The 2025 legislative session has come to a close, and it was certainly a trying session for all. In a session where roughly 3,800 bills were introduced, only about 380 bills were passed, rounding up to a passing rate of about ten percent.
Like always, the ACLU of Connecticut approached this legislative session with an ambitious vision and an indomitable spirit. However, early in the session, legislators, policy advocates, and community organizers at the Capitol had to pivot quickly to respond to the rapidly changing political landscape as soon as the current Trump administration stepped into power. This pivot gave us a unique opportunity to find community with one another and take our advocacy to new levels with more coalition work than ever before.
Our policy team worked swiftly to engage with community activists and partner organizations, creating a plan to maintain a position where we could continue reactive and defensive work while proactively responding to urgent needs in immigrants’ rights, reproductive justice, voting rights, and police accountability policy as they arose. In the 2025 legislative session, the ACLU of Connecticut…
- Engaged with more than 50 partner organizations in more than 8 coalitions
- Lobbied more than 2,330 hours in and out of the Capitol
- Submitted more than 100 testimonies in 16 legislative committees
- Helped more than 800 advocates engage directly with legislators
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As we reflect on the 2025 legislative session despite many hurdles, ACLU of Connecticut public policy and advocacy director Chelsea-Infinity Gonzalez, senior policy organizer Anderson Curtis, interim campaign and organizing manager Gus Marks-Hamilton, field organizer Erycka Ortiz, and policy counsel Jess Zaccagnino discuss the tremendous work they have done in coalition with many others this session.
These are the key issues from the session, which are detailed below:
- Protecting immigrants’ rights and immigrant communities
- Funding comprehensive voting legislation
- Advancing inclusive reproductive justice
- Ensuring police accountability and transparency
Protecting Immigrants’ Rights and Immigrant Communities
From day one of the Trump administration, one of the most urgent calls to action appeared in the immigrants’ rights space – both nationally and here in our state. In Connecticut, the Trust Act puts limits on how much information state and local law enforcement can share with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and restrictions on how state and local police can cooperate with ICE officers.
This session, the Trust Act was up for a vote with strengthened provisions. The ACLU of Connecticut worked in coalition with hundreds of advocates and several organizations to champion and negotiate the passage of a strengthened Trust Act. As part of the Trust Act Now! Coalition, our team passed a version of the Trust Act that included increased protections for immigrants in our state. These increased protections contained a uniquely critical enforcement mechanism through a private right of action including declaratory and injunctive relief, and expanded definition of law enforcement, creating a meaningful way to gain relief and justice when the law is violated.
The Trust Act Now! Coalition has worked diligently to advance the best version of this policy – but we are not done yet. We will come back next legislative session with stronger demands and even stronger spirit to continue to advance protections for our immigrant neighbors, friends, and family.
Funding Comprehensive Voting Legislation
This legislative session, voting rights were up for debate in the budget. The voting rights coalition in Connecticut had our eyes on a lengthy bill regarding the state budget, which contained the funds that were necessary to fully implement and enforce the Connecticut Voting Rights Act (CTVRA). For the past several years, the voting rights coalition had worked tirelessly to advance and pass the CTVRA, early voting, and no-excuse absentee voting. Early in the session, the coalition was faced with the challenge of having funding for the CTVRA removed from the budget. We were clear-eyed about the urgent need for this funding and immediately sprung into action.
After countless conversations with legislators and dozens of testimonies submitted to the appropriations committee, the coalition advocated to reinstate the proper funding for our voting rights. By the end of the session, the committee restored the full $1.4 million budget to provide for staffing, database maintenance, translation services, and more for the CTVRA and the Secretary of the State’s office.
With the Legal Defense Fund, we hosted a lobby day to discuss with legislators about the importance of funding the CTVRA and the Secretary of the State’s office, directly engaging dozens of people with legislators and the legislative process.
Later in the session, we shifted our focus to efforts with the Full Citizens Coalition to ensure voting rights for people who are incarcerated in Department of Correction facilities and eligible to vote. Together, we advocated for the passage of a bill that expands ballot access to all people who are incarcerated.
Advancing Inclusive Reproductive Justice
Early in the session, the ACLU of Connecticut and other partner organizations like Planned Parenthood, Reproductive Equity Now, and Equality CT were called to defend the Equality Amendment, S.J. 35. This resolution proposed a constitutional amendment to enshrine the right to reproductive care, abortion care, and gender-affirming care in the state constitution as a response to the attack on reproductive justice by the Trump administration. While this resolution was not passed, the coalition takes great pride and finds a certain sense of hope in the group of advocates and activists who were called to the Capitol on the day of the resolution’s public hearing. Despite such short notice, the committee heard more than 200 testimonies that day, working through a marathon of a hearing. Talk about people power!
This same group of advocates and activists were gathered once more during the later part of session when our school and library systems were threatened by an anti-LGBTQIA+ agenda. Librarians, families, advocates, and many others joined us, Equality CT, and Out Accountability for a last-minute call to action to oppose deleterious policies designed to stifle freedom of thought in our schools and libraries.
The coalition has only grown stronger in numbers and spirit this past legislative session. We plan to come back to the next session in full force to advance inclusive reproductive justice legislation.
Ensuring Police Accountability and Transparency
The 2025 legislative session was a busy one for us in terms of our criminal legal system work. Early in the session, we continued our long-standing advocacy for a housing bill that would make it easier for people living with a record to obtain housing and reintegrate into communities. Our policy experts and partners spent countless hours fostering important relationships and educating legislators with anecdotes and quantitative research from those who are not only justice-impacted but directly impacted by the collateral consequences of living with a record. Although this bill did not pass this year, we are determined to utilize the foundations we have built and use the momentum from this session to uplift this issue in the next with legislative champions, community activists, and partner organizations.
We also worked in coalition with many others including Stop Solitary CT to support the full funding of a permanent prison ombudsperson, a critical role to fill in order to understand what goes on inside our prisons.
Later in the session, the ACLU of Connecticut also played a key role in the search for a new Inspector General, providing questionnaires to final candidates that included questions regarding the use of deadly force, racial justice, and accountability measures in policing. Once we had received this information from the finalists, we shared it with the public and kept a close eye on the hearing to interview the finalists. Since his selection, our policy team has met with the new Inspector General Eliot Prescott and will continue conversations about ways to enhance policy transparency and accountability.
Holding the Line on Other Issues in the Legislature
The ACLU of Connecticut had eyes on several other issue areas in the policy landscape. Our policy experts analyze every piece of legislation introduced into the session to find bills that we can support and others that we can flag as a concern for both legislators and community partners.
Throughout the session, the policy team pushed back hard against deleterious bills, holding the line on preventing degradations to government transparency and first amendment protections. For instance, our team caught wind of a bill regarding free speech on campuses, which contained a masking provision that would make it a crime to protest with a mask on. This bill did not make it through the Senate chamber once these concerns were raised. In the same vein, our policy experts opposed a bill that would have further restricted the public’s already limited access to police and Department of Correction misconduct records, which was a significant concern for government transparency and accountability. After strong opposition from the ACLU of Connecticut and partner organizations, this bill did not move to the House floor for a vote.
At the same time, the team submitted written and oral testimony against several artificial intelligence (AI) bills that we had flagged for legislators for their problematic and potentially harmful language. The ACLU of Connecticut has and continues to provide leadership and clarity about building proactive, equitable regulatory AI policies, guardrails, and frameworks.
Another coalition that gained incredible momentum this session was the Connecticut Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act Coalition, or the CT DVSJA Coalition. Despite being its first year jumping into the Connecticut policy sphere, the coalition hit the ground running with no hesitation. The coalition worked tirelessly to start conversations with legislators, lay the groundwork for the bill, and get the desired bill language into the legislature. This bill, which would provide trauma-informed sentencing for survivors whose offenses were influenced by their experiences with domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, or human trafficking, was put on pause by the coalition to finetune the language. The coalition is already strategizing to come back in the next legislative session with demands for a stronger, airtight bill that reforms the way a survivor’s experiences are considered in the sentencing process.
With the close of the 2025 legislative session also comes the sunset of our seven-year Smart Justice Campaign, a program that made tidal waves in and out of the walls of the Capitol. Connecticut owes so much to the efforts of our Smart Justice Leaders who dedicated countless hours to this work that each Leader cared so deeply about in many capacities. We thank and honor our Smart Justice Leaders for every conversation had, bill passed, policy changed, and legislator moved as a direct result of your presence in the building.
While our Smart Justice Campaign may be coming to a close, the issues that we worked on together will remain. The policy team is taking this summer to analyze the 2025 legislative session, focus on story collection, and regroup for next year. In fact, we are already creating plans to go into the next legislative session clear-eyed and determined. Perhaps, those plans may be sprung into action earlier than anticipated with the rumblings of a special session – stay tuned.
