During the Republican party’s nominating convention Monday night former Stamford State Rep and Lt Governor Michael Fedele nominated Ryan Fazio to be the Party’s candidate for State Senate in the 36th district, the seat held by Democrat Alex Kasser.
“In my 14 years of tenure at the capital 10 in legislature and four years in the Governor’s office, I have had the honor to work with (State Senators) Bill Nickerson and Scott Frantz,” he said. “I met Ryan a year ago at an event and was very impressed by what he felt were important issues – economic growth in the state and the fiscal responsibility we have to have in the state, educational excellence he was looking forward to promoting, and the need to improve our transportation system.”
Fedele said despite the world living in crisis mode with the coronavisus, “Having someone like Ryan represent us on important issues in Hartford is incredible.”
“Both Bill and Scott did an incredible job and I know Ryan will do an equally incredible job because of his command of those issues and his stature, and what he believes in,” he added.
Selectperson Lauren Rabin seconded the nomination, who said she met Fazio when he and her son started 6th grade at Western Middle School.
“When I mentioned to my son that Ryan was running for office, my son was not surprised, saying, ‘Ryan was destined to be in politics.'”
“Ryan understands what’s happening in our state, advocating for policy change using a data driven and fact-based economic approach to understand how policies coming out of Hartford in our once flourishing state,” Rabin said. “He genuinely cares about residents and business owners – what they need and what they struggle with. He’ll focus on helping others achieve upward mobility and will tirelessly work to make sure our state policies support growth instead of driving residents to move to the states they do.”
After Fazio was nominated, he thanked Ed Dadakis, Mike Fedele, and Lauren Rabin for their kind words. He also thanked Fred Camillo, Icy Frantz and Scott Frantz for their support.
“This is an important time for our community. When we started this campaign no one knew exactly how dramatically life would change. Politics took a back seat, and rightly so.”
He said since the outbreak he’d spent time volunteering at food banks, delivering meals to seniors and bringing masks to front line workers.
“I’ve seen the best in our community,” he said. “Today people are going above and beyond…The spirit of this district gives me confidence we will get through this crisis, but our state government makes me worry for our future.”
Fazio whose slogan is “Change Hartford, Save Connecticut, said in his remarks, “Under one party rule, families in our district have seen their taxes go up by millions to fund increasingly bloated and corrupt government in Hartford.”
He described Connecticut as being the second highest taxed and the second most indebted state in the country.
“As a direct result we’ve seen no growth in wages, jobs or economy in decades – even before this recession began,” he said.
Going on to quote John Kennedy, Fazio said, “We are not here to curse the darkness; we are here to light a candle.'”
“The best days for Connecticut are ahead of us, as long as we change our leadership first,” he continued. “To do that we must bring people together around a vision that confronts our biggest challenges. Let’s protect the public heath and the most vulnerable now and bring wholesale change to public policy for the future.”
“To revive our economy we must finally reduce sky high taxes and cut red tape and wasteful spending that is crushing middle class families,” he continued. “And by the way no tolls, no way, no how.”
He said it would be important to reject school regionalization and unfunded state mandates on local schools.
Fazio spoke of building a coalition of liberals, moderates and conservatives.
“Together we can change Hartford, save Connecticut and restore hope in our state for the next generation,” he said to a round of applause on Zoom.
Ed Dadakis said, “Voters in the 36th district realize how important it is to have a Republican State Senator. “We’re out there for you Ryan. Just let us know what we need to do.”
Fazio is a native of Greenwich and graduated Greenwich High School in 2008. After earned a degree in economics from Northwestern University, he returned to Connecticut to work in Stamford in the agriculture and renewable energy sectors.
He has worked for Louis Dreyfus Commodities, Cofco Americas, and Noble Group – all in CT. He recently started working part time at a small venture capital firm called Marcorp Financial that enables him to balance his campaign time.
More on Fazio can be found at RyanFazio.com.