‘Culture wars break out during usually calm legislative procedure at Connecticut Capitol’ | New Haven Register

January 18, 2025

As published by the New Haven Register:

The normally placid process of bringing legislative proposals for public debate joined the culture wars on Friday, when Republicans voted against 13 bills, including a proposed constitutional amendment that would codify abortion rights and gender-affirming medical procedures.

In all, the Democratic majority on the Government Administration & Elections Committee took 90 minutes to finish its early session business in the process of “raising” legislation for public hearings in the second week of the 21-week legislative session.

Republicans led by state Sen. Rob Sampson and Rep. Gale Mastrofrancesco, both of Wolcott, ranking committee members, said that most of the bills seemed identical to laws that failed to pass in 2024. Sampson noted that even though he voted in favor of 13 other bills, unanimously approved for public hearing on the 19-member panel, he reserved the right to vote against them before the committee’s early April deadline.

“This agenda is a largely Democratic agenda,” Sampson said in a Legislative Office Building meeting room attended by about 50 people. “I am hoping that the next one that comes out will have a few more Republican items, hint, hint,” Sampson said with a smile to Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Killingly, co-chairwoman of the committee. “What’s good, really, right now, is that we know what these bills are because we did them last year,” Mastrofrancesco said.

Flexer said that the proposed amendment to the state Constitution, which could eventually reach state voters for ratification, is aimed at expanding protections for people from discrimination based on their sex. “When it comes to changing our Constitution, it’s very serious,” Mastrofrancesco said. “It’s needs a lot of discussion, a lot of debate.” Only one GOP member of the committee voted in favor of raising the bill for the public hearing required by General Assembly rules if it is to eventually win approval before the June 3 legislative deadline.

“This bill, if folks remember, would effectively put into our Constitution protections for abortion including what I would describe as abortion up until birth,” said the conservative Sampson. “There would also be protections for gender-affirming care. That’s sex change operations for people born before 1990. I am adamantly opposed to both of those things being part of our Constitution.” To get before a statewide vote, amendments to the Constitution have to win approval by two legislative sessions.

 

Republicans on the panel are outnumbered 13-6 and Democrats also flexed their muscle on the rest of the agenda, including an amendment to the Constitution that would establish rights to a clean environment. Flexer said that other states, including both Democratic and Republican controlled government, have adopted the protections.

“We went back and forth on this because clearly, something that sounds so good as creating protections for our environment and ensuring that everyone has a right to clean and healthy air, water, soil and so on sounds like a very good thing, except what happens in practice is this ends up creating a cause of action for individual citizens and property owners against one another,” Sampson said. “Effectively what we do with legislation like this is open the flood gates for litigation.”

The Democrats also used their majority to bring to a public hearing the proposal to create an Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a paid holiday for state workers at a date to be determined. Flexer said that input on the issue would include the exact date on the calendar. The bill is currently identical to a Senate bill that died last year without action.

Another bill approved for public hearing would require state applications and forms to include options for people to list their genders as non-binary. Another piece of legislation that died last year has been at least partially rewritten in attempt to save state libraries tens of thousands of dollars in their contracts with publishers of electronic books. State Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, co-chairman of the committee, said that currently, public librarians are forced to accept “onerous terms” for ebooks. Under the current proposal, libraries could use the purchasing power of the state to change the terms of rentals.

The 26 items will soon be scheduled for public hearings in the committee.