For 3 GOP Mayors Facing Democratic Majorities, A Tough Time To Govern

How do Republican mayors lead heavily Democratic cities with Democratic-controlled councils?

One uses a carrot. Others use a stick. Or a baseball bat.

In interviews last week, Republican mayors Sebastian Giuliano of Middletown, Jeff Wright of Newington and Timothy Stewart of New Britain provided no clear road map for dealing with the opposing party over the next two years.

Giuliano, elected to his third term on Nov. 3, said that he would offer Middletown's council Democrats the opportunity to "be more collegial about stuff and less confrontational, and we'll see how that goes."

Stewart, who was elected to a fourth term, is battle-hardened: "Two years ago, I said there needs to be a new tone of civility. But they didn't listen. They treat my department heads badly, they've treated me badly — I'm not going to take it anymore."

Ticket-splitting has had a steady presence in national politics since 1968, when voters elected Richard Nixon but gave Democrats the congressional reins, said Kevin McMahon, chairman of the political science department at Trinity College. The best explanation for that phenomenon, McMahon said, is that people look for different qualities in the nation's chief executive than they do in the country's legislative body.

But a different set of factors is at work on the local political stage, where candidates tend to be less ideological, said Anthony Dell'Aera, a political science professor at Trinity.

As the number of unaffiliated voters has risen, the influence of political parties — especially at the local level — has waned, he said. That has led to more of the kind of ticket-splitting that took place in Connecticut's municipal elections last week.

Connecticut voters, Dell'Aera said, base their decisions "less on party ideology and more on a candidate's personality and specific municipal issues that cut across the partisan divide."

Local campaigns are also less ideological because candidates lack the large war chests that their national counterparts use to pay for television ads, mass mailings and radio spots, Dell'Aera said.

Also, voters are less informed about candidates because local newspapers, which once offered a steady diet of local political reporting, have cut back on that coverage because of a sharp drop in advertising and readership, he said.

No Check And Balance

Giuliano said that name recognition probably helped him defeat his Democratic challenger, even though Democrats outnumber Republicans by almost a 4-1 ratio in Middletown. He surmised that voters preserved the Democratic council's veto-proof majority — electing all eight Democratic incumbents — as a check on his power.

The reality, he said, is much different.

"If there were two of me and one was a Democrat and the other was a Republican, that'd be a check and balance," he said. "But what you've got over on the council is an 8-4 Democratic majority. There's no check and balance over there."

Having an equal number of Democrats and Republicans on the council, or a 7-5 Democratic split, Giuliano said, would spur compromise.

"You might get a simple majority, but on the big issues, you'd have to go over on the other side and somebody would have to agree with what you're doing," he said.

Now, the only trump card of the Republicans — whose presence on the council is mandated by a state law to preserve minority representation — is the ability to reject the Democrats' requests to amend the budget the night of a council meeting.

Giuliano attributed the Republicans' failure to win additional council seats to their late start on the campaign trail.

"We did not ring a doorbell until September," he said.

John Milardo, union president of the Middletown Managers & Professionals Association, said that the unions — who endorsed the Republicans for the first time this year — were also late in reaching out to voters and that GOP candidates failed to take advantage of the endorsements.