[3] Before entering politics, Lanza was Managing Member and General Counsel Partner of Mercury Securities LLC, a Wall Street software development and stock trading firm.

[5] Lanza also was a senior auditor with KPMG Peat Marwick, where he audited public and private firms, banks, importers, and hospitals.

[7] Lanza lives in Great Kills with his wife, Marcele, a public middle school administrator, and their three children.

[9] After Democrats took control of the state senate in the 2018 elections for only the third time since World War II, Lanza was the only Republican representing part of New York City.

[16][17] New York's Internet System for Over-Prescribing Act, or I-STOP, passed unanimously, with Lanza taking the lead in the senate and Assemblyman Michael Cusick a primary sponsor in the State Assembly.

[19] I-STOP established New York as the first state to mandate that physicians consult a database of a patient's prescription history before prescribing certain drugs.

Lanza joined Assemblyman Michael Cusick to enact bipartisan that established a dedicated Safe Disposal program[21] allowing New Yorkers to safely dispose of expired and unneeded prescription drugs all year long at dedicated locations, including local police precincts.

"[23] In 2018, the US Drug Enforcement Administration approved an emergency order placing "all illicit fentanyl analogues not already regulated by the Controlled Substances Act into Schedule I - the category for substances with no currently accepted medical use-for two years"[24] The State Legislature enacted the law in 2020, closing the fentanyl loophole.

[30] Lanza issued a press release stating that his assumptions of malice and hatred were targeted at the billboard supporters, not all atheists.