Prague Will Retire From State Senate After 2012

State Sen. Edith Prague, D-Columbia, the outspoken legislative stalwart who suffered a minor stroke this past December, has told colleagues in the Senate Democratic caucus that she will not seek re-election in November – after 18 years in the General Assembly’s upper chamber.

Prague, 86, plans a public announcement in the Senate Wednesday, on the last day of the 2012 legislative session, Democratic sources confirmed after her plans were first reported Tuesday night by The Day of New London.

A longtime advocate for the elderly and labor unions, Prague also pushed successfully for tougher drunken driving laws; her 21-year-old niece was struck and killed by a drunken driver.  She won election in 1982 to the state House of Representatives, and  then was appointed in 1990 as state commissioner on aging in the administration of Gov. Lowell P. Weicker. She won her current Senate seat in the 1994 election.