Lisa Deane to run for State Representative for the 101st District

As published in the CT Insider by Sarah Page Kyrcz on April 8, 2024.

(MADISON) — In front of the Memorial Town Hall on Saturday, April 6, Lisa Deane officially launched her campaign for the 101st state representative seat.

The Republican will challenge incumbent Democrat John-Michael Parker who won the seat in 2020, unseating five-term incumbent Republican state Rep. Noreen Kokoruda. Parker is serving his second term.

Deane credits Kokoruda, who died in 2022, for encouraging her to run.   

“You should get in, you should help us,” Deane said Kokoruda told her. “That was always in the back of my head,” said Deane. Just as Deane started her campaign speech, in front of 50 supporters, the sun peeked out from the clouds. “Thank you, Noreen,” she said, raising her arms and looking up to the sky.

Deane, 63, has been a Madison resident for 28 years, along with her husband, Peter and 30-year-old son, Mike.

On top of her agenda, as she vies for the state seat, is drug awareness and education. 

This issue is personal for Deane.

Her son, Joe, died from a fentanyl overdose in 2018. Following his death, Deane and her husband, Peter, founded Demand Zero, focused on fighting drug trafficking, in addition to education and awareness programs statewide. She has worked over the years with legislators on this issue and is eager to continue this work as a representative.

“In 2023, alone, 1,340 Connecticut students were killed by fentanyl poisonings and across the country, 110,000 lost their lives,” she said.

“Madison and Durham both have been affected for years by this scourge and are being affected right now,” she said. “Please know we do have problems, right here, in our small towns.”

“It is way past time for Hartford to fully engage by doing everything possible to decrease the never-ending fentanyl poisonings this state has endured,” she said. Juvenile justice reform is also a top priority for Deane. “Do any of us really thing catch and release is working?” she said. “Is it creating any positive results?”

Deane said she supports reformative justice. It will “take those that are committing the crime and put them in front of their victim,” Deane said. “The victims can express what they went through by you stealing from them,” she said. “That won’t stop there,” she added. “Now the juvenile will go into programs, he will be assigned a counselor, he won’t be left hanging in the wind. He will be monitored.”

“The slap on the wrist, the revolving door, it’s not working,” Deane said. Then there are the issues small businesses are dealing with. As the owner of Brother Mike’s restaurant in Madison, with her husband, Peter, Deane knows all too well the struggles of small businesses. She cites the increases in minimal wage and the cost of goods and services as concerns.

“We’re struggling to keep retail prices fair,” she said. “Let’s face it, people have a certain amount of entertainment budget for themselves.” “If our burgers and steaks keep creeping up and up and up, they’re going to find someplace else to go or they’re just not going to go,” she said. She wants to make sure that “Hartford will start paying more attention to the, really, the backbone of a lot of their towns.”

House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora (R-North Branford) endorsed Deane. “She is a woman with courage,” he said. “She is a woman that has stepped into the void on a lot of these issues and has been brave enough to talk about them when other people want to put their heads in the sand.”

Deane said she is excited about this opportunity to represent Guilford and Durham. “We’ve got to change some legislation in order to save peoples’ lives, in order to make us all safe in our own homes,” she said. 

“A lot of times, while I want to do everything I can to better the lives of our constituents in the 101st, I’ve got to make sure I’m thinking about it on a state level,” she said. “I think I can shake things up.”