The 2024 short legislative session was a difficult one. The fiscal guardrails adopted by the General Assembly in the previous session prevented the passage of many bills with fiscal notes.
2024 ADVOCACY PRIORITIES, GAINS, AND LOSSES
2024 Priorities
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Election Laws:
- Campaign Finance Reform/Keeping Foreign Money out of Referenda
- Public Media, Broadband Access, and Artificial Intelligence
- Climate Change Mitigation
- Gun Safety - Election Worker Protection
- Affordable Housing
- Rebuild Local News
Gains
- We fought long and hard for adequate funding for Early Voting implementation and education. In the end, $1 Million was allocated to implement early voting, and the money will be distributed to the municipalities based on size.
- We also fought for a bill to ban contributions and expenditures by foreign nationals on referenda questions. The bill passed both houses and is particularly urgent in light of the No Excuse Absentee Ballot constitutional referendum question on the ballot this fall.
- We supported a bill to increase transparency in elections and with election worker protections built in. This bill also passed both houses.
- We opposed acts which would have been problematic for the Citizen’s Election Program (CEP) and those bills did not pass. The CEP is a voluntary program which provides clean elections financing to qualified candidates for statewide offices and the General Assembly.
Losses
We fought for bills that would have expanded broadband access, addressed the climate crisis, helped to rebuild local news, and require clear Charter Revision ballot language, and expand affordable housing. While these bills did not make it through both houses, they all made it out of committee and we look forward to continuing the fight in the 2025-2026 session.
Advocacy Highlights: 2024 Advocacy Workshop and Lobby Day
To kick off the beginning of the Legislative Session, League members from around the state met at the Capitol in February for the annual Advocacy Workshop to learn more about the state League's 2024 legislative priorities. We heard from our lobbyist, legislators, and other advocacy experts about how to be an effective legislative advocate.
THANK YOU TO THE LEGISLATIVE SPECIALIST TEAM!
- Election Laws - Yvonne Senturia, Nancy Hutchinson
- Campaign Finance Reform/ Open Government - Pam Klem
- Public Media and Broadband Access - Pua Ford
- Climate Change Mitigation Anne Schmidt Gun Safety – Election Worker Protection Linda Gebauer
- Healthcare - Susan Smith
- Housing - Jennifer Dayton
- Rebuild Local News - Anne Hefter
- Charter Revision - Ann Speyer and the New Britain LWV
