Matt Lesser

Matthew L. Lesser (born 28 or 29 April 1983) is an American politician who represents the 9th district in the Connecticut State Senate. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to the State House in 2008, and re-elected in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016. He won election to the state Senate from the 9th district in 2018, and was reelected in 2020 and 2022. Lesser unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for Connecticut Secretary of the State in 2022.

Early life Lesser grew up in the Washington, D.C. area. His father once reported for The Washington Post. His mother is from Argentina.

Career Early years As an undergraduate student at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, Lesser was elected president of the College Democrats chapter and ran voter registration drives. He was elected as Chairman of the Middletown Planning and Zoning Commission.

State House In May 2008, Lesser, then a student at Wesleyan University, was selected to run as the second youngest candidate for State Representative at the Democratic 100th District Convention. Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, who once held the 100th District State representative seat, endorsed him. Lesser also received support from State Senator Thomas Gaffey and Middletown DTC Chairman Dan Russo. Lesser defeated three-term Republican incumbent Raymond Kalinowski. Lesser took a leave of absence from Wesleyan in the fall 2008 semester. In 2015, he became co-chair of the Banking Committee. He also was a member of the member of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee. an act prohibiting fracking waste from being dumped in Connecticut, and updated workplace safety standards. In 2013, Lesser voted in favor of the gun control bill that passed in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

In 2012, Lesser was elected as one of the Connecticut Democratic Party's two delegates to the National Platform Committee ahead of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

In 2017, Lesser considered running for Connecticut Secretary of the State in 2018 and formed an exploratory committee, but said he would only run if Denise W. Merrill did not seek election.

State Senate In May 2018, Lesser announced a run for state senator from the 9th district, which includes Cromwell, Newington, Rocky Hill, and portions of Middletown and Wethersfield. He won the August 2018 primary against former state representative Antonio Guerrera. The general election featured some controversy when the campaign of Republican nominee, Ed Charamut, of Rocky Hill, sent out a mailer to voters attacking Lesser, featuring an altered image of Lesser clutching $100 bills; the mailer garnered national media attention and was denounced for its use of antisemitic tropes. Lesser won the general election in November, He was reelected in 2020 expand access to epinephrine devices (such as EpiPens) in public venues, and to cap the cost of insulin at $25. In the 2019 legislative session, Lesser sponsored a health care reform effort to create a public health insurance option in the state of Connecticut (dubbed "the Connecticut Option") that ultimately failed amid opposition from health insurers.

Beginning in 2009, Lesser advocated for Connecticut to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The General Assembly passed the bill in 2018 (on a 73–71 vote in the House and 21–14 vote in the Senate).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lesser wrote a law expanding access to telehealth. In 2023, Lesser was one of several legislators and staff to test positive for COVID-19, prompting the Senate to implement a masking policy. He was absent from several votes while isolating.

In 2022, Lesser sought the Democratic nomination for Connecticut Secretary of the State in the 2022 election. At the Democratic Party of Connecticut state convention in May 2022, he ran against state Representative Stephanie Thomas of Norwalk, state Representative Hilda Santiago of Meriden, state Representative Josh Elliott of Hamden, and New Haven health director Maritza Bond. Lesser came in second, losing the party's endorsement to Thomas; although he qualified to run against Thomas in the primary, Lesser dropped out of the race and opted to seek reelection to the state Senate instead.

On January 14, 2024, an online petition initiated by Black community leaders criticized Lesser for withdrawing funding for CPREP. In 2023, Lesser opposed funding of Steve Perry's Capital Preparatory Charter School (CPREP) in Middletown; funding for the charter school was initially allocated by the Appropriations Committee, but was removed from the budget after eleventh-hour maneuvering on the last day of the 2023 legislative session. The decision was condemned by various Black community leaders, and criticized by the Connecticut NAACP and its Middlesex County chapter.

In March 2023, Lesser, a former co-chair of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee, questioned fellow Democrat and current Committee Co-Chair Kerry Szeps Wood for several hours in a filibuster intended to stall discussion on H.B. 6710, a bill to allow trade associations to offer certain health insurance plans to their members. The bill attracted bipartisan support as an effort to lower costs for small employers, but also opposition from patient advocates who feared that the plans permitted by the bill would destabilize insurance markets and possibly discriminate against policyholders with illnesses or disabilities. The same year, he sponsored legislation to bar the reporting of medical debt to credit reporting agencies; the bill passed the General Assembly and was signed into law by Lamont.

Activities outside the General Assembly He was appointed executive director of the Cancer Support Community of Southern Connecticut (which serves New London, Middlesex, New Haven and Fairfield counties) in 2014.

Personal life Lesser lives in Middletown's North End with his wife Sarah and their two children.

Lesser was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2012, and survived.

Electoral history

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

2020

2022