Jim Shapiro sees politics as ‘a calling' By Stacey Dresner STAMFORD -- Jim Shapiro's first foray into politics was during the summer of his sophomore year at Yale when he interned in the office of Rep. Christopher Shays in Washington, D.C. "That is when the political bug bit me," he recalled. "I was down there at the beginning of the first Gulf War and everything important in the country seemed to be happening right there. I saw these folks making decisions and I found it fascinating because they were steering the course of the country. I said, ‘That is something I'd like to do.'" Fast-forward to the present and Shapiro, 34, is now State Representative of the 144th Assembly District in Stamford as well as Newfield, Oaklawn, Pepper Ridge, Revonah Woods and parts of the town of Springdale. Shapiro beat Republican opponent Jim Rubino in the 1994 Connecticut Assembly race. After his election, he was quickly tapped to sit on the House's Education, Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee, and Public Safety committees. He now, says Barbara Gordon, secretary of the State Central Democratic Committee, is one of the rising stars of the state Democratic Party. "He is a bright young man who has a good grasp of the issues…but he knows enough not to push too much his first term," Gordon said. "I am always pleased when there is a Jewish addition to the legislature, because there are Jewish issues and we need a lot of support. "And he is a class act." Hometown boy Born and bred in Stamford, Shapiro was raised by his parents, Maddy, a stay at home mom, and the late Richard Shapiro, a fashion executive who worked for Bloomingdale's and Ralph Lauren. The family belonged to Temple Beth El, the same synagogue where Shapiro is a member today. He attended Westhill High School where he played baseball, football and tennis. Becoming a politician was not on his mind back then. "When I was younger I would have told you I wanted to play shortstop for the New York Yankees. In fact I'm not certain that that isn't what I am going to do someday," he joked. But while politics didn't interest him back then, history did -- he says that one of his earliest memories is of the United States BiCentennial in 1976 when he was just five years old. "That started me on a course toward history," he said, and he entered Yale University where he received a B.A. in History. It was after going to Capitol Hill to work for Christopher Shays that the lure of politics took hold. After Yale he entered Vanderbilt University School of Law and continued to work in politics, including working on the U.S. Senate campaign for Jim Cooper in 1994. Cooper, running for the seat left vacant by presidential candidate Al Gore in Tennessee, lost that race to Republican Fred Thompson. "That was a good lesson in that I saw that the best guys don't always win," said Shapiro of Cooper, who eventually went on to become a Tennessee congressman. After law school Shapiro joined the firm of Schatz, Schatz, Ribicoff & Kotkin. He learned another lesson when that firm dissolved nine months after he came onboard. "I learned a lot there. I saw how people acted when the chips were down. Saw many wonderful acts of kindness and some acts that weren't so wonderful. It taught me a lot about business and the nature of business." He soon joined Day, Berry and Howard, Connecticut's largest law firm, and stayed for two years practicing corporate law and securities. It was while at Day Berry that he ran for office for the first time, becoming a member of the Board of Representatives, the town council in Stamford. He served on the board until 2004 when he ran for the Connecticut Assembly, while also working for the firm Pitney Bowes and then a small software firm in New York, which eventually closed. He was serving as a director of legal affairs for Barnes & Noble when he decided to run for the seat left open with the retirement of Stamford state representative John Wayne Fox, who served for 24 years. "Being on the town council for a number of years I had considered running if [Fox] decided to retire. But I wasn't sure; I had a very good job, a good life, my situation was attractive. I always think of what Ben Franklin said, ‘Americans need to lead useful lives.' I felt that I was successful in corporate law, but a lot of people can do that. There aren't that many people who can do public service as well. So I felt I had an obligation." Shapiro ran in the race against Republican Jim Rubino, who had also been very involved in Stamford politics and served on the Stamford Board of Representatives for several years. "I knew what I was getting into from having run for city council and I had run in highly contested races. I knew this would be more hard fought. But I like a good fight. "He was a strong opponent," Shapiro continued. "We ran a fairly issues-oriented campaign, but I had to knock on 6,000 doors and send out a lot of mailings, which really connected me to my district." After winning the race, Shapiro, who resigned from his position at Barnes & Noble to better serve as representative, didn't hold back as he entered his first state legislative session. "My goals were to jump in with both feet and make a difference," he said. One of the areas he has been involved, as a member of the public safety committee, is homeland security. Shapiro sponsored a bill that would create a threat matrix that distribute homeland security money to the towns in Connecticut that are at a higher risk of terrorist acts, not necessarily the ones with the highest populations. He is also supportive of making state education funding more equitable around the state, and co-sponsored a bill n signed into law by Gov. M. Jodi Rell n that will allocate $1.3 billion toward upgrading the state's railway systems. Shapiro, who is married and lives in the Revonah Woods section of Stamford, one with a large Jewish population, has never been to Israel, but nevertheless considers himself a supporter of the Jewish state. "I have always been very interested in Israel from a foreign policy standpoint," he said. "You can't have a strong America without a strong Israel anchoring the Middle East." Although he is so far still a rookie in Connecticut State politics, he said he can see himself running for higher office sometime in the future. "I do see politics as a calling," he explained. "I would be interested in going to Washington, having gone there and seen the effect Congress has on the nation and the rest of the world."