Candidate Submitted Bio

Ceci Maher was elected state senator in 2022, after serving as Person to Person executive director and Sandy Hook Promise interim CEO.

Ceci has supported health and education as Senator, particularly as Children’s Committee chair, where she improved access to physical and emotional health services. She’s defended reproductive rights and common-sense gun laws. She supported the largest middle-class tax cut in two decades and is committed to making our region more affordable. She has created protections for seniors in elder care.

The region has benefited from millions in grants for arts, education, and the environment thanks to Ceci. She’s especially proud of the $20,000 sustainability grant for a dishwasher and silverware requested by a WHS student.

A Stamford native, Ceci raised three children in Wilton.

Editor’s note: this candidate’s bio and photo were received after the stated deadline.

Video Interview

Candidate Submitted Op-Ed — “Proud to Deliver Results for Wilton”

The past term as your senator has been the honor of a lifetime and I am proud to have delivered results for our community. I ask for your vote to continue to serve Wilton in Hartford.

I have worked on issues that are important to Wilton: affordability, gun violence prevention, reproductive freedom, environmental protection and sustainability, and children’s mental and physical health. At the same time, I have collaborated with our federal and local leaders to attract funds to support local businesses, arts and education organizations, and the non-profits that make our region so vibrant.

Our fight for affordability began with the historic $600 million in tax cuts for the middle class passed by the Democratic legislature and governor. It continued with the expansion of tax exemptions on our pensions because our seniors want to remain in their communities. Building on these steps, we need to continue to diversify our housing options. By increasing housing stock we can also increase business and economic vitality for Connecticut and bring down taxes.

I am proud to have just celebrated the one-year anniversary of Connecticut prohibiting the open carry of firearms, banning the AR-15, and restricting the bulk sale of guns. These measures prevent guns from landing in the hands of someone who would do harm with them. I will continue to support any measure that addresses the trafficking of guns and that removes guns from situations where they could be too easily accessed.

Protecting reproductive rights means not just making sure abortion is legal, but fighting off any other barrier to abortion that opponents create. This means telling the truth about so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” and ensuring that providers are protected when they deliver the care their patients need. It also means ensuring that parents are able to start and grow their families through fertility treatments, including in-vitro fertilization.

As chair of the Children’s Committee, I am proud to have expanded youth mental health services and provided free breakfast and lunch to our most vulnerable learners.

I am a lover and defender of the natural world, committed to preserving our environment and climate, while also working to protect us against the changing weather we are already experiencing. I was saddened by the damage to our own town in the rains this summer. We must prepare for the future.

Listening to my constituents, I have been able to secure funds for sustainability. Thanks to a proposal from one of our Wilton High students, I secured a grant for a new dishwasher and utensils for the high school, so that we can replace disposable utensils.

I know how thoughtful our Wilton students are — I have raised three of them. Our schools are the heart of our community and the key to our future prosperity and health. I am proud to be a part of expanding education spending by $37 million at the state level, but I recognize that the Wilton schools should be run and guided with our local values and perspective.

I have lived here for 37 years now. This community is special and I want to preserve it, while we continue to prosper. I share local concerns about traffic and housing. We need to address traffic and transportation here in town, but we can employ expertise and funds at the state level. We must increase our housing options locally so that our kids can return home and our seniors can downsize.

In my first term, I have learned that all of us, constituents and local leaders, Republicans and Democrats, can work together for real solutions.

Video Clips

What makes you different from your opponent, and what will you bring to Hartford that she doesn’t have?

Something your opponent said at the debate, that years ago, when you were the CEO of Person to Person, she had organized a vetted, approved event and at the last minute you pulled the plug because you didn’t approve someone she had gotten to participate in it. Can you comment on that?

Will your priorities stay the same in a second term? Is there something new you’d want to add to what you’ll focus on? And what specific things would constituents see you working on in a second term?

Talk about your stance on where Connecticut is right now with regard to gun laws, and if there’s a potential that any changes might happen, and what you would do.

What’s your opinion on where Connecticut abortion law is now? What would you support or not support in a second legislative term?

What is something that you learned in your first term that you would do differently now in a second term?

Locally, one discussion that happens often along party lines is about local control — the picture that gets painted is that of the more progressive majority leadership wants Hartford to control what we’re doing here in Wilton, while the minority party line wants to guard local control in Wilton. How do you define yourself on that issue?

At the debate, you referred to housing being built under 8-30g as evidence that the law is working across Connecticut. Candidates on both sides of the aisle running to represent Wilton have said that 8-30g needs to be addressed and that it isn’t really working in Wilton. How have you voted in the past? And what are you going to do specifically in a next term when 8-30g comes up?

A big concern in Wilton was about the reading curriculum mandate that came down from the State Department of Education — again, perhaps an example of Hartford overreach. What do you think about what happened and is that overreach by Hartford when it comes to local control in our schools?

You mentioned mental health as one of the biggest issues facing the state, facing Wilton. What more can you do to address the mental health crisis in a second term?

Recently, there was a controversy around the Wilton Library and how it handled the situation with its writer-in-residence. What’s your opinion on what happened, and what would you say to the Wilton community about it?

There have been discussions in some municipalities and state legislatures around the country about resolutions introduced calling for a ceasefire in the war between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah. If someone introduced a resolution like that, what would you do?

Do you support your party’s presidential ticket and is that a critical question in Wilton?

Make your case to Wilton voters why they should vote for you.