Hands Off Our Schools’s fuzzy math in late finance filing. Report omits anti-Stewart mailings. Fazio aligned PAC has $133k to take on Greenwich Republican’s opponents.

Hands Off Our Schools, the political action committee that takes aim at candidates running against state Senator Ryan Fazio, filed its January 10th campaign finance report today, February 1st, three weeks after it was due. It is a puzzlement.

Hands Off Our Schools sent two mailings to active Connecticut Republicans last fall, but there is little evidence of the expenses associated with it in the most recent report or the ones preceding it. The two cards excoriated–often erroneously–Erin Stewart, the six-tern Republican former mayor of New Britain and Fazio’s primary opponent for their party’s nomination for governor. The mailings were received after Fazio announced he would run for governor this year.

Sunday’s Hands Off Our School campaign finance filing reports the organization spent $249 between October 27th and December 31st of last year. Its October 27th filing shows no expenses. Its October 10th report lists $1,628 to PAC chair Darren Bruno for “Fees paid for services completed for Committee” and $800 for fundraising fees.

Nowhere does the committee report expenses for a mailing or expenses incurred but not paid. The mailings whacking away at Stewart appear to have been sent to a considerable number of party activists and arrived by regular mail. Some mail disappears but the cost of sending it does not.

PAC expenditures aimed at a candidate must list that candidate in its finance report. There was nothing ambiguous about the Hands Off Our Schools buckshot attacks. But they appear nowhere in the reports.

It is not the only curiosity in the 2025 Hands Off Our Schools finance reports Its January 2025 report includes a $3,900 payment to Harod Associates Limited of London for research on 2024 Fazio opponent Nick Simmons. That expenditure appeared in an amended report for the third quarter of 2024 as a deleted expenditure under incurred but not paid. The London payment disappears from the following filings until the committee’s April 10, 2025 report. The odd now-you-see-it-now- you-don’t $3,900 overseas opposition research payment to Harod Associates was made in January of last year.

George Fox of Stamford is the principal funder of the heavy-handed Hands Off Our Schools. He’s contributed $130,000 to the committee, including $50,000 on October 30th of last year. The committee ended the year with $133,000 in cash. State Representative Tracy Marra (R-Darien) contributed $10,000 on September 2nd.

Last week, Hands Off Our Schools sent text messages repeating its wild-eyed themes against Stewart.

Expect the rhetoric to intensify as the May party nominating convention draws nearer. Local parties will select delegates to the convention in March. Those meetings could bring some tests of strengths by the campaigns.

Published February 2, 2026.