Just 10% of bills passed in CT's 2025 legislative session. Here are the major ones

Yahoo

4 hours ago

After months of clashes on multiple issues, the 2025 legislative session ended last week with new legislation passed on the state budget, early childhood education, gun safety, affordable housing and electricity prices.
When the smoke cleared as time expired at midnight on June 4, fewer than 10% of the proposed bills had passed both chambers of the legislature.
In all, about 3,800 bills were filed this year on a wide variety of subjects in more than 25 committees. Of those, more than 900 bills were passed by the legislative committees. Eventually, state officials said, 286 bills were passed by both chambers and will be sent to Lamont's desk for his signature.
A small sampling of some of the major bills includes :
The state's new two-year, $55.8 billion budget was hailed by Democrats for providing additional money for Medicaid, nonprofit organizations, special education, and the working poor. But the measure was ripped by Republicans for too many taxes on businesses and too much spending, including an increase of about $1.2 billion in the first year over this year's spending.
The massive, 693-page budget passed both chambers in the final days after 66 hours of public hearings and multiple revisions. The measure passed on strict party lines in the Senate, while two conservative Democrats joined with all Republicans in voting against the budget in the state House of Representatives.
Lamont said it was important to him that lawmakers passed a two-year budget, rather than one year as House Speaker Matt Ritter had mentioned, so that the state could plan further into the future.
'I think it's an honestly balanced budget,' Lamont told reporters in his office after the session. 'We did it without raising anybody's tax rates. That was not happening previously.'
Among the highlights was a tax rebate of $250 for working families who already qualify for the federal earned income tax credit. Ritter had pushed for a visible method of relief and so checks for $250 per year will be sent to lower-income households with children. The money will be directed to the neediest families after budget negotiators dropped a more expensive Democratic plan that would have provided a child tax credit for families earning as much as $200,000 per year.
Republicans charged that Lamont had derailed the bipartisan fiscal guardrails set in 2017 and eviscerated the spending cap.
Republicans and the Connecticut Business and Industry Association were also concerned that the budget includes Lamont's change to the 'unitary' tax that they said would lead to tax increases for about 20 major corporations like Electric Boat, Wal-Mart, Raytheon, Amazon, Home Depot, Lowe's, AT&T, Verizon, and the parent company of Sikorsky helicopters, among others. The tax has not been mentioned much at the state Capitol in recent years, but Fairfield-based General Electric Co. cited the tax among the reasons that the company decided to move its headquarters to Boston during the tenure of then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
But Lamont and his team have frequent contact with top business leaders, and he said after the initial proposal was released that the leaders had not raised major concerns.
Republicans have ripped Lamont with a consistent theme that he has 'folded like a lawn chair' on various issues where they believe he has flip-flopped. Senators even set up lawn chairs outside their third-floor caucus room at the state Capitol that mentioned various issues such as the spending cap and fiscal guardrails.
'Our observation that Gov. Lamont 'folded like a lawn chair' to his fellow Democrats apparently struck a nerve,' said Senate Republican leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield. 'Gov. Lamont performed his lawn chair-folding impression multiple times in recent weeks: On the 'sacrosanct' spending cap, on 'no new taxes', on the Trust Act, and on $60 steak-loving CSCU Chancellor Terrence Cheng's new $440,000 no-defined duties job. The truth hurts.'
Lamont seems to have grown tired of Republican criticisms, saying the Senate Republicans have thrown stones from the sidelines without offering their own fiscal plan this year as state budget surpluses have continued.
'I wish they would spend less time on folding chairs and more time on coming up with a budget of their own,' Lamont said when asked by The Courant. 'Their numbers don't add up. They couldn't come up with a budget of their own. If you want to have a place at the table, come up with a constructive idea.'
Lawmakers approved landmark legislation to fund an endowment account to create more affordable child care in Connecticut in the coming years.
Legislators agreed with Lamont to set aside as much as $300 million per year from the state's future budget surpluses in order to create a large endowment fund that would be invested by the state treasurer and could grow in future years. This year's allocation is expected to be $200 million, based on the size of the current surplus.
'The most important initiative, from my point of view, in this budget is what we're doing in early childhood,' Lamont told reporters after the session. 'I think it's absolutely important to economic growth. It gives mom and dad a chance to get back to work. It's all about affordability because you know how big a chunk early childhood and day care can be to a family just getting started out. We're going to have universal pre-K and universal early childhood for early single family, at no cost, earn up to about $100,000 and discounts from there.'
Under the plan, families earning $100,000 or less would pay nothing for child care starting in 2028, as it would be paid by the endowment, lawmakers said.
The goal is for the endowment to help pay the costs to create 16,000 spaces for preschool, infants, and toddlers by 2030. While those under $100,000 would be free, those earning more than $100,000 would not pay more than 7% of their household income, lawmakers said.
But Republicans said that the projected 12% annual draw down in the first two years is too much, saying it would sharply decrease the size of the endowment. They questioned the use of large amounts of money to create an off-budget endowment instead of allocating more money for the state's unfunded liabilities like pensions for state employees and public school teachers.
'It really is the beginning of the end of good fiscal practices,' said House Republican leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford. 'They are turning the faucet off on Connecticut paying down its unfunded liabilities. The glory days are over of paying down unfunded liabilities. … This legislation right now is doing away with surpluses as we know it.'
Among the most contentious and heavily debated issues was electricity prices and exactly how to solve the long-running dilemma of sky-high energy costs in Connecticut.
After numerous revisions, the Senate passed the final version in a 134-page bill by 34-1 with state Sen. John Fonfara of Hartford as the lone dissenting vote. One of the most knowledgeable lawmakers in the building, Fonfara had crafted his own version of electricity reform in the tax-writing finance committee, but the final version did not include all of his ideas, something he called a missed opportunity.
While estimates varied, lawmakers said the average residential customer might save about $100 or more per year. Businesses could save $100 per month, or $1,200 per year, depending on their size and usage.
Republicans and Democrats have been squabbling publicly about electricity prices for more than a year, both before and after the election. Ritter described the matter as 'the wedge political issue of 2024.' In addition, the twists and turns between the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority and the state's electric utilities have sparked a long-running soap opera with lawsuits and ongoing drama that has continued on a heavily-lobbied issue.
Even after the session, the situation remained in flux as Lamont said he had a handshake deal that is also backed by the law to fill the spots on the PURA board to five members, up from the current three. Fonfara and former Republican state legislator Holly Cheeseman of Niantic have been the two most-mentioned candidates for the jobs since Christmas, but Lamont still has not officially announced his picks.
'We've got a deal for five people, and I'll do it sooner than later,' Lamont told reporters after the session. 'Holly is very well regarded. I think she would be at the top of our list.'
Lamont declined to comment on Fonfara, who has been in the middle of various battles related to PURA. Lamont, though, added that he is looking for a highly qualified candidate with deep knowledge of electricity and the regulatory world.
'I haven't found that person yet,' Lamont said.
After long debates in both chambers, lawmakers passed a gun safety bill that would make it easier to file civil lawsuits against gun manufacturers and make it harder for some residents to obtain a pistol permit.
House Bill 7042 allows the state attorney general, as well as private citizens and cities and towns, to file civil lawsuits against those 'who fail to implement so-called reasonable controls in preventing the sale of firearms to straw purchasers, firearm traffickers, and individuals who are prevented from purchasing firearms under our laws.'
Democrats said the bill is necessary because the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, known as PLCAA, was passed by Congress in 2005 that provided special immunity protections for gun manufacturers. So far, nine other states have passed similar legislation to expand the possibility of gun-related lawsuits, including New York, New Jersey, California, Maryland, Illinois, Colorado and others.
Republicans blasted the bill as an attack on Second Amendment rights.
The multi-pronged bill also makes it harder for some residents to obtain a gun permit if they committed crimes in other states. Currently, Connecticut residents who commit felonies and 11 'disqualifier misdemeanors' are not permitted to obtain a pistol or revolver permit. But residents who commit essentially the same misdemeanors in other states, and then move to Connecticut, are still able to obtain a permit.
The bill would cover anyone convicted of those misdemeanors in another state during the past eight years; they would now be blocked from getting a pistol or revolver permit, lawmakers said.
After struggling for years to solve an elusive problem, legislators voted for steps to increase affordable housing in one of the nation's most expensive states.
Lawmakers expressed frustration as renters and homeowners of all ages have complained of the price of housing — whether a small studio for a recent college graduate, a modest home for a young family, or a larger home in a sought-after town in Fairfield County.
The legislation calls for allowing residential developments in commercial zones, eliminating mandatory minimum parking requirements in some cases to spark more housing, and spurring transit-oriented development, among others.
But Candelora rejected the ideas that were unveiled with constant references during the debate to a 'carrot-and-stick' approach.
'These aren't carrots that we are eating,' Candelora said. 'These are rocks that people will be swallowing. … To suggest because we oppose this bill, we are opposing homelessness is an insult to us.'
In order to help the homeless, the multi-faceted bill calls for a pilot program for mobile, portable showers in trailers that can be transported from town to town to help residents. The trailers, lawmakers said, are readily available online.
For years, nonprofit providers have complained constantly that they have received few increases for providing services for the state under contracts to help the needy by operating group homes, among others.
But the nonprofits were pleased with the 2025 session, which came through months of persistent lobbying and testimony at the state Capital.
'The biennial budget agreement will provide more than $200 million in new general fund dollars that will be a lifeline for health and human services providers, their staff and the people who depend on their services,' said Gian Carl Casa, a former top state budget official who now heads the statewide community nonprofit alliance. 'Nonprofit leaders were heartened that rank-and-file legislators, including the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, Moderate Caucus and progressives, stood together to add important funding, and that legislative leaders and the governor agreed. Importantly, the legislature also passed a bipartisan bill that, if signed into law, would index future funding levels to inflation.'
He added, 'The support of legislators from both parties can help keep us on track as the state faces federal funding challenges this year and beyond.'
Christopher Keating can be reached at [e-mail]