There is a single overarching issue in this state election: the fiscal cliff. Connecticut taxpayers are looking at an over $4.6 billion deficit in the upcoming biennial budget. To date, my campaign has knocked on over 7,000 doors, and we hear the struggles people are contending with every day.

While I have been talking with concerned voters all over the district for months and years about the deep and troubling fiscal issues facing our state, my opponent is rolling out a shopworn, identity-politics smear campaign. As I wrote this, the Needleman campaign dropped $90,000 into the race with a massive TV ad buy. This amount by itself nearly eclipses the entirety of my campaign, which unlike my opponent, abides by the restrictions established in the Citizens Election Program.

During my three terms in the State House, I have been consistently on record calling attention to the problems with our budget. My constituents have come to rely on me to lead on the issues that affect them. Unfortunately, my friends on the other side of the aisle have a history of leaving the critical budget vote to the last hours of the session, most years rarely producing a balanced budget proposal until weeks after regular session is over.

During the 2017 session, updated revenue consensus data was released showing the state budget as being hundreds of millions more dollars in debt than originally estimated. On the very same day this information was released, the legislature’s majority chose to debate a bill about lactation consultants rather than constructing an updated, balanced budget.

That year the budget was settled five months late, causing turmoil in every community across the state. In the 2016 session, when the Democrat majority pushed for changes to sexual assault policies and penalties — something I would ordinarily support — they were simultaneously cutting funding in the state budget for rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters. In my vote on HB 5376, I felt compelled to stand up and speak out to highlight their hypocrisy. What good are such policies without the resources to help the victims?

If elected as your state Senator, I can state confidently that I will be ready to walk into the Capitol on day one as someone who understands the committee process and how the current (albeit flawed) budget process works. Trust when I say that I would love nothing more than an opportunity to return to working in bipartisan good faith on our budget.

We need to have a Republican majority in the Senate; parity in representation is the ideal of good governance. Party politics aside, among voters our fiscal crisis is the top issue. I know, because I have been listening.

State Rep. Melissa Ziobron, a Republican, serves the 34th House District of East Haddam, East Hampton and Colchester and is a candidate for state Senate in the 33rd District. She lives in East Haddam.