SENATE DEMOCRATS’ ICE OVERSIGHT BILL RECEIVES OVERWHELMING PUBLIC SUPPORT AT TODAY’S HEARING

HARTFORD – By a margin of 32:1, Connecticut residents made their voices heard today at a public hearing in support of a Senate Democrats’ bill that will rein in the Constitutional abuses of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and seek to hold them legally accountable for any crimes that they commit against Connecticut citizens.

Senate Bill 397, “AN ACT CONCERNING DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY,” received its public hearing today before the Judiciary Committee, and the public support for it – in response to recent ICE agent murders of American citizens in Minneapolis – was broad and deep.

“Over the past year, we have seen sharp escalations in federal immigration enforcement across the country, often accompanied by a disregard for Constitutional rights and the rule of law,” said Peter Benner of West Hartford. “Senate Bill 397 is a necessary safeguard to protect all residents from federal overreach.”

“We must protect students and families from the lawlessness that we are witnessing across the country. All people deserve due process and freedom from fear of being rounded up,” testified Michele Greenburg of Greenwich. “Connecticut should be a model to establish protected areas and limit surveillance and access to immigrant communities. Connecticut needs to hold government officials accountable when they violate our constitutional rights. Please do the right thing!”

“For the safety of everyone in Connecticut, we need to ensure residents can safely and reliably pray, attend school and receive medical care. Law enforcement must protect and serve, not intimidate, injure, and murder,” testified Judith Murphy of Guilford. “Connecticut existed long before there was a federal government. Connecticut has no reason to forfeit power or authority to unaccountable federal agents.”

The written testimony can be accessed here.

Senate Bill 397 is a multi-pronged effort to contain ICE lawlessness and hold bad ICE agents accountable in ways they have not been held accountable to date. The bill:

• Holds any federal, state, or municipal law enforcement officer liable for constitutional violations;
• Allows Connecticut’s attorney general to bring action against any law enforcement officer violating constitutional rights;
• Clarifies that the state inspector general has the authority to investigate any law enforcement officer who uses deadly force – including federal officers;
• Guarantees that the state inspector general and the state Division of Criminal Justice have the right to access crime scenes and evidence related to a law enforcement officer’s use of deadly force – thereby circumventing any lack of investigation by the federal Department of Justice;
• Creates a state database tracking ICE conduct, with various state agencies recording weekly data of immigration and enforcement actions in Connecticut;
• Bans all law enforcement officers from wearing masks while interacting with the public;
• Requires all law enforcement officers to clearly be identified with a badge and a name tag;
• Requires the governor’s permission before any armed military force enters Connecticut for military purposes, and;
• If a civil ICE arrest occurs in protected areas such as hospitals, schools, homeless shelters and churches – there must be a signed judicial warrant. If not, the victim can sue for damages in state court.

“We are living through an unprecedented time with the head of our Executive Branch having pushed our legal system to its breaking point. For the first time in American history, the Executive Branch has deployed ICE agents against American citizens and residents without regard for what were once considered inalienable, constitutional rights—the Fourth Amendment right against searches and seizures without a warrant, the First Amendment right to videotape law enforcement officers interacting with the public, the Eighth Amendment right to not endure cruel and unusual punishment, the Fifth Amendment right to due process, and the First Amendment right to peaceful protest,” testified Senate Majority leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk), who is one of the main proponents of the bill. “For these reasons, I strongly support this critical bill which will ensure that all law enforcement officials—local, state, and federal—are equally held accountable for violating the rights of our citizens.”

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Senator Duff Leads Effort to Unlock Funding for Critical Police Mental Health Training

SB 298 Provides Enacting Language to Release $850,000 for Police Training on Interactions with People with Mental Illness and Disabilities

HARTFORD — Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) today highlighted a key provision in Senate Bill 298, passed last week, that provides enacting language to release funding for new police training on interactions with people who have mental illness or physical disabilities.

The budget passed last year included $850,000 in FY 2026 and $2.05 million in FY 2027 to support the development of this training, but without the enacting language, the money couldn’t be spent. SB 298 fixes that. The Police Officers Standards and Training Council will now develop new curricula on crisis intervention and de-escalation, in collaboration with people on the autism spectrum, advocacy organizations, university experts, and healthcare professionals.

“Every day, police officers respond to people in mental health crises, and the outcomes of those encounters depend on training,” said Senator Duff. “When officers don’t recognize the behaviors associated with autism or mental illness, a situation that didn’t have to escalate does. This training saves lives. We funded it last year, and now we’re making sure the money actually gets spent. I would like to thank Norwalk resident Jeff Spahr and Norwalk Police Chief James Walsh for their help and support from the very beginning of this process.”

“The training provisions of this Bill represent a step in the right direction to provide the brave officers on the street with the tools they need to address an ever-increasing variety of situations that they are called upon to handle,” said Jeff Spahr, leader of Families for Autism Awareness Acceptance Information and Recognition. “This legislation is aimed at developing a training curriculum for police officers regarding their interactions with individuals with physical disabilities or cognitive impairments as well as mental disabilities, including autism spectrum disorder. These areas of training shall include, at a minimum, guidance on the nature of a variety of mental illnesses and mental or physical disability, how to identify persons who may be challenged by these conditions, and, most importantly, strategies and techniques for handling incidents involving members of these populations, including crisis intervention strategies and de-escalation techniques. It is also significant to note that the curriculum that is to be delivered is to be developed with the input of those individuals that this is designed to assist, institutions of higher education, health care professionals and advocacy organizations. Accordingly, this instruction shall be comprehensive and designed to address issues seen from both sides of any such interaction.”

Contact: Hugh McQuaid | Hugh.McQuaid@cga.ct.gov

Looney & Duff Call on Lamont to Use Emergency Reserve for CT Dairy Farmers

Senate Democratic Leaders Say Tariff-Driven Crisis Threatening Remaining Farms Is Precisely What State Reserve Was Built For

HARTFORD — Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney (D-New Haven) and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) today called on Governor Ned Lamont to deploy funding from the Emergency State Response Reserve to provide immediate relief to Connecticut’s dairy farmers, who face a compounding federal crisis that has pushed a structurally vulnerable industry to the edge of collapse.

Connecticut is home to fewer than 80 dairy farms which is more than a 60 percent decline over the last two decades. The Connecticut Dairy Farmer Coalition projects those remaining farms will collectively lose $20 million in 2026. That crisis has two distinct federal causes that have converged simultaneously.

The first is structural: federal milk marketing rules set minimum prices based on production conditions that favor large corporate farms over Connecticut’s family owned dairies. Connecticut farmers have, in some cases, been receiving the same price per hundredweight they received in 1995. While this is not a new problem, it has been exacerbated by Trump tariffs.

The second is also the direct consequence of federal tariff policy. Tariffs have driven up the cost of the basic inputs of dairy production like fertilizer, farm equipment, and agrochemicals while simultaneously triggering retaliatory trade actions from key export partners including Canada, Mexico, and China. Those countries have redirected dairy purchases to competitors in the European Union and New Zealand, reducing demand for American dairy exports and further suppressing the prices Connecticut farmers receive for their milk. The federal government has, in effect, squeezed Connecticut’s dairy farmers from both ends at once by raising what it costs to produce milk while reducing what farmers are paid for it.

“Connecticut’s dairy industry was already fighting to survive under a federal pricing system that was never designed with New England farms in mind,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney. “Federal tariff policy has now made a difficult situation untenable. The Emergency State Response Reserve was created for exactly this kind of moment: when the actions of the Trump administration impose direct and demonstrable harm on Connecticut workers and industries. We urge the Governor to deploy it now, before more farms are lost permanently.”

“Every farm closure is irreversible,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff. “Connecticut’s dairy farms generate $126 million in annual economic impact, support more than 800 jobs, and contribute nearly $17 million in state and local taxes each year. These are family operations, many of them multigenerational, that anchor rural communities across the state. Trump doesn’t care about the pain of our farmers, but we do. Time to put action behind those words.”

The Emergency State Response Reserve was established by the General Assembly in November 2025 with $500 million in state surplus funding to address the effects of federal cuts and policy changes on Connecticut residents. Senators Looney and Duff argue that the tariff-driven agricultural crisis falls squarely within the reserve’s intended purpose, and that the $20 million in immediate relief requested by the dairy coalition represents a targeted and necessary use of those funds.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Kevin Coughlin | kevin.coughlin@cga.ct.gov | 203-710-0193