Sen. Rob Sampson Offers His Take on Recent Legislative Session
- Philip Thibodeau
- 3 hours ago
- 12 min read
After the Connecticut legislative session wrapped up on May 6, the Outsider sent a questionnaire to all the members of the Southington delegation asking them to comment on four topics: bills that passed that they felt Southington residents should welcome; bills that passed that Southington residents should be wary of; bills that did not pass; and their experience of the recent session.
We will print one set of answers each week. The first to submit replies was Senator Rob Sampson, who represents Connecticut's 16th District.
Senator Sampson's Reply
Hartford works best when people are watching. My job is to make sure they are.
The Democratic majority has the votes. They control the House, the Senate, the Governor’s office, and the agenda. While we pass a fair number of things we agree on, my job is also to make sure they do not get away with bad policy quietly.
That means reading the bills. Asking tough questions. Offering amendments. Slowing down bad legislation. Exposing the consequences. Forcing debate. And when possible, stopping the worst ideas before they become law.
That is what I tried to do this session.
1. Bills that passed that Southington residents should welcome
One bill Southington residents should welcome is HB 5039, concerning transparency and oversight of legislatively directed funds, commonly known as earmarks.
This is a big deal.
For the last two years, I have been sounding the alarm about the abuse of legislative earmarks in Connecticut. I held press conferences. I raised the issue publicly. I pushed for answers. I challenged the secrecy. I pointed out how ridiculous it is that millions of taxpayer dollars can be steered through the budget process with very little transparency about who requested the money, why it was chosen, what standards were used, or whether anyone is checking the results.
Taxpayers work hard for every dollar they earn. They pay income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, utility charges, fees, and every other cost government can dream up. When that money gets sent back out the door, the public has every right to know where it is going and why.
For too long, too much spending in Hartford has happened in the shadows. Money gets steered to special interests, favored projects, or politically connected organizations, and the taxpayers who funded it are left in the dark.
That is exactly how public trust erodes.
Eventually, the pressure became impossible to ignore. The Governor and majority Democrats were forced into a corner where they had to do something. HB 5039 is the result.
Is it enough? No. I would have gone further. I believe the public should know which lawmakers requested which earmarks. If a legislator wants to spend taxpayer money, that legislator should be willing to put his or her name on it.
But HB 5039 is still a real first step. It requires more documentation, more reporting, and more oversight. It begins to pull this process into the sunlight.
That matters. And I will keep pushing for more.
Another bill I was glad to support was HB 5476, concerning human trafficking prevention and oversight.
Human trafficking is one of the darkest crimes imaginable. It is the exploitation of vulnerable human beings, often children and young women, by people who see them not as souls with dignity, but as objects to be used, controlled, and sold. It is evil, and government has a moral obligation to fight it with seriousness and urgency.
This is an important issue to me. I propose legislation on human trafficking every year because I believe Connecticut still has a lot more work to do.
HB 5476 is a step. It deals with coordination, training, reporting, and oversight. I am glad we got something done. But I will not pretend the work is finished.
A child being groomed, trafficked, abused, or moved through the system without anyone connecting the dots does not need another slogan from Hartford. That child needs adults in positions of authority to notice, act, intervene, and protect them.
That is the kind of legislation I am always willing to support: a real problem, a serious response, and a clear purpose. Protect the vulnerable. Hold systems accountable. Do something useful I am very pleased that I was able to work closely with my colleagues in both parties to make this one a reality.
2. Bills Southington residents should be wary of
Southington residents should be very concerned about HB 5001, the majority’s large election bill.
Connecticut voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing the legislature to consider no-excuse absentee voting. I respect the voters’ decision. But that does not mean the legislature should use that vote as an excuse to weaken election safeguards.
The responsible thing would have been to pass a narrow bill that implemented the constitutional change while protecting election integrity. Instead, the majority passed a much broader election bill creating universal mail-in voting with little concern for protecting the integrity of the results.
My position is simple: I want every legal voter to vote. I also want every legal voter to know their vote counts and is not being diluted by fraud, abuse, weak procedures, or sloppy government.
That should be common ground.
Connecticut has already seen what can go wrong. Everyone remembers the Bridgeport ballot scandal. Wanda Geter-Pataky became a symbol of everything people fear about absentee ballot abuse. Video footage, court proceedings, criminal charges, and public outrage all made one thing obvious: Connecticut should be tightening absentee ballot protections, not weakening them.
Instead, the majority made it easier for the same kind of activity to happen again.
That is stunning to me.
After Bridgeport, the message from Hartford should have been: clean up the voter rolls, improve verification, require better identification, strengthen chain-of-custody protections, and make sure no one can abuse absentee ballots.
I offered amendments to add those safeguards, including requiring photo identification, but the majority voted them down on party lines.
That tells you everything.
Election integrity should not be partisan. Whether you are a Republican, Democrat, or unaffiliated voter, you should want clean elections. You should want confidence. You should want rules that protect every honest voter.
The majority talks about access. I support access. But access without security is not a complete election system. It is an invitation to more distrust.
Elections are not just about counting ballots. They are about public confidence. If people stop believing the process is honest, the damage goes far beyond one election cycle.
Southington residents should also be very wary of the budget adjustment bill that passed this session.
This may be the clearest example of the difference between the two parties in Hartford.
Connecticut families are hurting. I hear it every day. Seniors are looking at electric bills and wondering what they have to give up. Working families are paying more for groceries, insurance, gas, housing, and utilities. Young people are wondering whether they will ever be able to buy a home in the town where they grew up. Small businesses are trying to survive in one of the most expensive states in America.
And while all of that is happening, state government is sitting on enormous surpluses created by overtaxing those same people.
Let that sink in.
People are struggling to pay their bills, and Hartford has too much of their money.
Republicans offered a better way. Our alternative budget fully funded education and municipal aid at the same levels included in the final budget adjustment that passed. In fact, I believe Hartford has shortchanged our towns for years, pushing too much of the burden onto local property taxpayers, and I would support doing more for education and municipal aid when it is done honestly and responsibly.
Our plan also would have returned roughly $750 million to taxpayers in the first year and approximately $1.5 billion in the second year. That is real money back in the pockets of families, seniors, workers, and small businesses.
We funded the same town priorities and still gave families real tax relief. The majority said no. They chose more spending instead.
Yes, they kept the money. They spent more. They used budget maneuvers and undermined the fiscal guardrails that helped Connecticut regain some stability.
When government over-collects from the people, the money should go back to the people. Hartford should not treat taxpayers like an ATM and then expect applause for spending their money.
Affordability is not a talking point. It is the difference between staying in Connecticut and leaving. It is the difference between retiring with dignity and being taxed out of your home. It is the difference between a young family building a future here or giving up and moving somewhere else.
Southington residents deserved better.
3. Bills that did not pass but residents should know about
The most important bills that did not pass were affordability bills.
I submitted more than 200 proposals this session, many focused on lowering costs, improving public safety, protecting election integrity, reducing electric bills, defending parental rights, and making government more accountable.
One of those bills was SB 70, my proposal to exempt Social Security benefits and pension or annuity income from the state income tax.
The majority did not even give it a hearing.
Think about that. Connecticut seniors are getting crushed by taxes, electric bills, health care costs, groceries, and housing. Many spent their lives working, saving, raising families, volunteering, serving, and building our communities. They should be able to retire here with dignity.
Instead of even having a conversation about ending the state income tax on retirement income, the majority buried the bill.
I refuse to accept a Connecticut where seniors have to choose between medicine, groceries, heating oil, and an electric bill inflated by government policy. That is not compassionate. That is not sustainable. And it is certainly not affordability.
Another top priority for me was eliminating the hidden tax aka Public Benefits Charge on electric bills.
People are furious about their electric bills, and they should be. I have heard from seniors, families, and small businesses who are doing everything right and still getting crushed. They turn off lights. They lower the heat. They budget carefully. Then the bill shows up and they feel like they have been punched in the gut.
Too much of what appears on those bills has nothing to do with the actual generation or delivery of electricity. It is public policy spending hidden on your utility bill.
That is dishonest budgeting.
I submitted a proposal to the Energy Committee to eliminate the charge. They refused to even raise it for a public hearing.
That is the arrogance of one-party control. They think no one is watching. They think if these costs are buried on your utility bill, they can avoid responsibility. They think people will blame the utility company and never ask which politicians put those charges there in the first place.
We need to change that.
If the state wants to spend money on a public policy goal, then put it in the state budget. Debate it openly. Vote on it openly. Defend it openly.
Do not hide it on electric bills and then pretend utility companies are the only reason rates are so high.
Residents should also know about SB 503, which thankfully failed in the House after passing the Senate.
That bill would have expanded special sentencing and parole treatment to people who committed crimes before turning 26.
It was a travesty.
A 25-year-old is an adult. A 25-year-old can vote, drink, serve in the military, enter contracts, own property, and make every other adult decision. Yet this bill would have moved Connecticut even further toward treating adult criminals as if they are not fully responsible for their actions.
And we are not talking about minor misbehavior. This bill applied to very serious crimes. I fought it hard because it was wrong.
I believe in redemption. I believe in second chances where appropriate. But I also believe in justice. I believe in victims. I believe people who commit serious crimes should be held accountable.
Too often in Hartford, the conversation starts with the offender and ends with the offender. What about the victim? What about the family that never gets their loved one back? What about the law-abiding citizen who did everything right and still pays the price for failed policies?
Thankfully, we stopped it.
That matters. The Democratic majority has the votes, but when bad ideas are exposed clearly enough, the public can still make a difference.
That is how we stopped tolls years ago. That is how we stopped SB 503 this year. That is also how we stopped the bill to give unemployment benefits to striking workers.
That is why I keep forcing these debates into the open. When people see what is really happening in Hartford, bad ideas become much harder to pass.
4. How I would characterize the session and the process
This was one of the most frustrating sessions I have experienced.
Not because I expect to win every vote. I do not. Republicans are in the minority. Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the Governor’s office.
But there is a right way and a wrong way to govern.
The right way is to write clear bills, hold fair hearings, listen to the public, allow real debate, and give legislators enough time to understand what they are voting on.
The wrong way is to jam dozens or hundreds of ideas into giant bills, bring out last-minute amendments, combine good ideas with terrible ones, and force votes under pressure at the end of session.
Unfortunately, we saw far too much of the second approach.
We saw massive “Christmas tree” bills filled with unrelated provisions. Some contained good ideas. Some contained terrible ideas. Some contained items that had barely been reviewed. Then legislators were put in the position of either voting for the whole mess or voting no and being falsely accused of opposing the good parts.
That is not honest legislating. It is political gamesmanship.
The giant labor bill, HB 5003, is a perfect example of this problem. It was an enormous omnibus bill with dozens and dozens of sections. Many of them contained damaging labor policy that will make Connecticut more expensive, less competitive, and less hopeful for workers, employers, and young people trying to build a future here. Other sections were good policy that I would have gladly supported on their own.
That is exactly the problem. Hartford mixed serious, harmful policy with worthwhile ideas, then added unrelated provisions dealing with cranes, utility poles, and even lobsters. That is not thoughtful legislating. It is a pressure tactic designed to make it harder to vote no, even when the overall bill is bad for Connecticut.
That is how bad policy gets through.
Good process matters because bad process produces bad law. When bills are rushed, legislators have less time to read them, the public has less time to understand them, and serious concerns are more easily brushed aside.
This is where I believe my role matters most.
I am not in Hartford to be decoration. I am not there simply to cast a predictable no vote and go home. I take this job seriously because the decisions made there affect real people: the senior deciding whether to pay the electric bill or refill a prescription, the young family trying to buy its first home, the small business owner trying to make payroll, the victim of crime wondering why the system seems more concerned with the offender, and the voter who just wants to know the election was honest.
So I read the bills. I ask the hard questions. I debate. I offer amendments. I expose bad policy. I force the majority to defend what they are doing. And sometimes, when the public pressure becomes strong enough, we change the outcome.
That is not theory. It happens.
Bad bills get stopped. Bad language gets removed. Bills get changed because the majority knows they will have to answer questions on the floor. They know I will read the language. They know I will find the problem. They know I will make the argument.
That is what effective opposition looks like.
At the same time, I work constructively whenever possible. The earmark transparency bill and the human trafficking bill are examples of legislation I was glad to support. I will work with anyone, Democrat or Republican, when the goal is honest government, affordability, public safety, and respect for taxpayers.
But I will not go along just to get along.
That is not why the people of Southington, Wolcott, Prospect, Waterbury, and Cheshire sent me to Hartford.
They sent me there to protect their wallets, defend their rights, demand honest government, stand up for victims, fight for seniors and working families, and speak plainly when something is wrong.
That is what I did this session, and that is what I will continue to do.
Southington residents deserve a state government that is affordable, accountable, safe, transparent, and worthy of their trust.
That is the standard I fight for every day.
Senator Rob Sampson
Sources
[1] CT Mirror, “General Assembly passes bill to regulate earmarks amid probe,” May 4, 2026.
[2] Connecticut General Assembly, HB 5039 bill status.
[3] Connecticut General Assembly, HB 5476 bill analysis, “An Act Concerning Oversight of Efforts to Prevent Human Trafficking.”
[4] Connecticut General Assembly, HB 5001 bill status, “An Act Concerning Absentee Voting for All and Various Other Reforms Related to the Administration of Elections.”
[5] CT Mirror, “Voting by mail to be a universal option in Connecticut,” May 6, 2026.
[6] Associated Press, “As accusations fly over ballot stuffing in mayoral primary, Connecticut Democrat takes the 5th,” October 13, 2023.
[7] CT Mirror, “Senate GOP pitches deep cuts to CT tax and electric bills,” February 10, 2026.
[8] CBIA, “State Budget Adjustments Hike Spending, Skirt Guardrails,” May 2026.
[9] Connecticut General Assembly, SB 70 bill status, “An Act Exempting Social Security Benefits and Pension or Annuity Income from the Personal Income Tax.”
[10] CT Insider, “Tears, testimony and tension: CT lawmakers split on parole for young offenders,” May 6, 2026.
[11] CT Mirror, “Sweeping labor legislation gains final passage, heads to CT governor’s desk,” May 1, 2026.
[12] CBIA, “Omnibus Workforce Bill: What Employers Need to Know,” May 2026.
[13] CT Insider, “After much debate, Connecticut legislature blocks striking workers from unemployment benefits,” May 2026.
https://www.ctinsider.com/business/article/striking-worker-unemployment-benefits-ct-law-22246747.php