Former longtime state Rep. Janet Polinsky has died after being diagnosed with metastasized lung cancer this summer.

Polinsky passed away on Sept. 26, a couple months shy of her 86th birthday, at her home in Redmond, Wash., surrounded by her family, according to an obituary submitted to The Day on Saturday.

A Democrat, Polinsky got her start in politics by serving as a member of Waterford's Representative Town Meeting and on the town's Planning and Zoning Commission, including as chairwoman.

But close friend Judy Brown, 86, of Norwich said she's actually behind Polinsky's political start.

The women, who met their freshman year of college at the University of Connecticut, both ran to lead the Panhellenic Association, the governing organization for sororities. Brown won, but decided she wasn't interested in the position, so she resigned, and Polinsky, the second vote-getter, took over.

"I always kidded her and said I gave her her political start," Brown, 86, said by phone Saturday night from her Norwich home.

Polinsky spent 16 years in the House of Representatives, serving as deputy speaker and chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee. Her 38th House District seat primarily covered Waterford, where she lived at the time.

A pack-and-a-half-a-day smoker when she started in the legislature, Polinsky's first vote was whether to ban cigarette smoking in the Hall of the House. She voted to allow smoking in the chamber, but went on to resent that decision, according to an Aug. 31, 1997, article in The Day.

Perhaps the biggest vote of her career was the adoption of the state income tax. She was initially an opponent but ended up voting for it, saying then that it was the best option to fix the state's financial problems.

"There weren't many politicians like her," her daughter, Beth Hage, said by phone Saturday night from her home in Washington, explaining that her mother did what was right, not what was popular, referring to her vote in favor of the income tax.

Polinsky served as commissioner of the state Department of Administrative Services and of the Public Utilities Control Authority before retiring from public service and moving to Boynton Beach, Fla. There she embraced the "life of an enthusiastic agoraphobe, busying herself with power napping, sampling the entire Haagen-Dazs collection, watching MMA and conveniently allowing her hearing aid batteries to run out before venturing into any necessary public events," her obituary says.

The lighthearted nature of her obituary was something she requested of her son Gerry in 1984. At the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, after sending her other son David off for beers and hotdogs, she told Gerry that he needed to write her obituary and that "it had to be funny," he recalled.

"That was like a never-ending, looming homework assignment," Gerry Polinsky said. "It was forever hanging over me."

Polinsky spent the last eight years of her life in an assisted-living home in Redmond, Wash., down the street from her daughter and her family. In those years, she devoted herself, according to her obituary, to "training her grandchildren how to fight and swear like sailors."

A celebration is being planned for next summer when "friends and family will gather to share funny Janet stories and eat mountains of ice cream," her obituary says.

j.bergman@theday.com