With her successor retiring, former state Rep. Melissa H. Ziobron, R-East Haddam, is running to regain the 34th House District seat that she gave up to unsuccessfully run for state Senate in 2018.
If she wins, her immediate reward will be about an $84,000 pay cut.
Ziobron is currently a senior staffer at the General Assembly, overseeing fiscal policy for the House Republican minority, a full time job that pays about $132,000. It keeps her close to the fray, but not a participant.
“The last few years, I’ve been extremely frustrated to watch taxpayer funds spent without true accountability,” Ziobron said.
She lost a close race for the open 33rd Senate District seat in 2018, a brutal year for Republicans in the midterm election during President Donald Trump’s first term. Democrats won huge majorities, ending what had been a closely divided state legislature.
Her House seat remained in Republican hands, won by Irene Haines, who would simultaneously serve as selectwoman in East Haddam. Haines is exiting politics: She didn’t run for the local office last month, and she is not running for the House next year.
Ziobron said she is a fan of the famous Teddy Roosevelt quote:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…”
Ziobron was elected to the House in 2012, flipping an open Democratic seat. Over the next two cycles, Republicans made steady gains in 2014 and 2016, growing from 52 seats to 71 — just five short of a majority in her last two-year term.
Combined with an 18-18 tie in the Senate, the close margins gave Republicans a greater voice in budget negotiations of which she was a part, producing the fiscal guardrails that still limit spending today. But Democrats since have won twice as many seats as Republicans.
Still, Ziobron wants a seat in the House, not on the sidelines.
“I’ve done what I can as staff, but I know I can do more with a microphone in my hand,” she said. “I want to be able to put my head on the pillow at night.”
Ziobron said she has not been happy watching the General Assembly change. She said lawmakers have stepped away from accountability-based budgeting, and she disapproves of the limited remote voting allowed since COVID.
“I’ve watched the legislative process in Connecticut lose its seriousness,” she said “I watch legislators vote from their cars.”
Her district also has changed since the redistricting after the 2020 census: It now includes East Haddam, East Hampton and Salem, with Salem replacing Colchester from her time in the House.
Ziobron said the decision to run again, giving up a full time job and salary, was made with her husband.
“This was certainly a family decision,” she said. “He has watched me be very unhappy.”
She filed papers creating a campaign committee last week. An hour after the Connecticut Mirror called her Tuesday for this story, she formally announced her candidacy.
“I was planning on waiting to announce this until after Christmas, but it seems the news will break sooner than I had planned,” she wrote on Facebook.
In her announcement statement, she said her core values have not changed.
“What has changed is my depth of knowledge and understanding of our state budget system, still in need of reform and increased transparency,” she said.
Mark Pazniokas is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2025 @ CT Mirror (ctmirror.org).