A look at Connecticut's legislative process

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A look at Connecticut’s legislative process

To get involved in the legislative process, it helps to understand the basics of how Connecticut’s legislature works. Here is an overview.

The General Assembly

The legislature has 187 seats: 36 in the Senate and 151 in the House of Representatives. Legislators are elected by the voters in their districts for a two-year term. Elections are held in November of even-numbered years, but special elections may be called as seats become vacant.

The General Assembly is formally in session once a year: from January through early June in odd-numbered years, and from February through early May in even-numbered years. (The 2007 session opens Jan. 3 and ends June 6.) Special sessions are called if critical issues have not been resolved by the end of the regular session, or when issues arise that require a General Assembly vote when it’s not in formal session.

Legislation

Anyone can propose an idea for a bill by suggesting it to a legislator, who files it with the clerk’s office in the House or Senate, where it becomes an official document. The clerk’s office assigns the bill to an appropriate committee. The committee acts as the bill’s overseer and decides whether it should continue on through the legislative process (see Page 7).

A bill may have to pass through several committees for approval; if even one committee rejects it, the bill “dies.”

A committee can also amend a bill. The change can be either minor or a total rewrite. This can be a way to revive a bill previously “killed.” A bill can be amended at many points in the legislative process. That means you might need to continue communicating with legislators about it until the very end of the session.

Before approving or amending a bill, a committee must hold hearings to give the public and state officials an opportunity to express their opinions of it.

Each committee has a deadline for approving bills and passing them along to other committees, if necessary, or on to the House or Senate for a vote. Both chambers will either pass, amend or reject a bill. If one chamber amends it, the bill goes back to the other chamber for reconsideration. If the bill fails in one of the chambers, it’s dead.

A bill passed by both chambers is sent to the governor to be signed into law. If the governor vetoes the bill, a two-thirds vote in both the chambers is needed to override the veto. If the governor neither signs nor vetoes the bill within a certain time, it automatically becomes law.

Regulations

Once a law is passed, state regulatory agencies draft regulations to enforce it. Agencies often hold public hearings to solicit opinions of proposed regulations from businesspeople and other members of the public before issuing final regulations, which then must be approved by the legislature’s Regulations Review Committee.