Alam is the author of Ten Years Older, founder and director of The Enough Foundation, and Enough Advocacy, a student-led nonprofit organization based in Cheshire.

On Friday, the SEEC announced its five commissioners had unanimously appointed the former mayor as its head.

In comparison, there were at least seven media representatives who attended to cover the protest, including those from print, television and online news outlets.

As many as 50 student protesters were expected, along with civil rights leaders, for Tuesday’s picket. “Weather was a big problem,” Alam said, in getting students to show up. “We had to scramble last-minute, we found out about this maybe Saturday, Friday. No one at Wesleyan is on campus to call [to protest] for this important issue.”

Alam said he got a call from the Democratic party president in California alerting him to Giuliano's nomination.

Since Wesleyan classes are on winter break until next week, Alam said, there are very few students on campus to offer support. “Everyone else involved in this whole mayoral debacle in Middletown — they’re all gone away and they wanted to do something here and even if it’s just me out here holding a sign and we had someone earlier filing a complaint, then we’ll do what we can,” Alam said.

At 1:30 p.m., student Paulina Jones filed a formal elections complaint with the SEEC alleging that as mayor, Giuliano violated state elections laws in an attempt to refrain Wesleyan students from exercising their constitutional right to vote.

Alam said the major contention Wesleyan students have with Giuliano is simple. “In 2011, Seb Giuliano ran a campaign in Middletown that tried to deter Wesleyan students from the polls. Now he wants to be the state’s election watchdog. It’s extremely worrisome.”

On Jan. 13, state Sen. Gayle S. Slossberg, D-Milford, and state Rep. Russ Morin, D-Wethersfield, co-chairmen of the legislature’s Government Administration and Elections Committee urged members of the SEEC to reconsider their nominee for executive director.

“I strongly believe the SEEC must first and foremost be an independent watchdog of Connecticut’s elections policies, procedures, and processes, without even a hint of partisanship, and a chief elected official, of any party and any municipality, who served in office and ran for re-election as recently as this nominee, compromises that desire for irrefutable nonpartisanship,” Slossberg said.

Reached by phone, Mayor Dan Drew, who appeared to distance himself from the protest, said only, “We have a lot of problems to solve in Middletown. We’re focusing right now on Middletown and the Middletown budget,” Drew said. To Giuliano, he said, “I wish him the best.”

Alam said multiple audio files of Giuliano’s alleged statements have been compiled and were filed with the complaint.

He insisted the protest of Giuliano’s appointment as head of the SEEC wasn’t a political one. “This is one issue I feel is not a partisan issue,” Alam said. “It’s very much a general issue that anyone of conscious political mind should be [concerned about].

Giuliano’s former mayoral election chair Chris Healy, reached by phone prior to the protest in Hartford, had some tough words for the students expected to attend.

“I don’t know what they’re protesting about,” Healy said. These are students with a “sense of self-importance at an elite school who are part-time Connecticut residents.”

Healy said Wesleyan students are misinformed. “Go back and do your homework on the constitution,” he said. “They don’t have facts on their side. They are obviously manipulated by faceless Democrats in the House. What people are missing here is this is an independent agency enforcing laws impartially. The fact that Democratic legislators are complaining speaks to how brazen and out-of-touch they are,” Healy said.

Politics has nothing to do with Giuliano’s appointment, Healy said. “Anyone will tell you, Democrat or Republican, that Seb Giuliano is an honest, straightforward guy. It’s just comedic to watch self-appointed protectors of freedom march around in circles. It’s street theater,” Healy said.

Alam has the opposite view. “Of all people Sebastian Giuliano getting this unanimous suggestion is just ludicrous,” he said.

The executive director and general counsel, with a salary range of $103,539 to $132,804, according to the Office of Governmental Accountability job posting, was vacated in September 2011, when Albert P. Lenge retired.

The commission is due to vote on Giuliano’s appointment Wednesday.

A lifelong Connecticut resident, Giuliano served three terms as mayor of Middletown and is an attorney practicing law in Connecticut for more than 20 years.