With Permission
Scanlon and Widlitz.
In his quest to replace state Rep. Pat Widlitz, 27-year-old Sean Scanlon raised $5,500 from 165 people in just four days — securing him public financing for his first campaign for public office.
Scanlon, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 98th District state representative seat this fall, cleared that hurdle last week.
His interest in politics dates back to 2004, when Scanlon was a student Guilford High. He read an article in the Shore Line Times about Ed Meyer, who had worked for former Attorney General Bobby Kennedy. Meyer was making his first run for the 12th district state senate seat. He was up against Bill Aniskovich, the Republican incumbent.
“I called Meyer up,” Scanlon said, recalling how his fascination with Bobby Kennedy led to his first political inquiry.
“’You know, Ed, I am 17 years old. I don’t know anything about politics but you worked for someone I consider a hero and I would like to work for you,” he recalled saying.
Meyer was intrigued. He asked if Sean had a driver’s license. He did.
So Meyer hired him. “I would drive him all over the six towns (of the 12th district) and go to events and go door-to-door and do all these different campaign activities. I loved it. It was the first campaign I had ever worked on. (The six towns were Branford, Guilford, Madison, North Branford, Killingworth and a section of Durham.)
Now Scanlon is 27 and has just announced his first run for public office. He is seeking to become state representative for the 98th district, which covers Guilford and two sections of Branford, Stony Creek and Pine Orchard. He is running for the seat now held by state Rep. Widlitz, who announced her retirement from public office a few weeks ago. She has endorsed Scanlon; so has Meyer who has also announced his retirement from public life. The Eagle reported on Scanlon’s entry into the race in this story.
No sooner had Scanlon announced his candidacy when, only four days later, he qualified for public financing under Connecticut law. Fellow Democrats said this was a remarkable achievement especially since this was his first entry into public life. His contributions came from registered Democrats, Republicans and Independents, he said.
“The fact that Sean was able to raise over $5,000 from over 150 local people in just four days speaks to the excitement people feel about his candidacy,” said Walter Corbiere, Guilford’s Democratic Town Committee chair. “I don’t know of too many candidates, let alone incumbents, who have qualified for public financing this quickly.”
Contributions must be between $5 and $100, but may not go higher than $100. Once achieved and approved, a candidate receives $30,000 in state funds.
“I was able to raise $5,500 from 165 people in four days from the district because I think people are ready for new people to be involved in government,” Scanlon said in an interview. “I have never served in elected office before and I am a different kind of candidate,” he said, describing himself as one who wants to work across the aisle to get things done. “People are interested in having new people go up there and work together with other people to solve problems … We have to work together because there are too many problems facing Connecticut not to do that.”
A Guilford Native
But people who know Scanlon were not surprised. He is well known in Guilford where he grew up and has been publicly active on the education scene, especially in Guilford where he lives. He has met many people over the last few years.
“I have worked on education issues in town and I was part of the group to help build a new high school in Guilford. This past week the town passed a referendum to put all-day kindergarten into motion in Guilford. I tried to organize that and get out the vote on that. I have gotten to work with a lot of amazing people on local projects,” he said.
He has worked for U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy since 2009, back when Murphy was a Congressman from the 5th district. When Murphy was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012, Scanlon became his director of community affairs, working out of the senator’s Hartford office. “This means I am a liaison to state governments. I work with state representatives and state senators on problems they are having with the federal government,” he said.
“When they call, they might say, hey, somebody needs help in this area or that area. And I work with first selectmen when they are applying for grants and programs and things like that. I go to meetings across the state of Connecticut and learn about issues. I talk with different constituency groups about what they want to see from the federal government.”
A History Class
Scanlon became intrigued with government and politics when he took a class at Guilford High that centered on political figures, including President John Kennedy and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. “I didn’t come from a political family,” Scanlon recalled in a recent interview, “but I looked at these leaders and the issues and problems people were facing at the time and I thought there was nothing better than I could do with my life than be involved in something that was greater than myself. I wanted to help people.”
After working on Meyer’s successful campaign – he unseated Aniskovich, who is now Branford’s town attorney – Scanlon went off to Boston College. After graduating from college in 2008, he headed for a job in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office where he worked in the victim assistance center and then went on to work on homicide cases, he said. He toyed with going to law school.
But he said he was just as intrigued in getting involved in the legislative process where he felt he could work to change laws that would help people in various ways. At the District Attorney’s office, “I saw people with lots of problems and if the laws were just a little bit different maybe their lives would be better.”
He wanted to try his hand at working on elective politics instead of going into practicing law. So he made a phone call to his mentor, Ed Meyer.
“I said, there is a guy named Chris Murphy and it seems like he is doing great things and is a rising star and I know you served in the state senate with him. Do you think you could call him and see if there is a job opening? And Ed did call him up and I have worked for Sen. Murphy for five years now,” he said.
Scanlon likes to talk about his local roots. “My family has called Guilford home since my grandfather, a New Haven firefighter, saved enough money to buy a small house on Little Meadow Road in the 1950s.”
He told a family story about that move. “My grandfather announced the family’s move from New Haven to Guilford at a big Italian dinner one Sunday. He said he had saved enough money to buy this small house in Guilford. They laughed at him. They said, ‘Joe, there are cows in Guilford, there are dirt roads in Guilford, and you are going there? ’ He knew that to move his family out of New Haven and to a place like Guilford was going to be the best thing for his two children. My mom was fortunate to grow up in Guilford and went off to New York City to pursue a career and met my father. And when I was about to be born they came back here because she wanted to raise her family here.
“So I have deep roots in this community and I think that is what made it easy for me to raise the public finance money so quickly because I think people realize that I really care about this town. It is why I came back after college and it is where I want to raise my family someday. And I want people my age to come back here and have a good economy to live in, to buy a business, to buy a home, to raise a family.”
On the Republican side, Cindy Cartier, a Guilford attorney, has said she is thinking about making another run for state office. In the past she lost to both Meyer and Widlitz. Cartier, a member of Guilford’s Board of Selectmen, is reportedly considering running against Scanlon for the state representative seat.
Cartier reportedly would have been a candidate for state senate had Meyer not retired, but has indicated she does not want to run against Ted Kennedy, Jr., who will seek Meyer’s seat on the Democratic ticket. Here is our story on Kennedy’s candidacy as a game changer in the district. The Republicans have not yet announced who will run against Kennedy.
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Representative Pat Widlitz has served her district well. She is a gentle woman with class and a calm demeanor, yet she has always stood up to fiercely fight for important legislation, and never wavered in her determination to succeed in getting critical bills of legislation passed. She deserves much thanks for her stellar work conducted for many years.
Sean Scanlon is a personable, smart man who has given his all to political work for 10 years. He, too, will serve his district well. Like Rep. Widlitz, Sean Scanlon CARES about the needs of those in his district. He will be a formidable force in the House! Raising enough funds and attaining 150 contributors in only four days to qualify for public financing is just one example of the dedicated diligence Sean Scanlon possesses. He will truly be a force of action in Hartford!