CT Senate Floor Session — 2026-04-23

We ask that each day we have the patience to understand those who disagree with us, sensitivity to the needs of others, and the prudence to make decisions which work toward the common good. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, good morning. Good to see you today.

Mr. President, is the clerk who has Senate Agenda 1 on his desk.

Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I move all items on Senate Agenda Number 1 dated Thursday, April 23rd, 2026. The act upon is indicated that the agenda be incorporated by reference in Senate journals and transcripts.

Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, for our two items today on calendar page 51, calendar 196, substitute for Senate Bill Number 4, I'd like to mark that item go.

HOUSE BILL(S) FAVORABLY REPORTED – to be tabled for the calendar.

Thank you, Mr. President. And our number 2 item asked for suspension on Senate Agenda Number 1, substitute for House Bill 5044. I'd like to mark that item go, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. And Mr. President, I yield pg/rr 4 to the clerk. Oh, I'm sorry. Senator Maroney and Senator Gordon has guests, I guess. Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. President. I rise for the purposes of an introduction.

Good morning, Mr. President. I'm very proud to welcome to the chamber today two members of Milford team, MOJO, our first robotics team in Milford, Kush and Travis. They are the mechanical and electrical leads for the team. It's the sixth year of the team, and they have built their best robot yet, which is exciting is that Stephen Nichols, who is our tech fellow, came out to talk to them, and he also participated in FIRST Robotics, and that led him to his career as an electrical engineer, which led him here. So I hope that doesn't scare you away from continuing down that pathway. But if we could give them a warm Chamber welcome, I would be very grateful. [applause]

Good morning, Mr. President. Thank you. pg/rr 5

I rise for a point of personal privilege.

Thank you. I'm happy and proud to introduce to my colleagues, Thomas Rooney. He's a senior at the University of New Haven, majoring in Homeland Security and Emergency Management. He's been interning with me this year, doing a phenomenal job, and I appreciate very much the work that you've been doing. And I hope that you've learned an awful lot, good and bad, about stuff here. But he's been a great part of my team this legislative session. I wish him all the best in his future endeavors when he's done with the University of New Haven. Wish he could stay longer with us here after session, but he's always welcome back. So I just wanted to say personal thanks to him for everything that he's done and wish him the very best in the future. Thank you.

Calling from Senate Agenda Number 1. Page 51, Senate Calendar 196, substitute with Senate Bill Number 4, An Act Concerning Consumer Privacy and Protection. pg/rr 6

Clerk is in possession of amendments.

Good morning, Mr. President. I move the acceptance of the joint committee's favorable report and passage of the bill.

Yes, Mr. President. The clerk is in possession of an amendment, LCO 4531. I ask that the clerk please call the amendment and be given the eve of the chamber to summarize.

Amendment Schedule A.

Thank you, Mr. President. This amendment is a strike-all amendment, which in effect becomes the bill. In sections 1 through 10 of the bill, we create a data broker registry, something that has been done in a number of states, as well as creating an accessible deletion mechanism, which be a website where residents could go put in their request, and all of the registered data brokers would have to access that every 45 days and delete the data as requested. Section 11 sets up some rules around surveillance pricing in terms of establishing what it is as a definition requiring disclosures online and some rules around how it can be used in stores, at food retail in grocery stores. Section 12 updates definitions in our data privacy law. It adds the definition of facial recognition technology and updates the definition of publicly available information. Every year, our attorney general does a report on the enforcement of the Connecticut Data Privacy Act. One of the things that they have noticed consistently over the last two years is that a number of the deletion requests fall under one of the exemptions, often this publicly available information exemption. Section 13 updates the deletion rights, giving some more rights to constituents around deleting that information that could be considered that is put on some of these websites. Sections 14 and 15 ban the sale of your geolocation data, so they could no longer sell the location data of where you are traveling or how long you may be staying places. pg/rr 8 Section 16 creates rules on how facial recognition technology can be used within retail establishments. We do not ban that in any way. We're just regulating the use and making sure it's disclosed when people go into a store that they know the facial recognition technology is being used. It can't be used to identify an individual consumer. Section 17 is the attorney general's genetic data privacy bill, which gives us a property right over your biological material. So when they take that for testing, if you submit it for commercial testing, it gives you more rights over and control over what is done with that information. And then finally, Section 18, thank you to Senator Duff for many of the parts of this bill, but especially to this part. This is an expansion of the Federal Comm Act. The Federal Comm Act said that on television, you can't broadcast a commercial louder than the show. There was a loophole. Many of us now stream our entertainment. That was exempt from that federal bill, but this just applies that same rule to streaming. So that if they're showing a commercial, it cannot be louder than the actual show. With that, Mr. President, I move adoption.

Thank you, Mr. President. Good to see you up there this morning.

So, as this is a strike all, I'm going to speak on the amendment instead of waiting for this to possibly pass. My understanding is the amendment is work that was done to try to accommodate concerns of possibly industry. Also, I believe we added in certain sections that maybe were from other bills. So we merged a couple of things into today's bill. And the title is about consumer privacy and data protection, but there's also some other stuff in there. So I think it would be important that we speak on the amendment instead of the bill that it will become if the amendment passes. So I have a couple of questions because we're defining some terms in Section 1. And I just want to ask the good senator. When we hear data broker, is this going to be a new defined term, or do we already have a definition of data broker currently here in the state of Connecticut? Through you, Mr. President.

Through you, Mr. President. First, I forgot to request this. I asked that when the vote is taken, it'd be taken by roll for the amendment. But then, through you, thank you for the question, Senator Cicarella. I can't speak to all of the areas of the statutes in our Connecticut data privacy act, which is 42515 to 42524, I believe. 42515, we established the definitions. And in my recollection, we do not define a data broker there. We define personal data pg/rr 10 and other aspects related to data, but we did not define a data broker in 42515. Again, I can't speak to the other parts of the statute. Through you, Mr. President.

Thank you. And we were talking about data privacy. Last couple of years, we passed some legislation regarding data privacy. And now we're back here talking about data brokers. Is there any type of an overlap from what we did a couple of years ago? And I think last year, we did a little tweak to the data privacy. Now, we're back again talking about the data brokers. Kind of a chicken before the egg thing here. So I'm trying to determine what we did last couple of years. And then, now how does the data broker come into data privacy? Which I do believe, in certain situations, data privacy, especially sensitive data, medical data, financial data, those type of things are extremely important. But I just want to understand what we're doing to avoid any possible unintended consequences. Through you, Mr. President.

Yes. Through you, Mr. President. So, what we had done in the Connecticut Data Privacy Act is we established what are now seven rights for pg/rr 11 Connecticut residents in regards to their data. The right to access that, to see if data is being collected. The right to correct it if it is wrong. The right to delete that data. The right to opt out of automated decision-making. The right to opt out of tracking for advertising, the right to know if your information is being processed for an automated decision. And then this last right that we created when we updated it last year was the right to see to which third parties your data is being sold. So this is an individual first party. The websites are collecting the data, and then they sell it to a third party. The third party is typically a data broker who then aggregates that data and may run inferences on that and sells it to others. So this actually builds on the work that we've done in the past. Again, we went to the individual sites, where people were collecting that information first party, and now we're looking at the third party who have created a market for taking this data and selling it to others. Through you, Mr. President.

Thank you. Thank you for answering that question. This is complicated, as we discussed before. So to get individuals that may be watching or people around the circle to truly understand it, because it is a complicated area when we talk about data brokers, individuals private data. And not to get too far off tracks, we're talking about another piece of legislation that passed, but I do believe it's germane. pg/rr 12 So I'm just trying to clear up some possible concerns. In some of the data privacy bills of the past, it talked about not being able to sell data. So that wasn't data brokers, that was maybe businesses that had data. Maybe it was a restaurant that collected emails. So they couldn't sell people's data. Would they be considered data brokers? Through you, Mr. President.

Through you, Mr. President. No, they would not because they are the first party who is collecting the information and then selling it to the third party. The third party would be the data broker.

Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you to the good senator for answering that question because I think that's an important distinction. So when we're talking about data brokers in this section, which is the first section of the bill, can you give me an example of, first, the data brokers that would be gathering the data and then reselling it? And then for what purposes would they do that? Through you, Mr. President.

Through you, Mr. President. Actually, just to refer you back, to more fully answer your previous question on would an individual business be considered a data broker? In Section 5 of the bill, it goes through that. If a business has a relationship with a consumer, they're exempt. They're not considered a data broker. So there is actually the clarity in here beyond just our legislative intent. But examples of data brokers would be, there are all different companies that aggregate information, and people buy it for marketing. People buy lists for various reasons. I had a business that worked with students. There's a company called American Student List, for example, that you could purchase information on addresses, names of parents, and students, so that you could send them. Back then, it was direct mail. Of course, now it may be email, or it could be -- you can target in other various ways. And so, there are hundreds of these data brokers around the country. So the state of California has a registry. There are over 500 data brokers who are registered. Vermont has a registry. I believe there are less who are registered. As new laws are passed, we update definitions as you go through. Also, Vermont's a significantly smaller state than California. So there are about 200 data brokers registered in Vermont. So there are hundreds of these data brokers across the country, and they sell various lists. They can be used for a number of different reasons. In fact, one of the reasons that we want to regulate this industry, we're just creating a registry and a deletion mechanism here, it's not regulation just to be clear, is that there are data brokers who will sell lists of seniors who are likely to donate to pg/rr 14 causes, or people who suffer from this condition. And scammers can buy these lists, and now they have a target list of people who are likely to donate or fall susceptible. And people lose billions of dollars a year in scams or frauds targeted against seniors. So we want to give people the ability, if they choose, again, to delete their information from the data brokers so that it could not be sold in that way. Through you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you to the good senator for answering the question. With your detailed response to my question, you gave me a question that I had further down, but I think it's relevant now because you touched on that. We see that every time there is some new technology, a new resource, new product, anything that's new, people could find ways to use it, innovate, maybe make money. But also we see that people could use it for bad. And you make very good examples of how this data could be utilized and organized specifically to target individuals that may be vulnerable or try to use it for purposes to scam people. But my understanding, there may be good uses of gathering this data as well, and being able to provide a very reasonable, sound, vetted service to a population. And I was just wondering if we took into consideration good reasons that data can be utilized to help people. Maybe there's a new trial for HIPAA. HIPAA would probably protect that one, so that's a bad one. Say there's some type of a program that pg/rr 15 would be great for workforce development. And there is certain qualifications, experience that is required maybe to get into this new trade or get into this industry. And someone wants to do something good and say, I'm going to find people that may fit the model or the criteria to maybe retrain these people to get them into a higher- paying position. But now that data may not be there if people try to take their name off these lists and take them away from the data brokers for the possible bad use. Did we take into consideration if it could be used for good in that example where someone wants to get a group of people and try to offer them another workforce experience and educational experience? Did we take that into consideration, or is there anything in this section that would take that into account? Through you, Mr. President.

Through you, Mr. President. Thank you for the question. I think one of the issues is there aren't always areas that we all agree are so important that they should be exempt. And so there may be some things that you may think are very important that we should let anyone use data for that reason, or I may think are very important. But there are a lot of areas that we recognize are regulated in other parts of the statutes or regulated federally, or that we universally agree are important. And those areas are exempt. So I'd point the good senator to lines 281 through 324, where we list some of the things that reasons you would not need to delete the data. For instance, if it were needed to prevent, detect, protect pg/rr 16 against, or respond to any security incident, identity theft, fraud, harassment, malicious or deceptive activity, or illegal activity, or preserve the integrity or security of any system, or investigate reports. So there are a number of areas that we agree on that are exempt from this. There are also organizations that we recognize are federally regulated with what they can do with the data, who they can share it to, what are the protection measures they have to put on their data. So, for that, I would point you to Section 7. The exemptions in Section 7 are the entities that we know that are already federally regulated. So, for instance, any group, any consumer reporting agency for the Fair Credit Reporting Act, banks are exempt. The GLBA, anyone who's Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Before when you said is a business, when you were asking the example about is a restaurant a data broker, that is clarified in line 398 was the exemption I referred you to, where they talk about a business collecting information about a customer, that they are not a data broker. Again, we already created deletion rights for those individuals who are interacting with the business. So, there are different areas that we have exempt certain activities in this bill. Through you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you to the good senator. So we'll get to those sections a little bit later on because with your good work and pg/rr 17 understanding that there may be some unintended consequences if we just deleted all the data, if someone wanted to that there would be -- I'm not going to say high level, but other industries that are regulated, maybe banking or protecting someone from credit issues and different things like that. I'm just staying more in the public information because that's what we talked about. And I think there is a reasonable concern where you can get so much information so quickly, and I do realize that could be alarming. And I think that people should have the right to have their privacy. And we've seen how it could be used for bad. In other states, where people were attacked, and they utilized these open access to anyone type of databases or websites, and they gather some really sensitive information, so I truly understand how that could be alarming and could have some concerns, and now I'm speaking to more of the public information. Information that you could get if you went to your town hall or any other area that information is either FOI-able or open to the public. Not those areas. But I will touch on those a little bit later, because I do think they're important, and I appreciate your work to try to address those concerns. I'm just trying to get to the possibility of an unintended consequence that individuals' data could be used for good sometimes. For example, we see that some of these -- I don't know why I want to bring up AI after yes after two days ago, but you can use AI to create some type of agent that could help a small business if they don't have time to say, I want to target everyone in one specific town that has a over acre lot that has a lot of trees. pg/rr 18 And let's say I'm an arborist, and then I want to be able to have that agent then scrub the public information in these open sources, and then be able to contact them and say, hey, you need some tree service? I'm going to offer you a discount. I believe that if this bill passed in this way, that while trying to protect some people's sensitive information, it could restrict companies from just trying to market. And believe me, I hate getting a call at ten o'clock at night from a telemarketer just as anyone else. But I'm just worried if this will restrict the ability for businesses to try to find new clients and expand their business. And that's what I was trying to ask if that was taken into consideration, if the good senator could respond to that statement. Through you, Mr. President.

Yes. Through you, Mr. President, thank you. Thank you for the question. And I think some of what you said will help to answer the question, in that it's important to remember that in the United States, all privacy is opt. Data privacy is opt-out. Meaning, by default, people can collect your data, can share it, except for your sensitive data, and they can sell that. You have to take the action to tell them don't sell my data anymore. And so oftentimes, as you mentioned, you hate getting the calls at 10:00. Well, what happens if you say I hate getting the calls at 10:00? I registered for the do-not-call list, and it's illegal to call you at 10:00, let's just be clear about that, to solicit. And you're pg/rr 19 still getting those calls. It makes you even angrier. And so what we're saying is that for people who do not want to be reached, they want their data deleted, they have that right. So by default, you can find the people, everyone except the people who may choose not to be marketed to, through you, Mr. President.

Thank you to the good senator for answering that question. And I completely understand that. But as individuals may be worried about all of the negative use that if they register and that Delete Act is created and we have that one stop shop to delete all of your information, I just wonder if it's going to be taken into consideration or or spoken about that some of this could be utilized possibly for good, not just deceitful intentions or even annoying telemarketing calls, but it could be a way that individuals could be offered deals or discounts or services that they might have not known were available. So that's just something that I really wanted to touch on and see if it was taken into consideration in any way. And then when they talk about public information, are the town halls going to have to abide by this in any way?

pg/rr 20 Through you, Mr. President, no. Because it is not taking away publicly available information. It's just if you've taken that and combined it in a way and made inference from that and you're displaying it on a free website, or you're selling that information, that is when. So it would be a third party. Again, if it's publicly available information, by definition, it's still publicly available. It just doesn't necessarily have to be made so easy, I guess, for everyone to aggregate and use to draw those inferences for influencing or whatever. And there are many good things, as you've said, but there are also many examples we've seen of it being used for identity theft or fraud, or even worse. Through you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you to the good senator for responding to that question. And, again, not to really stay on the same section for a long period of time, but it's like we take a step forward, and we take a step back. I understand there's definitely good intentions, and I truly agree with you about very sensitive data or specific data that could be used to take someone's identity or credit, and harm them. I want to try to find a way to address that. But I want to make sure that we're realizing that it's good to have information quickly at your fingertips sometimes. You know, it's like the Internet. It's there to make someone's job a little bit easier, and I just hope that if this does come to fruition, that it's not going to really negatively impact businesses that do buy those lists. pg/rr 21 As you said, you know, if someone's a mortgage broker, they could identify what would be a criteria for a good person to call to say, hey, interest rates went down. I think this might be a good opportunity for you. And someone that may be worried and scared about identity theft would take their name off of all these databases, and then it could hurt them from getting a reduced credit rating, and save some money. And it also might hurt the mortgage brokers because their list are going to get substantially smaller. So those are some things that I'm just trying to flush out to make sure that if we do this, where people are trying to say, okay, I do not want someone stalking me. I don't want something bad to happen to me. They may not realize that sometimes the information is good and used for good. That's something that I just struggling with a little bit because we know there are always individuals that are going to use things incorrectly or break the law with things. Whether it's somebody buys a car, and they're supposed to drive it normally, but they speed, get into a car accident. We're not going to not sell cars. Individuals that commit crimes with weapons, we're not going to get rid of all the weapons. Have we explored a way to increase the penalty punishment for people that are abusing the data that's out there now, instead of trying to, I guess, circumvent the real root cause, which are the bad actors. Did we take that into consideration to find another way to protect people from identity theft and all of the possible negative consequences of this intended good data privacy act? Through you, Mr. President. pg/rr 22

Through you, Mr. President. Thank you for the question. Our attorney general has done a phenomenal job of going after data breaches and other areas where there have been harms done to residents. But I think if we could just bring this back a little bit, that we're discussing a right that we created for Connecticut residents. We created a right to deletion of their data. Michele Lucan, who is the assistant attorney general in charge of our data privacy unit, one of the things that she has said is, it should not be hard to exercise your rights. And so when we created our data privacy rights, we created a global mechanism, global privacy control, which meant that you could go to one site and opt out of the sale or tracking of your data, and every website is supposed to recognize this. But that didn't apply to the deletion right. So what we're doing is we're attempting to make it easier for people to exercise their deletion right. And again, they may miss out on some of those opportunities, but it's their choice. The majority of people and all data privacy when it goes back to the first arguments around data privacy, which I don't know how long. I only started reading since the 1998, a book on profits over privacy and the growth of surveillance marketing. But all privacy is based on notice and choice. You should know when things are being collected about you, and then you should have the choice to opt out. And this is making it easier for people to pg/rr 23 exercise that choice to have their data deleted. And there are examples of, as we've said, harms that have been done. There's fraud, but there is one example from last summer, last July in Minnesota, the speaker of the House of the state of Minnesota, Melissa Hortman, who I did not know personally, but Senator Duff did know personally, was assassinated. When her killer was caught, Vance Balter, he had a notebook with all of the information that he had surveilled. And actually, there is another person who he went to her house. She's actually a member of the task force that you and I sit on, as well as Senator Duff. He went to her house, and he was on her Ring doorbell footage at 2:00 a.m. that night after he had killed Speaker Hortman. He went there to kill her. When he was caught, and she wasn't there, she was very fortunate, 98% of the time, she said, I'm home. She was with her grandkids, so she said, thank God she wasn't home that night. But when he was caught, he had a notebook that he had diagrams of this person's house. He knew which one was her bedroom, and he listed all of the different websites where he gathered that information from so that he could go and surveil her. Now we did pass a bill yesterday to shield address information for teachers and others. And there are a lot of states that are looking at expanding on Daniel's law. Daniel's law is a law that was passed in the state of New Jersey after a judge was assassinated there to shield the addresses and locations of judicial personnel. Some states are looking to expand that to include political officials and others as well. I just thought in Connecticut, I am not comfortable giving a right to myself that I don't give to my pg/rr 24 constituents. And so here, we're attempting to give people the choice to delete that sensitive information that can be used against them to cause harms. Now they may miss out on an ad someday, but that was their choice. They knew that when they made that choice through you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you, the good senator. And I couldn't agree more. When we first talked about this, we talked about some of the databases or websites that have a lot of people's information, family members. There's a lot. And it is quite alarming. And I said, maybe we should find a way to address that. And I got to thinking, though about unintended consequences. And that's what I was trying to flush out, that an individual can't say, I want to opt out so bad people can't use my data, but I want to have good people use my data because there's no way to do that. So that was something I was just trying to flush out and just realize that, while trying to make sure certain data is protected, and bad actors won't do that horrific, terrible thing that we've seen. But when there's a will, there's a way. People are going to commit bad acts, break laws, steal people's identity and credit, and we do want to protect them. I'm just saying I believe the real way to do that is to enforce harsher penalties on bad actors. And I do know that a lot of the bad actors stealing people's data are overseas. pg/rr 25 So it's really hard for our attorney general and law enforcement to address that. We are going to be doing something with AARP just to alert individuals about the scams that are targeting elderly. And when I was doing some research, I was mind blown how much money is being stolen from individuals. And they're using this type of information. So I am sensitive to that fact. And that's why when we were talking, I said that we should try to find a way to address that. And again, as I said, I know that it's hard for law enforcement to try to hold someone accountable for stealing someone's money overseas. It's a very challenging thing, and I do believe that this is proposed to try to stop bad things from happening to good people. I just wanted to get on the record that I'm just hoping that it doesn't hurt individuals from getting opportunities when they take their name off of this list because of the fear of of bad that they're missing on opportunities. And if everybody utilized the service, then there wouldn't be those lists for companies to try to market. And I just think it sets back business possibly. And I just wanted to get that on the record and talk about it. And I do know that's not your intention. I know that. I just wanted to discuss that and just express that, and again, while trying to protect individuals, we have to make sure that inadvertently we're not hurting an industry or restricting what else they may be able to do. Because when they're going to do that, they're not going to go there and say I'm going to put my name on the list because I don't want to lower mortgage rate or I don't want to be offered a deal on trimming my trees or deal on painting the house, but it could happen. Just wanted to say that, and I will move on to talk about the mechanism for deleting. Right now, is there a way someone can ask for their information to pg/rr 26 be taken off one of these websites, or databases, or directly from a data broker currently right now. Through you, Mr. President.

Through you. Currently, people can go to individual websites, and Connecticut residents have the right to deletion of their data. So they could go and request their data and have it deleted from any individual website. Currently, there are some data brokers who will abide by that. You can go there to access your data. Of course, after verification, I went to one of the sites because I thought it would be good for the debate to go through there -- attempted to access my debate data because you can also get the inferences that are drawn about you, which lists you're on and different things. But when I went in to verify the information, they actually have their data wrong, which is, if I guess, if I'm in there, I can correct it because one of the questions to verify my identity they asked is in the last 10 years. Have you lived with Beth Maroney? That's my stepmother. I haven't lived with her in the last 10 years. I answered no, but then they said they couldn't verify my identity, because I'm sure I have some mail going to my old home. So it looks like I may have lived there in the last 10 years. But again, what we're doing is you can do this on a one-by-one basis. It is not required of the data brokers to do that. pg/rr 27 We are looking at making an accessible deletion mechanism to make it easier for people to access their rights. It was created in California. California, they called it the DROP mechanism. It went into effect this January. In the first two weeks in California, over 155,000 residents accessed the DROP mechanism to request their data be deleted. It actually does not go into effect in California until August 1. As of August 1, every registered data broker will have to go there, get the names of the people who want their data deleted, and then delete that. So, for every 45 days, they will go in. But, currently, for Connecticut residents, the answer is no. There is no one place you can go and have all of your data deleted. Through you, Mr. President.

Thank you. And it is my understanding, as you stated, that they can do it individually, but this would create a one-stop shop. Who is going to create this portal, or mechanism for someone to say, I want my data deleted and I want it deleted from all of the data brokers. How would that work, and who would create that through you, Mr. President?

Through you, Mr. President, the data broker registry, which will be created by the Department of Consumer Protection, is set to go into effect on pg/rr 28 January 1, 2027. Registry will last January 1 through December 31. So the data brokers will need to re-register every year. The fee is established at $2500. That money will then be deposited in a special account that has been set aside to help build out the delete mechanism. The delete mechanism, or the accessible deletion mechanism, is how it's referred to in the bill. Just for short, we'll call it delete mechanism. That is required to go into effect on July 1, 2028. It also will be built by the Department of Consumer Protection. We've had some communication with Cal Privacy, and we'll try to talk with other states just to try to -- again, I think one of the things, they were the first who did it to try to learn from them on recommendations of how it's going, what can we do better. But to answer your question, the Department of Consumer Protection is tasked with creating that. It'll be funded by the registration fees from the data brokers through you, Mr. President.

Thank you. And thank you, the good senator. So, essentially, I'm thinking of it as possibly a complicated thing because I spoke to actual vendor in preparation, and they would insist on getting people's information taken down, and protecting someone's identity. And I think they actually provide this service to some federal agencies. I think they provide this to judges. But I don't think it's as complicated as that because I think they scrub a lot more than just going to the data brokers. pg/rr 29 So if I'm understanding it correctly, essentially, a Connecticut resident will maybe go to a website on DCP, say, here's my name. I want it off. And then the information will just go to all of the data brokers, and then they're tasked to take it out of their files. Is that essentially how that would work through you, Mr. President?

Thank you. Through you. Yes. That is correct. So they will put in their information on the website. It's still to determine what information they would need from the residents. It does require that the website has adequate security measures, and that if we are somehow breached, that we let people know that if they have gone to that access on the website, that information had been breached. And then the data brokers will access that every 45 days. It is up to the state of Connecticut to verify the identity of the peoples. And if the identity is not verified, then the data brokers do not have to delete. Also, a resident who goes there can exclude certain data brokers. So if they say, no. I'm okay with them having my data, that will be in there. And then those data brokers, when they access it, would not have to delete the information. Through you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you to the good pg/rr 30 senator for answering that question. My understanding that there's multiple different types of data brokers. And I'm sure when they buy the data, and I think they buy it from really everywhere. I think they could go to the town hall and say I want to buy your data. They could go to, I believe, the credit bureaus and buy data. Really, anywhere that there is big piles of information, they could buy it, they put it in a cloud or some system, and then they utilize some very fancy technology to sort it, and then be able to determine where it could be utilized. If a data broker provides that data to multiple different types of industry, some of which may be exempt, which we'll get to the exemptions further down the bill. But they also provide it, maybe for sales or other purposes that are not exempt. Would that be a burden on the data brokers to kind of determine, all right. I'm going to delete data from this pile because these clients can't get it, but the other clients have permissible uses with within this bill. Is that going to be a challenge for the data brokers to determine how and where to delete the data? So if they have one big pile of data, but they provide it to companies that have permissible use here in this bill in the further section, but they also provide it to companies that don't have any of the exemptions or qualify for the exemptions. How would one be able to handle that? Through you, Mr. President.

Nice to see you, Madam President, through you, Madam President. So, typically, and again, I'm not that familiar with the intricacies of the inner working of the data brokers, but I could tell you from a legislative perspective. We often require that they disclose categories of data and other things. We've been in bills where we're talking about AI or other technologies. Instead of saying individual types of data, they say, can you list categories or high-level summaries and so the data is organized in various ways, and so I'm not going to say it will not be a burden, but what I will say is for my own business, whenever you want to do something with technology, they'll say you can do anything you want. It's just how much is it going to cost and how long will it take. I think here, because the data is often categorized and a lot of the exemptions are tied to categories of data, it would be setting up the process for them. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Mr. President. And I'm assuming that these tech companies, and that's probably what they are. Data brokers are in some way tech companies because it takes a lot of brainpower to organize that information and then disperse it. So I am not in tech. I don't code. I don't know if it would be a burden. But if it was or they had to hire more people, I'm just wondering if that would also kind of trigger a possibility of maybe data that is utilized for the exempt purposes may become pg/rr 32 a little bit more expensive. Just something I thought about, and I know that you're very well- versed in tech. So I didn't know if there was something that you heard with your conversations that maybe it wouldn't be that challenging. Therefore, it would minimize the possible increased cost of the data to people that use it, for the exempt purposes that are in this bill. So that's why I asked that question. But I do thank the good senator for giving me that answer. So we did touch on this a little bit when you're answering some of my questions. But we talked about DCP creating the registry. Right now, there's no registry from my understanding. So, the process is going to basically be implemented in 2027. And then the individual companies that sell data are going to have to register, I'm assuming, get a license, pay a cost. And then they would be able to participate in the Delete Act. But then also provide data to Connecticut residents, as well as accommodate the request to delete these people's information. And if you don't mind, if you could just explain to me the process of the registering? Is DCP going to let all of the data brokers know that this is happening? Are their compliance officers are going to do it? Is it something that happens in other states? Just curious, what would happen if people just didn't know about it? So maybe, how it's going to be created and then how we make sure that everybody that's considered a data broker in the definition does register, and there is compliance across the country. Through you, Madam President. pg/rr 33

Thank you, Madam President. Through you. And then, actually, back to your last question on potential impact on the cost of the data. Since California has already passed this law, and the majority of the data brokers who are selling information in Connecticut would also be selling in California, because they're national companies. I believe there's only maybe one in Connecticut. The cost has already been born. So, there will be no additional cost for us to pass this bill. And then, back to your question on the data broker registry. Once that's created, I think, like with any new law or regulation, we see around this building there are industry associations. I think CTIA is the industry association for data brokers. There will be news articles. They will know about it. And then Department of Consumer Protection, if they find data brokers who are unregistered can let them know that they need to come in compliance and register with the state of Connecticut, but it's just almost as with any new law, we rely on our own outreach through our newsletters, the media, but then I think the industry associations play a valuable role here in educating their members about the new laws. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. That was also going to pg/rr 34 be another one of the questions when having our public hearings, and I'm sure you were getting many calls as I was, over the past couple of weeks on legislation. This one and a few others, more than other bills that people were interested in. Have you heard any concerns from the industry that represents the data brokers? In your conversations, did they identify anything that would be an issue? And I know that this is an amended bill to try to accommodate while still achieving the goal that I do believe we do have to pay, but is there any concerns that you believe that were not addressed from these data brokers or their representation through the association? Through you, Madam President?

Through you. Thank you for that question. That's an excellent question. And it lets me just expand on something I've been wanting to talk about. We received countless feedback on these bills. And while we attempt to address concerns, we have to remember we are balancing the interests of industry and consumers. Industry pays for lobbyists to come here and lobby on their behalf and bring their issues up. We are elected by consumers to come up here and represent them and their interests. And so, while sometimes throughout the process, as you know, I make changes in bills. The other day, it was said I make too many changes in bills, and there are too many amendments, which I also want to address. The reason why I do that is because I am constantly taking feedback and changing the bills. And I don't think that you should only be able to get a copy of pg/rr 35 the most recent version of the bill if you have a lobbyist who happens to know me. So, then I publish them publicly, so that anyone can see them. When I publish an amendment, and it has just my name on it should be considered a working draft. When it has other people's name on it, it means I'm done. And taking the interest. So, that was a long prelude to answer your actual question, but thank you for the opportunity to get that off my chest. Your question was, did we address the concerns of the data broker industry? One of the concerns they brought was that they felt that the new definition of publicly available information was unconstitutional. We reviewed it with our caucus attorneys and felt in some areas they had a point, so we changed that part of the definition. We did not change it to the way they asked it to be changed to, but we did hear their concern and make changes as a result of their input. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. Are those new glasses? I like those. Very nice.

Very nice. Just noticed those. And thank you to the good senator for answering that question. And I do appreciate the work you do to address the concerns pg/rr 36 that individuals bring forward. Whether it's another legislator, maybe an agency, a lobbyist, just a concerned resident. And I know that you put a lot of work in -- a ton of work, not even a lot, a ton of work into trying to address those issues. And sometimes an issue for one group might not represent the best interest for the majority. So I understand the challenge you have, and I appreciate the work that you do to try to find that balance. So I definitely appreciate that, and letting me know that there may have been concerns, but you made the best attempts to address them. And I know that there were a lot of, I guess, changes, if you will, or exemptions that would not hinder certain permissible work that needs to be done from credentialed individuals or professions that really need data to do the job that they have to do that really does serve a purpose and has very minimal risk of the negative consequences we see from those websites and the story that you told us about the legislators, that terrible story about the legislators falling victim to someone that utilized open source information to commit those bad acts. We realize in industry or in any profession, there are good actors and bad actors. So the good data brokers are going to abide by these rules. They're going to pay the fee of $2,500. They're going to delete the information from the database that may be accessible to the general public, but still be accessible to the professions that need them, that have permissible use to that data. But there may be other data brokers that do not listen to these rules, possibly even just create free websites. So I have two questions for you. If an individual creates a service where they're gathering data and they offer it free online, would that be considered a data broker because it is free? And then my second question is, if data brokers do not follow these pg/rr 37 guidelines of registering and becoming a business and doing the service of deleting the people's information, what is the punishment? Through you, Madam President?

Through you, in the case of an individual where they were just aggregating information, putting it up themselves, they're not selling it. Again, they're not a third party selling it. They are not a data broker, in that example. The penalties written into the bill are $200 per day per violation. And it is enforced, I believe it's -- if the chamber would stand in use for one minute, and I'll -- It's in Section 10. Okay.

Through you, Madam President. Thank you again for the question. So I would just point the good senator to Section 10, lines 441 to 448. So this is enforced by the consumer, the Commissioner of Consumer Protection. And I was just checking. I knew that it was through the Commissioner of Consumer Protection. A lot of the tech legislation we do is only enforced by the attorney general. So I wasn't sure if the attorney general also had an office and not the attorney general himself, but the attorney general's office also had a role. So the commissioner of consumer protection, after providing notice and conducting adherence in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 54 of the general pg/rr 38 statutes, may impose -- so again, it's not mandatory, so that if it was someone who just didn't know, again, they didn't know they were supposed to be registered. He doesn't have to give that fine. He or she it's the -- a role, not a person. Doesn't have to give that $200 a day fine. So they could negotiate with them. $200 per day for each violation of any provision of Sections 2 to 8. So, to answer your question again, it's Section 10 lines 441 through 448. It is the commissioner of the Department of Consumer Protection after holding a hearing in line with provisions of Chapter 54 of the General Statutes. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. And in the beginning of the compound question I asked you, you said that the individuals that were not or the companies or creator of a website or database, if they were not selling the information, then they're not data brokers? Did I hear that correctly? Through you, Madam President?

Through you. In the example you gave, they would not be a data broker. Because you said it was a person who put the information up on a website and was not selling it. So in that case, you would not be a data broker. Through you. pg/rr 39

Thank you for answering that question. So, when we started talking about this early on, and the horrific actions of deranged individual, and they talked about where this person found this information. There are certain websites that don't charge for the information. So I don't know if I could say that the URLs of these websites that you could just go on and type in someone's name in a town. It spits out some information, whether it's true or not, or accurate or not. It is, in fact, free. Now, some of them do try to get you to click on the link below it, and they're going to say, hey, we got more information for you. Click this link. If you pay, I'll give you more information. But that first taste of information, if you will, that at no cost, would that company be a data broker? Through you, Madam President.

Through you. I think there's an important distinction we need to make here. The company is utilizing data from a data broker. And so the data broker is providing that information that they are then displaying. And so the company might or might pg/rr 40 not be a data broker. I can't say unless I knew the actual company, because they may be -- the act of just displaying it on a website does not make them a data broker. But if they were then selling that information, aggregating and selling it to others, they could be a data broker. So I can't definitely say, you're mentioning what we call a freemium model. Where some information is free, and they're trying to encourage you to pay for the rest. I can't remember if you were at the task the AI task force meeting in Florida, where someone demonstrated -- there's a website you can go to. You can type in someone's name for free. It comes up with their address, who they're connected to. So, they were finding some people in there, the names and addresses of their children, as well as them. And so, what we're looking to do is, again, to go to the source now. We created the rights at the individual websites that you have that right to deletion to go in. But we're saying from the brokers who feed a lot of these sites that they would need to delete the information. So I think that's the distinction to make. I can't say specifically without knowing all of the details. Through you.

Thank you. And I know we could be talking about two, three, four, five different websites. So I know it's hard to -- so I'll try to simplify it. If they are, in fact, a data broker, but they're not selling the information, they're giving that freebie, if you will, then to buy the other information. Basically, if it's free and it is from a data broker -- that website bought a bunch of data. They're organizing pg/rr 41 it. They're going to give you the first search essentially for absolutely nothing. If they do not charge, there's no membership fee. Would they be responsible to delete the data that they're going to be giving away for free? Obviously, they would have to if they are a data broker, and then they're going to be selling the data for the other searches or the second search, they're data brokers. But if it's given away, would they be exempt from the Delete Act if there is no charge? Through Madam President.

Through you, no. Again, this is where we -- in the data privacy, and I'm going to use this as the example. So, again, our data privacy law we say whether someone is a controller or a processor is a fact-based determination. And to differentiate between a controller and a processor, so controller you control the data, processor you may be sending a separate company to process the data. That is a fact-based determination. The EU has an 80-page manual that they use for determining that. So that's an analogy. We don't need to talk about that. But what I'm saying, what I wanted to give that as background information, was to say that here, the data broker, again, it's going to be a fact-based determination. Giving away the information for free, if we go back to our data privacy laws, when we define this sale of data, it's monetary or other valuable consideration. So sale of data from, again, 42515. And so, giving away data, it can be different. If you're trading data with someone, I'll give you my pg/rr 42 data set if you give me your data set, that's a valuable consideration. So that could be the sale of data. So, whether or not you're paying money for the data doesn't really -- can't be used as the sole determinant of whether or not someone is a data broker. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. And thank you, the good senator, for that answer. So I think I flushed out all of the concerns with that free information, and the layperson, if you will, that just wants to pretend to be an investigator or search up the new neighbor, new person at the PTA. That was my questions and line of questions there. Moving in now to data that is utilized, maybe for business purposes. I know we talk further down in certain sections about some cameras, and it has some data for security purposes. Talks about some other data that's utilized for possibly marketing or sales when it comes to pricing. We'll do those in a minute. But there are other forms of data that are utilized in multiple different professions. Maybe risk assessment, also in banking, maybe legal insurance. So you want to know if somebody has a bunch of claims filed, and before you offer them insurance and determine the price, you're going to be able to look and see all the different claims. I think ISO is one of the vendors, and these are companies that perform a valuable service, so individuals can make educated decisions. Let's say, pg/rr 43 hypothetically, you have a hedge fund. They're going to purchase a business. They want to know everything about that business's finances. They want to get data on the CEO, CFO, make sure there's nothing that's going to jeopardize the investment of the individual's money that they're trying to grow. And I believe the exemptions that we have further in this amendment will address that. Will in any way those professions that have permissible use that are regulated by other laws, local, state, and federal, have any issue getting data from a data broker to utilize for a credentialed industry? Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President. Thank you for the question. The only problem -- well, not the only. They will have a problem if they want to buy the location data of the CEO of the company they're taking over, because we are banning the sale of geolocation data outright in here. So if that were a consideration, they would have a little bit of trouble. However, I'll just go back to Section 7. That's where we lay out the exemption of the bills. And in any of the data privacy bills, we recognize these consumer bills that the impact is beyond our state. You have to recognize there are regulations for many of them, that they're already abiding by federally. And so we do carve out, as you mentioned in the credit, organizations do not apply to a consumer reporting agency that's regulated by Fair Credit Reporting Act, a bank or a financial institution, pg/rr 44 affiliate, non-affiliated third party, so that's regulated by Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. There is a business that collects information, a certain consumer concider is or was in a contractual relationship with the business, an investor of the business, a donor. There are certain requirements there. If a business that is collecting data used for purposes of its regulated listed chemicals, and then HIPAA entities, and some others that are exempt. So those are specific entities that are exempt, but there's a lot of, again, as we went through, I think, it was in Section 5, there were lots of categories of data that were also exempt. Recognizing the purpose and the use of that. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. And thank you to the good sender. And I talked briefly about, I guess, minor concerns with, I guess, the layperson getting data, and maybe the pros and cons. And I do believe protecting individuals' data in that form, there's definitely more of a positive than a negative of possibly implementing this Delete Act. My concern will be now where these professionals that need this data to do a lot of different type of daily activity to keep things moving, whether it's the courts need to keep cases moving. You need to find evidence. You need to find witnesses. So whether it's law enforcement or maybe investigators working for public defender's office, most of those indeviduals have certain type of pg/rr 45 lincences, so -- I'm using investigater, for example, I don't have any type of a clearance to gather information to go to a bank and say, hey, I want to see everybody's bank information. But certain data through the banking act that you discussed is releasable to individuals that I guess you could say are credentialed and have to abide by certain guidelines. So if law enforcement, maybe an investigator, maybe an insurance professional might not have specific clearance to just go and look at anyone's credit report, which I don't think really anyone does. Even a bank probably does it unless you apply to do that. I want to make sure that as long as the data brokers are vetting the individuals that need to get this information to do their job, they're licensed to do their job, that they will not be negatively impacted by this piece of legislation. I gave you a couple of examples. I don't know if I should go one by one, or if you could speak to some of the exemptions that you put in place to address some of the concerns maybe that I brought forward that I heard from individuals. And I think you also put some additional exemptions for other professions to make sure that business would not be hindered, and companies could do what they need to do to make sure people are getting a safe service. People are able to find witnesses, mitigate risk, save money, stop fraud when it does happen. All of those things like that through you. Madam President.

pg/rr 46 Through you. Again, we have the entities. We went through the different entities that were exempt, and then the use cases. There are a number of different use cases of that type of data that don't have to be deleted. So if you're collecting that type of data for the fraud, theft, though it doesn't have to be deleted. We don't really speak to in here like if licensing or the relationship between a data broker and the person who purchases it. But we do set out the categories of data that a data broker would not have to delete. And many of the reasons we do that is because it is often that data that would be used with someone who has other -- there are other restrictions on that. And that's why, typically, when we have an exemption in here, there is a reason for that. And that it's regulated by the federal government already. We feel their protections are strong enough, or there are other rules and regulations that we feel apply, so that we're not as concerned. Again, we're trying to solve for the problem or not even necessarily -- well, it is a problem, but we want to make people's rights easier to access when it comes to deleting data. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, the good senator, for answering that question. So from what I heard, from what I've see in this amended bill, it does address the possible concern that people that really need this business data and information to conduct their business, do their job, and provide multiple different services in multiple different pg/rr 47 professions, they'll be able to do that and get that data from the data broker because it's about the data broker. But the concern or question I have is, the data broker will know and be able to separate the data that needs to be deleted that could be accessible to the general public, compared to the individuals that are covered underneath the banking act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act. So it's going to be up to them to separate that data and delete it for where it could be accessed, from the concerns of a layperson getting it and using it for bad, or maybe trying to market to someone if they don't want to be marketed to. But they'll still be able to keep that data, but kind of put it under lock and key only for individuals that have credentials and are governed by federal laws, very strict banking laws, insurance laws, HIPAA, that will all still be able to stay there and these data brokers will be able to stay in business, provide the service, but it's going to minimize the risk to somebody using this that might not be governed by any rules. Is that a fair assessment? Through you, Madam President.

Yes. That's fair. Through you.

Okay. I'll accept that. It's fair. All right. Now we pg/rr 48 talked about location data, and there's going to be no sale of location data. I'm not aware of a vendor or a database that keeps location data without someone's permission. So if someone says, hey, I'm going to keep my location data on. You can use it, and you could sell it. When you're doing your terms of agreement, when you're downloading an app, God knows what you're agreeing to. But if somebody does say that, they say, I want to know when I pass a Starbucks. I want to get the alert, so I get the dollar off the coffee. Will they be able to sell that data if a consumer agrees to it? Or zero selling of GPS or geolocation data. Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President. Appropriately enough, my good friend Spam Risk just called. I don't know where they bought my number from, but I don't think if I go to the delete mechanism, Spam Risk is going to stop calling me. But the sale of the geolocation data, currently, geolocation data, data they can identify someone's location within 1750 feet, is defined as sensitive data in the state of Connecticut. Sensitive data gets a different treatment. Sensitive data means that it is opt-in. You have to give someone's permission for them to collect your sensitive data. To collect or to sell your sensitive data. So you could still, in the instance, if you were on an app and you said, I want to be alerted whenever I hit -- you said Starbucks. I'm not endorsing Starbucks or un endorsing Starbucks, but if you pg/rr 49 wanted to set that on one of your apps and allow them to collect that and to give you coupons based on that, you can do that. It's just they couldn't, and Star West couldn't, or whatever app you use, could not sell that Paul stopped at Starbucks for 10 minutes. And so, one of the things that we had seen, when we passed the data privacy law and that we had seen in other states is -- and this goes back to the exemptions, that car dealers were selling and auto manufacturers selling your geolocation data, and sometimes there's a beneficial use. It's used for your insurance. They want to know the speed you're going at. How you're braking? How you vary? Where you go? And they were using that for setting insurance rates. So, I guess if you got a lower rate because of that, that was good for you. If you got a higher rate, that could have been bad for you. But sometimes it was being sold without the consumers opting in, and they were able to claim the GLBA exemption because they had finance units. Although, we tightened that in the state of Connecticut that we give financial institutions tied to state regulation the exemption. I know that was a roundabout answer. So, to get back to your actual question, you could still use geolocation data if you give your permission, but we are not saying you can no longer sell geolocation data. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, the good senator. Yes. That absolutely did answer my question, and you did it very well. I appreciate pg/rr 50 that. So, doing some research about this, I was actually shocked to the type of data collected and sold. For example, with the cars, it's not verified. You can't believe everything you read online or see online. But I heard and did a little research, and I found some research that supports it, but I didn't dig too deep. But the newer vehicles recording devices, if you will, monitor your location, monitor how fast you go. I heard a story that there was an individual that just bought a -- I won't say the make and model of a car, but bought a car, couple months old, thing starts to overheat, and it catches on fire. Wasn't doing anything wrong. Didn't need an oil change. Catches on fire. And I heard the insurance company utilized the data from the vehicle to deny the claim because he sped. Is that something that is happening? I know that you are very well-versed in this, and we're putting this type of law in place and protections in place. Is that the type of data that you're trying to restrict from being sold without a consumer's knowledge? Through you, Madam President?

Through you. Yes. That is the type of data. Allowing the sale of people's location, which could be more insidious uses than that, but without opting in. And even if they opt in, we're just saying it's not something you should be selling that. And what we've seen is that it can be used in a way to get around your Fourth Amendment rights, and that pg/rr 51 we're seeing that government in some places is purchasing geolocation data. So through you, Madam resident.

Thank you, Madam President. I was mind-blown to realize how much technology is in a vehicle, and how many people could access that information. And I know that one of our other good representatives in the general law committee was concerned about other data when it comes to some of the cars and being able to utilize the location, possibly in a domestic issue. And that's when I started to do a little bit of research. And it's so much more than just your GPS location. And I could see how, maybe a large company or an insurance company or in some form of sales, they would find it beneficial to be able to market, possibly collect data for whatever other reasons, and possibly violate someone's rights, which I am not supporting. So I think that definitely does make sense. I was just curious if we knew that, there could be possibly a situation where -- I don't know if you ever see the insurance companies that say if you're a safe driver, you're going to get a reduced premium. You have to pay less money each month or even get a check back if you're a safe driver. Would this at all affect that ability? Through you, Madam President?

Through you, no. Because that would be being utilized by the insurance company. It would prevent them from then taking that you had opted in for that safe driver app and selling it to someone else. So through you.

Thank you, Madam President. So, that does answer my question, because if you're agreeing to go with that insurance company and you plug in or give access to your vehicle and your vehicle information, you're aware of that. So the insurance company isn't selling that data. It's collecting that data. But what about if the manufacturer of the vehicle sells that data to the insurance company to increase your rate? Would that be allowed? Through you, Madam President?

Through you, Madam President. Thank you for the question. So, no. Because that would be a different party. And so, again, within any law, there are exemptions. One of the exemptions is to provide a service that was agreed to by the consumer. So let's say, for instance, you had purchased OnStar as part of that, or -- I don't even know who is doing the safety tracking now. It wouldn't prevent the data from being shared with them for this pg/rr 53 service that the consumer had requested. But it couldn't be sold to another party without the -- again, it just can't be sold to another party. Through you.

Excellent. Thank you. And that's what I wanted the clarification on. And that does make sense. That geolocation, that very sensitive information, and I don't know really how that's utilized except for -- I don't want to say deceitful, but they don't even know it's happening. They don't even know that the data from the vehicle is getting sold. So that is alarming. It's quite scary how there's always some type of device around and listening. I guess this is another question. It's not I gotcha question. It's just something that I figured James may know or Senator Maroney may know. You talk about some new product. It's probably going to happen now. I say kayak, and I'm say kayak right now. I never talked about kayaks. I'm thinking about getting a kayak this spring. And then all of a sudden, there's probably going to be something on my phone that's going to try to sell me a kayak. Is there anything in this legislation -- because that's personal data. Talking about it. Maybe I searched it. Is this bill going to try to address that in any way? Through you, Madam President.

pg/rr 54 Through you, Madam President. Thank you for the question. That is not addressed in this bill, through you.

Thank you, Madam President. I was hoping to get some knowledge to know how that happens and why that happens. And I will let you know if I do get an ad for a kayak, by the way. So I was trying to make a segue into the surveillance pricing. If the good senator could explain surveillance pricing, not only for myself and I know that it's discussed in the Section 11 of the amendment. But maybe just in layman's terms, trying to understand what it is and what is Section 11 trying to do to either promote, hinder, protect individuals. If you could just give me a little of background along with people around the circle and the four people watching on CTN. Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President. I want to thank the good senator for that question. I watched a YouTube video on Shawn Achor. He wrote the book Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness. And in it, he talked about how the average scientific study is read by seven people. So if you take out my mother and my mother-in-law, five people are reading this. So I do believe today, one of the viewers at home is my other mother. I'm pg/rr 55 not going to say, stepmother. So if she's watching right now, I'd like to say, hi, Beth. And then there may be four other people watching. So, we don't know them by name, but perhaps if we tracked or someone could sell us their geolocation data, we could figure that out. So, the question is on -- and so back to your question, to actually answer your question, surveillance pricing. And so we know with the prevalence of data and, again, we've been collecting data for years and years, what is new about this point in time? The ease of collecting the data, that we have so many connected devices that are collecting data, the increase in the compute power. Surveillance pricing is -- basically, it's when someone uses your individual data to create a profile, assess your willingness to pay, and charge you and I different prices, perhaps for the same thing. So, there have been articles out where someone may pay 20% different price for the same good. And so what they required in New York State last year as part of their budget was a labeling, just saying if you are using that. Again, they didn't ban the practice online. If you are using the surveillance pricing, you have to just disclose that. And so, there are different definitions we're seeing, there's proposed bills throughout the country. One is passed in Maryland. I'm not sure what's going on. Colorado, California, there are lots of bills. So I've looked at several of them. Surveillance pricing is not dynamic pricing. So, dynamic pricing is -- the difference would be changed on market factors. Different things that are happening, and it's for everyone. Surveillance pricing would be based on an individual consumer's data and setting a personalized price for that person. pg/rr 56 And so, last year in the special session, there was a bill that looked at the pricing, and it wasn't using personal data, but it was pricing around rental. And they called it a revenue management device in Section 32 of 8002, where we said you couldn't do that in Connecticut. Again, there are different reports where some people said that was part of the reason why we're seeing such an escalation in rents. Again, we'd have to look at the studies to assess the correlation and causation. But back to your question, surveillance pricing is a consumer's individual data to set an individual price. We do have a definition in here, and I can point you two lines. I know I summarized, but the definition in the bill is lines 475 to 485.

Oh, Yes. Through you, Madam President. I'm sorry. Lines 475 to 585, the definition of surveillance pricing.

Thank you, Madam President. Very large bill. Lot of lines. So give me a second. Hold on one second. Oh, no. I thank the good senator for directing me to the definition of surveillance pricing. And what I'm curious is I see the definition. But is this bill going to stop that? Or is it going to have anything to do with the other sections of the bill that we pg/rr 57 discussed? Basically saying, we're going to take your data out of there so you can't do surveillance pricing to someone that went through the Delete Act, or is it completely separate? Through you, Madam President?

Through you, Madam President. Thank you for the question. But if you wouldn't mind restating it, so the implications of the Delete Act on the surveillance pricing, am I understanding that correctly? Through you, Madam President?

Yes. That's exactly what I'm trying to determine. Are they two totally separate things? Because it talks about the data that needs to be collected in order to utilize surveillance pricing. But if somebody were to participate in the Delete Act, would they not be affected by surveillance pricing? Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President. Thank you for the question. Yes. And you had mentioned sometimes there are benefits. And so, they may be using your data and personalizing the data from a data broker to pg/rr 58 come up with a profile to assess your willingness to pay. And so you may get charged more, or you may get charged less. I'm sure that all the data points to the fact that I'm very cheap. So I would assume I get to pay less for items if they were doing an individual pricing on me. But if you opt out and that data is deleted, they won't have that profile to create that. So there is the potential that it could impact you, but they are separate parts of the bill with overlapping interests. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. And thank you for answering that question. It's a very interesting concept. I don't like the fact that individuals can charge someone more money based upon their habit, where they drive, or anything like that. I just think fear is fear. Right is right. If the thing's $5, everybody pays $5. So I just don't understand why it's being utilized. I understand supply and demand. And if the market changes, the price got to go up. I just don't understand why that is even happening, and why we allow something like that. But it's my understanding if someone is going to do this, and I apologize. If a company, a business, a retailer is going to utilize surveillance pricing, they need to let individuals know that they are using this. Is that correct? Is that how I see this? Through you, Madam President?

Through you, Madam President. There are two different parts of the bill. One is online. And then you would have to let people know if you're using it for anything other than to provide a discount. In essence, that means if you're using it to increase prices. Why is it phrased as anything other than to provide a discounted price? We had created a definition of discounted price in this bill that I thought was a good definition of the -- and I didn't create it. I borrowed it from another state that I thought was a good definition of discounted state. I don't want to try to steal credit for someone else's good work. But a discounted price means any price for a consumer good, consumer service that is established for or increased to a consumer, a group of consumers, and verifiably lower than the generally available, publicly disclosed, and bona fide market price established for the good or consumer price. Again, we're talking about for an individual. So if you're using data to establish the bona fide market price, like aggregating for everyone, that is not surveillance pricing. However, if you are using this for anything other than discounting it, so to increase over that bona fide market price, then you would need to disclose that your personal data is being used. And we do say in here, to increase prices or something substantially similar, because there is a different requirement in New York. Again, any good piece of legislation comes back and gets amended, so it is likely that we will change that. It does say you're substantially similar to other states. It's likely we may change that to say to establish a price rather than to increase a price, because of pg/rr 60 the connotations. So in B, so Section 11B, we say that if you're doing this online for -- consumer good or consumer service to be sold, leased, exchanged, or provided as part of an online transaction, if you're doing this online, you have to label it. And then I would point you to little C, no retail seller or third-party delivery service doing business in the state shall engage in surveillance pricing. And so we do define a retail establishment. So if we go up, a retail seller means a retailer as defined in Section 12-407 of the general statutes, to the extent such retailers engaged in making sales at retail of tangible personal property, and includes, but is not limited to a retail food establishment. So, again, in person, this is modeled after the state of Maryland, which the intent was to look at, for the most part, at grocery stores. You would have to do the statutory reference to go back there. So, you can't do that in there are exemptions. If there's a reason for the price to be different, like it's more miles to deliver it, if there are other fluctuations, that's not surveillance pricing. So, again, to do that customized price in person, we're saying no. Customized price online. Let them know. Okay. K-N-O-W versus N-O for in-person.

Thank you, Madam President. And thank you for explaining that. Yes. I didn't even know that that was happening. That's terrible. So if someone has three kids, they're going to need a lot of diapers. They know that they're going to need the diapers. pg/rr 61 What else are they going to do? They're going to charge that family more? I don't like that. So that's rather interesting. I'm surprised that it's even allowed at all. I understand business would have to make money, but, essentially, punish someone for needing a product. That doesn't make sense. But I do see that we're trying to address that. Stopping it in the stores. And there are reasonable reasons, as you said, further mileage, additional cost, or whatever, that may have a little bit more. But just because they need it or they have the money, I think that's silly. But while trying to solve that problem, I just want to make sure that we're not creating other problems. Because these definitions, sometimes new, may pull in other retailers that are not being bad actors. And I just have some concern about that. So I just have a quick question that, if I have a rewards membership to a grocery store, you either put your phone number in and you get a discount at the register, or if I have a card and I scan it, I get a little bit of a discount. Does this have anything to do with having to put the discounted price right next to the actual price when you're inside the store? And will have any negative effect in retailers being able to provide discounts and save people money, which we want to do here in the state of Connecticut. We want to save people money try to help them with the cost of living. Is there going to be any way that this unintentionally will affect individuals that have reward memberships and want to save money in any way, if you know? Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President, no. I would point you so, again, any good bill has exemptions. And so we look there, and it's the result of taking countless feedback, and just to reiterate, just because it doesn't go exactly the way someone wants, doesn't mean we didn't listen to you. Line 508 through 510, notwithstanding the provisions of this subsection, the following shall not be deemed to constitute surveillance pricing. And then I would point you down to subsection Capital C, line 522, establishing for offering to consumer a group of consumers at discounted price for consumer go to consumer service based on publicly disclosed uniform terms and conditions that may be satisfied by any consumer including -- but not limited to by signing up for mailing list, to close personal data, registering for promotional communications, participating in a promotional event. So, while we're there, I just want to address another concern that was raised, saying that we say you're allowed to offer a discount to maintain a customer, but someone said, what about a new customer? I would say, as long as you're doing the same thing for any new customer, that would count under these lines there. If you're offering a promotion to someone, a promotional event would count as offering a discount to try to attract a new customer. But then we do say down there, if you third-party delivery cell through a line 530, it starts with Roman numeral three. Lines 531 through 539, through a loyalty, membership, or rewards program in which consumers must affirmatively enroll. So if you're offering a discount through a bona fide loyalty or rewards program that a consumer has enrolled in, that is not pg/rr 63 considered surveillance pricing. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you to the good senator for clarifying that. Just wanted to make sure, while trying to wrap our arms around this surveillance pricing, we're not going to possibly -- may hurt the retailers, for retaining and attracting new customers. Also, inadvertently taking away that loyalty discount, if you will, and it seems as if that is addressed in this bill. And if, for some reason, with this long bill and minimal time to really dive in deep, if there's anything in here that's going to hinder people saving money, we will, I'm sure, be willing to address anything where we could save Connecticut residents money. And I talked to you about that before, so I'm assuming that would be your intentions. Through you, Madam President.

Through you, as a self-proclaimed miser, I would never avoid the opportunity to discuss saving money for myself or anyone else. Through you.

Thank you, Madam President. And, Beth, if you're still watching, if he has any coupons that were mailed to your house, please get them back to him, and he will change his address and stop that from happening. But thank you to the good senator for clarifying that. And I do appreciate you answering my questions. I just have a couple of more. And we're going to talk about quickly, the genetic testing definition. And trying to find clarity, because it's from Section 17, I think, through 19. But it talks about genetic testing. And my first question is, is this at all affiliated with the first couple of sections when we talk about data brokers, utilizing data, selling them, and being able to opt out? Is this at all associated or relevant to the data brokers and the Delete Act? Through you, Madam President?

Through you, Madam President. I am not a lawyer, but lawyers often use the answer, it depends. And so, I am going to borrow from my barrister friends and give you the answer. It depends. It does not specifically address data brokers. This is your personal genetic biological information that you have submitted to a company. And so, again, the way we say it's not if a doctor's ordering testing. It's if you're going through a commercial service, we've seen some of them online. One of them went bankrupt, and that's a lot of the reason that this bill has been brought up, and what happened with their data after is a lot of the reason why this bill has come about. But it does say that for pg/rr 65 your genetic information, your personal data, you have a property right in that. You need to expressly give consent, and so unless they get expressed consent in a consent that could be revoked at a later time, they can't sell it. They can't give it to others for research. There are a number of different restrictions around here. And so, they can only -- if they're using a vendor, they have to have that duty of care that the vendor won't be able to disclose it and saying this to provide the final testing or whatever it is when you're going to the company. So, it does not directly impact data brokers. Again, it's data. It's sensitive data, but it's a separate part of the statutes that -- again, since it's data, they're tangentially related. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, the good senator. So I understand how they could be germane and somewhat tied together. But if it's not specifically about the Delete Act, or protecting people's data entirely, just curious, the reason why it's in this bill, and more importantly, what is the purpose? So when we're talking about, we're going to be creating a definition for the genetic testing or direct-to-consumer genetic testing. I'm assuming that some of the websites you could send your DNA. They'll give you your family tree. If you could just try to walk me through, if this was a separate bill, why it's in this bill, and then more importantly, besides the example you gave me, how it's somewhat pg/rr 66 connected, what does it do besides just that small connection to the data privacy and the Delete Act? Through you, Madam President?

Through you, Madam President. Thank you for the question. Yes. This came to us as a separate. This was initially a separate bill. It did receive a public hearing. It went through the process. I believe it was House Bill 5168. I can wait and give you the number in case I'm off on that. It was brought to us by the attorney general. But it deals with genetic data. Genetic data is sensitive data. In this bill, we look at facial recognition, which we define biological data. That's sensitive data. Data used to identify a specific biometric data. A specific individual. And so this is also sensitive data. So it is connected. We define your location data as sensitive data. Where you go, where you spend your time, how you're driving. That is sensitive information that we give you a right over, stronger protections over. The thought was, this is just an extension, and it should be in the same bill where we are talking about important data about a person. And so that is why this is here. And just to go through the bill, in Section 18, it creates a property right for your biological sample. You own that. That is yours, that you have submitted to the company. Section 19, the company prior to accepting a biological sample, and then now I'll just summarize, they must disclose their policies on the collection, pg/rr 67 use, and disclosure of your biological data. What is the policy? How are they collecting it? How will they use it when they have it? Who will they disclose that information to? What are their policies? They have to create a privacy notice in a prominent and publicly accessible location on their website. They need to get express consent from the consumer in regards to the identity of people who can access that, the manner in which they may disclose that. They have to get consent to disclose the use for -- or how they retain the consumer's biological sample for any period following the completion of the testing, the consent to take that data and give it to someone else for research. It's now they have to -- it's your property, they have to get your permission and not disclose unless to anyone else unless they have that consent or there is a court order. And then it goes further to say other people that they cannot disclose their genetic data to, so you can't if you got your testing and you couldn't sell that data or give it to an insurance company who is going to use that for your health insurance rate or your employer or any third party which the company knows or reasonably should know and tends to use that for the purposes of marketing including, but not limited to, targeted advertising. So, again, telling the company what they can't do with your property, with that biological sample, or the sensitive data. They have to have security. They have to have a process for the consumer to access their data, require the company to delete the data, and then to destroy and confirm that the sample has been destroyed. And then also, if you have given the consent for someone else to see it or to use it for research, there has to be an ability for the consumer to pg/rr 68 change their mind and revoke that consent. I would say in our data privacy bill, it's a lot clearer than where we say if you opt in for something, there has to be the ability to opt out that is at least as easy as it was to opt in. That would make sense here. It has to be at least as easy to revoke your consent as it is to give your consent. But that is not written in the law. I would recommend that when in future years we come back to improve this law. So I apologize. And it was not 5168. It was House Bill 5128 that went through the General Law Committee. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. And thank you to the senator for running through that. I think it's important to flush this out. Again, we have a lot of information. These are very complicated and really technical industry-specific terms, and truly understanding data brokers, what they do, all of the different types of data, where it's utilized. It could be used for good. It could be used for bad. I'm thinking at a simple level of gathering information and completing business. I didn't even think about all the sales type, information, and the value to that data. We talked about the car data, insurance companies. And I see that this could be somewhat germane. But this process is valuable to make sure we could flush this out. I do have genuine concerns about some of the sections of the bill. It just it'd be so great if we could vote on one thing at a time. And I know pg/rr 69 it's challenging with time, but sometimes it would be nice to say, okay. Well, this section of the bill is good. I want to vote for just this one. You can't do that. You gotta vote for the whole bill or vote no on the whole bill. So sometimes, that could be a little frustrating. But I do understand, I believe I understand what the intended purpose of this section is, or the original bill 5128 that came out of General Law Committee. I see it being challenging. As you said, I think we may have to come back and maybe try to fix it, tweak it, next year. But when you give someone something, I think there should be an understanding at that transaction. Like, we make a deal. I'm going to give you this, you give me that. Or I'm going to give you this, you're going to do that with it, and I think that's important. That's consumer protection. That's disclosure. That's someone knowing what they're getting. And I don't want to have somebody duped, and says, okay, we're going to do this for you, but then they're going to take their genetic testing and do something vindictive or utilize it in a way that could hurt that person, or they just don't know about it. So I do agree with that concept, and I'm a firm believer of that. Be a man of your word. You make a deal. Stick to it. So I don't want anyone to get deceded in any way when they think that they're going to maybe participate in one of these online DNA tests, try to figure out their heritage, maybe long-lost cousin or something. It's all great stuff. While trying to accomplish that and maybe give it away as a gift or do something around the holidays, it's great. It's awesome. pg/rr 70 But certain sections in here, when you explain this to me, being able to say, I'm going to pull it back. You could use it for whatever you want, but now I'm going to pull it back, taking away that right. That's challenging. Because we don't know what the company that accepted that DNA or that specimen, is going to be doing with it. If they gave permission to do whatever they want with it, kind of a check all, and now it's it's released out into the wild. It went here, then it went here. How is someone that starts this business going to be able to do that at a flip of a switch? That's the concern I have with this and I don't know if that was thought about, but be able to say, okay, you have the information, you could use it, but then I want you to stop using it, and if it was already distributed through other channels forms, whether it's insurance companies, testing for whatever reason, I just don't know if that was what you were mentioning about maybe trying to figure out a way to fix it down the road. But that's something where I have a lot of concerns. And again, good intentions, but possibly a negative, unattended consequence, and maybe a company that's trying to be a start-up or provide a service could get wrapped into this -- not knowing. It might be challenging for them to pull back that information, as you said. So it's just something that I wanted to just get on the record and just express my concerns with, and if someone is a bad actor, they take this DNA specimen and the person that gives it checks off the boxes that they want. They don't want their DNA shared anywhere else. And this genetic testing company then sends it out. What would be the consequences? Is there a private right of action? Is this just enforced by the pg/rr 71 attorney general? What exactly would be the the consequences if someone was doing something negative with this data and specimen? Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President. Thank you to the good senator, for the question. One of the things I've done in my past life was I advised students on writing college essays, and one of the things they say in writing a college essay is to avoid cliches. Even though I tell people to avoid cliches, I'm going to drop a couple cliches right here. First, you're right. Once the company has sold the data, once the toothpaste is out of the tube, you can't really put it back in. But now let's use another analogy for cars. Just because you let me borrow your car once doesn't mean I should always be able to just go and take your car and do whatever I want with it. You've let me borrow the car, and next time I ask, you may say no. And that's what we're saying that you give it to them, you say you can use it for something. But if you change your mind later on, we're humans, we change our minds, we may not want to use for another research project or another thing, then you can say no. The enforcement back to your question, to answer your actual question, the enforcement is done through, CUTPA. So in lines 1148 through 1153, for those five people at home, hi, Beth again. CUTPA is of the Connecticut General Statutes. pg/rr 72 The enforcement is done solely by the attorney general. And so what that means is through CUTPA, there is a private right of action 42-110G, but we say that does not apply in this instance. It is solely enforced by the attorney general. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. And I really I want to thank the good senator for taking the time to answer all of my questions. We got our text messages. I could see things here. And I think that this is so important in this process. And I hope a lot of people, especially around this circle, listen to this debate, and then make their decision. I'm a firm believer of that because we were talking about this bill with other legislators, and they weren't sure where they were going to be. And I'm also not sure where I was going to be because I had concerns. Some of them are flushed out. Some I may have a few more questions. I'll try to wrap up briefly. But somebody said to me, he's like, I was a no. But now, after this Q&A, I think I might be a yes. That's what we're here to do. This is what we should be doing. And I thank you for answering all of my questions, because that's how we learn. There's a lot of bills, a lot of different committees, and you can't know everything, and it's all in the details. And a lot of concerns I had were addressed. There are some that I still do have, and I'm not going to go back through them, but it is a valuable process, and I want to thank you. Last question on that section, and I'll be quick on the other one. I hope. All right. So I get the pg/rr 73 situation where you give your sample, specimen. You say yes, you could use it. Then you say no, I don't want it used anymore. Fine. Stop using it. But whatever was done with it prior, and whatever else will continue to happen, the individual that owns the DNA company can't pull back because maybe they're in a contract with another company. Was that taken into consideration, or will they be in trouble if, after they say the customer says, no more use of my data. Okay. Turn it off. Whatever was done prior is already out there, and it may continue to roll down the hill if you will. How does someone that entered into an agreement with maybe another vendor, the DNA company to be specific, said I'm going to get this data, and I get to do whatever I want. The client said I can. Now they get the ball rolling. But now, client wants it to turn off and wants to stop. What happens in that situation? And will they, in any way, be penalized for just being a good actor and operating by the agreements that was originally agreed to? Is that taken into consideration? Or is there anything in here that I'm missing that would stop something like that from happening unintentionally? Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President. Thank you to the good senator from the 34th District for his question. So, if a use that was done with the consent, there would be no penalty. So, once the consumer decided to revoke their consent, it would be any uses after that. That you could no longer -- so if it was a use that they had already -- pg/rr 74

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Thank you. Senator Maroney.

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Thank you. Senator Maroney. pg/rr 78

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Thank you. Senator Maroney.

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Alright. We are still on the amendment. Will you remark on the amendment? Senator Hwang.

Please proceed. Prepare yourself, Senator Maroney.

Senator Maroney.

Thank you. Senator Hwang.

Thank you. Senator Moroney.

Thank you. Senator Hwang.

Thank you, Senator Hwang. Senator Maroney. pg/rr 89

Through you, I think also first, before I answer, the AI bill and the data privacy bill were not offered in the same year. So to correct that statement that you had made, in that bill, we created a task force to look at regulating state government. So back to 2022, we looked at regulating state government using potentially creating an AI bill of rights. We created a task force that included a co-chair from CASE, the Connecticut Academy of Scientists and Engineers. We had several members on our task force from CASE. One of whom was David Ferrucci. David Ferrucci, if you are not aware, from IBM ran the Watson project, which was really the godfather of AI. So we included scientists, the people who developed this industry, everyone, and we came up with recommendations. In 2023, we regulated state government use of AI. The first bill that looked at private and we weren't regulating the technology, it was a use case, consequential decision making, and that's what we regulated. Unfortunately, since that time, more harms have come up that we had to address in the death by suicide of children and other issues that we addressed in chat bots. And again, in any day, if it comes to protecting that, you know, I think we all agree that we need protections when we see those harms, but we are trying to be prospective. In 2024, we proposed the first AI bill that was passed out of this chamber, again a narrowed version, but it's not regulating technology, you pg/rr 90 regulate a use case. Back to the exemptions, there are still exemptions in the original bill. So the original bill is now public. It's Connecticut General Statutes 42-515, where there are exemptions in Section 42-517 and 42-524, I believe. There are exemptions in that bill that would still apply to, again, that is for personal data going to a personal website. Some of those exemptions carry forward and apply to what we're saying here. We wrote in some of those same entity level exemptions, and we cited some of those use case exemptions as well. So, through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. I wanna acknowledge the knowledge that was imparted to me by the good Chair of General Law. Right, the timing of it all. And I think that [audio cut] I appreciated on this issue. Darn technology. But as the good Chair articulated, you're right, in 2022, the offering of the AI bill became a task force. And Mr. Ferrucci, who I've admired and had an opportunity to engage as part of the AI working group, thank you, Senator Maroney, for including me, was remarkable. The insight, the perspective, and the vision that's offered by him was stunning. But it was a task force that had a wide ranging players in that engagement. And from that, we were able to engage, participate, and use real life analysis. So through you, Madam President, who were the task force or the major players in the development of this bill? Did we have the same kind of breadth of engagement, marketplace, industry, citizen groups in offering the analysis and real life experience that was offered in the initial stages that we offered in '22, '23, and '24? So through you, could the good pg/rr 91 proponent articulate who were part of this process when in the past we had a task force, we had engagement, did that same process occur with this bill and with the AI bill yesterday, even though that's posthaste? Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President, not every piece of legislation is born out of a task force. So, numerous people were engaged. We have a public hearing process where people came to testify on the bill. Since that time, I have received emails from industry, some people in academia, and consumer report groups, who have been engaged throughout the process. Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President. That is my concern. As we embark in thinking that we know better, we know more, we no longer go through the painful, the engagement, the opposition perspectives to craft a real sustainable compromise solution that everybody's in the play. What I just heard was the fact, yes, in '22, we had more collaboration of outside players. In '23 and '24, we had a task force. But in this bill, as the good proponent of this bill says, not everything goes through a task force because we have the experience. We now know, and therefore, we're gonna pass the law without engaging. That is truly one of the most slippery of pg/rr 92 all slopes where we start believing that we know better in making laws that impact businesses and people's lives. That is the struggle that I have for this. But I won't belabor the point, but that is one of the major frustrations of many of the small businesses that have reached out and said, "I understand the concept and technology is an essential part, but I don't feel like I have a say in this. And these laws are gonna impact my livelihood, my ability to make a living, or more importantly, a business that I've spent my life building. The well-intentioned legislation of people who know better are going to dramatically impact my livelihood." And the fear is as I oppose the AI, not for its merits, not for what its intentions are, it is the devastating impact that could. And it is not as though this state is robust, and I'm glad we're climbing the ranks. And that's an applaud to the workforce initiative and many others that are involved in this. But this, I fear, will be a growing chilling effect on businesses because we have the best of intentions. But what I just heard was we don't need to engage everybody. It takes too long, and a task force isn't required for many of the policies that we need to undertake. That to me is disrespectful of the people we represent and disrespectful the impact that we will have on them. So I'm gonna move forward and talk about some real life implications that are considered. I think one of the real life implications that I was just thinking about on line 475 related to surveillance pricing. The good chair, the ranking member articulated some of the questions related to it. But I'm looking at surveillance pricing. And one of the implications was the fact that you're gonna use personal data and you need to declare. And we gotta be very careful in regards to how you use that to set pricing. pg/rr 93 So through you, Madam President, how would the good chair and the proponent of this bill handle surge pricing that Uber and Lyft, our ride services, utilize in technology of time, space, and location of the individual through their algorithmic research to be able to offer surge pricing? Is that gouging? Is that a misuse of data application? And will our rideshares be subject to these kind of challenges that are articulated? Have we thought about that? So how would surge pricing as a marketplace indicator using data, using analysis and location and personal data be regulated? Are we gonna say, uh-uh, you're pre offering based on condition, data, and information, that I'm gonna double your price because there's surge? So through you, has the good proponent of this bill considered the real life implication of some of these data points in regards to surveillance pricing? Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President, I would point the good Senator to lines 475 through 478. So surveillance pricing means the practice of establishing a customized price for a consumer good or consumer service that is specific to a consumer based in whole or in part on the consumer's personal data. So surge pricing would be based on factors beyond the consumer. So that would not be considered under the surveillance pricing bill. Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President, it's splitting hairs in my mind. And to any good lawyer, that would be a subject of question, that it's an unfair pricing. And it is personal data. You're finding out where I am. You're using that data point in surveilling where I am and the location I'm at, and you are using surge pricing. Again, real life examples of modern technology in the real world application, and we're gonna craft laws that are gonna open up a can of worms in litigation. That's the concern that I have. There are many other ones, but I will not belabor the point. Another example of the exemptions. One of the things that we challenge in this legislature is equity. But through these exemptions, we are now picking winners and losers. We're gonna protect the lawyers. We're gonna protect the banks, and rightfully so, financial services. But you know another sector that this exemption from all of the surveillance, all of the data points that are collected, all the data mining that we're now frowning upon, you know who's exempt on that? You know, for many of us that are gonna run-in this circle in the November elections and a statewide election that's happening? Wait a second. Political campaigns are exempt from this data collection. So I can't tell you how many times during the course of a political campaign where people have said, how did you get my information? Why are you calling me? I'm on a do-not-call list. But wait a second. This bill picks winners and losers. And we are now saying that guess what? For political campaigns, you can use all that data mining. You can use all that personal data and consumer activity so we can get a hold of those voters and say, hey, vote for me. How do we justify that? Picking winners and losers when we talk so much about equity in this circle that we have just now selectively exempted one of the most pg/rr 95 impactful and readily visible activity of impacting people's private data. Why? So through you, could the good proponent of data privacy and protection pre-offer the rationale for that exemption? Through you, Madam President.

Through you, thank you for the question. We carried over the entity level exemptions from the data privacy bill. Through you, Madam President.

Through you. And I appreciate that. And I did offer the point of data privacy 22-15, the Public Act, and today's act. But have we not considered that continued exemption that defies equity, that defies protection, especially on the heel of yesterday when we challenged and tested freedom of information, which is sacrosanct to a functioning and First Amendment protection in our land and in this country? We're now going to exempt. But, nevertheless, we have said that political campaigns in the Act of 22-15 and in this act, that they continue to be exempted. So, again, one of the most intrusive and, dare I say, feedback from many of the voters that we try to contact and try to persuade, some of the most annoying outreaches that they get in saying, how did you get my information? And the answer, unfortunately, is we're exempted. So, again, you talk about consumer privacy and protection. Why was pg/rr 96 that not considered in '22 and in today's legislation? Why? The equity concern is a mystery to me and frustrating for many of the people that we represent. Through you, could the good Chair articulate why the exemption?

Through you, Madam President. I thank the Senator for the question. I thank him for his support on the '22 version of the bill. The exemptions as was mentioned previously were all had various reasons. If it was federally regulated, so with the GLB, The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, with HIPAA and other exemptions. This one is, and you alluded to the First Amendment, political speech often falls under that First Amendment protection. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you. And that is the basis. We're picking winners and losers. We're picking statues that offer protection for winners and losers and say, mm, you're exempt. You got leverage. You got influence. I'm gonna use the First Amendment as a protection. And that's a struggle. And I know California has an example as articulated many times by the good Chair and the advocate of this bill. In California, let me recite the bill. The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act. That has been an innovative and we have predicated and based a lot of the analysis and the experience from California. pg/rr 97 You know what's fascinating? I'm reading through the case and the basis of that is it doesn't violate the First Amendment because it protects a specific purpose in action. And to me, I read that with great interest. But you know what struck me as interesting is that is now under review on the Ninth Circuit Court. And one of the most passionate, articulate, and vigorous advocates of personal freedom and protection, the ACLU offered a friend of the brief and opposed the broad expansion of privacy and protection, that this runs foul because we have a very narrow band. The well intention of '22, some of the legislation that's been led by the General Law in regards to youth protection on the Internet and many of the proponents, it is well intentioned. It's targeted. But what I'm fearful for is the fact that we are now sliding back to encroaching more and more legislation because we know better. We no longer need a task force because we've done it before, and we've seen it. And we're gonna say, we understand it. There is no doubt that we have incredible knowledge. But when knowledge is based in a vacuum, and we disrespect the people that the laws are gonna impact and the businesses that could be permanently impacted, we're not doing right. And you're violating First Amendment. I'm not talking about big tech companies that use the argument. We're talking about the broad implication of these legislations that violate First Amendment. Small mom-and-pop businesses that need to use data algorithms to be able to find their customers, to be able to sell and engage in commerce so they can survive. The real possibility of this slippery slope of data consumer privacy and protection could impact their ability to try to find that customer in an increasing marketplace, not only in the town, but in the state, but also nationally, internationally. pg/rr 98 Look, Estee is a national company that competes and impact our local businesses. The problem is they're not regulated, but they are impacting our small businesses. So we may have every bit of intention of consumer privacy and protection, but we're not understanding on a greater national and international scope of where technology is impacting businesses, then we are creating unintended consequences that will drive businesses out of the State of Connecticut. Because they can go to Maryland. That may be the one state that doesn't have that in action. Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida. The mobility is immense. People have choices. We may pat ourselves on the back and say, yeah, this is well intentioned. We are going to do the right thing and save lives, and there's no doubt about that. And I wholly support that. But there are components of the bill, there are components on the AI bill that could clearly focus on those things, but we reach beyond. We add on because, oh, we don't need a task force anymore. We know better because we have the experience. That is, unfortunately, the path and the process denied of representing the people that our laws impact. So I will reluctantly vote no on this issue, just as I was reluctant in regards to the AI. Many, many good parts about this. But the reality is the people that I represent, the businesses that'll be impacted, even they may have had input in this dialogue. Through you to the proponent of this bill, I've heard from people that they don't like this. It's just another obstacle for them to be able to compete in an already competitive marketplace. Are we truly listening to them? I hope that those that will vote no will say that we have heard you. And that this debate beyond the technical aspect is a real life implication aspect. The surge pricing, the surveillance pricing, well intentioned, but the execution is deviled in the details. pg/rr 99 So, again, I'm gonna close by complimenting the great passion, knowledge, and acknowledge the great work of many of these people to bring these discussion forth. I wish we had more dialogue, more engagement from all the parties, and more disagreement. More disagreement to make a better product. But I'm fearful we didn't have that. And as a result, we're gonna be passing legislation should this pass that will impact businesses. And if they feel as though they're not being heard, they will quietly do the walking out of the State of Connecticut, and that is what we cannot stand. We need to support them. So I urge opposition to this bill, not for this intent, not for its noble goal, but the devil in the execution. So thank you, Madam President. I wanna thank the proponent of this bill for his advocacy. He's been a tremendous, tremendous and resilient leader in this. I just hope that we were able to kinda step back and remember that the laws we make in this circle impact the lives of the people that we're supposed to represent. So thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. I wanna first begin by thanking the chair of the committee and the ranking members for what you guys have put into this bill. After listening to the debate of AI and I voted for that bill, and I just see the emerging market that is upon us, it's I think past the the threshold, and we're now entering more into a growing industry that is going to basically be operating at light speed, Madam President. So I think this is very timely that pg/rr 100 what we're doing here today. I think it's important to that we address what's what is happening. And currently, you know, this is a very unregulated market. And I think because of what seems to be surfacing, and I gotta believe that there are a lot of consumers out there, the public that are saying, hey, wait a minute. I don't have access to some of this information. I don't know what they're collecting from me, and I don't know what's being sold. And specifically regarding the accuracy of the information that a data broker may have on consumers. I think there needs to be some type of regulations as to them making sure that the data that they collect is minimal for them to operate, but also it needs to be accurate for the safety of the public. So, Madam President, I agree with a lot of groups that we should have some fundamental rights for the consumers, that we should be able to make sure that this information that is being collected and sold needs to be accurate. So I'm sorry for being a little redundant there. But, you know, such as rights for the rights to access, the right to delete, the right to correct, and the right to opt out I think are extremely important. And through you, Madam President, I'd like to know, if what the federal government currently are doing regarding this area specifically? Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President. Thank you very much for the question. The last major piece of comprehensive data privacy law legislation that was passed by the federal government was the Children's pg/rr 101 Online Privacy Protection Act, which was passed in 1998, which is well before social media. I guess I had owned a computer before that, but anyways, it was a long time ago. There have been a number of fits and starts where they have proposed different pieces of federal legislation. Just the other day, I haven't had the chance to review it. I've been asked to comment on it, but I haven't read the legislation yet. But based on Kentucky's data privacy law, they are putting together a proposed federal data privacy legislation, which would be similar to our legislation. Again, Kentucky, everyone is based off of the same model, which ironically enough, it's off of Senator Carlyle from Washington. Washington State never passed the bill. So it would be similar, but that's proposed legislation in the federal government. Before that, there was the American Data Privacy Protection Act. There were several different proposed pieces of federal legislation, but nothing has passed since 1998. So that's a long way of answering your question, Senator Martin, by saying they are trying but not doing anything. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. Like I said in the debate regarding AI, it just seems like states are going to be creating their own statutes, and each of them are gonna be slightly different perhaps than the other states. And gonna be very complicated for these brokers, data brokers in this instance, AI developers and the other bill, but I can see the complexity in the issues that they're gonna have in trying to accommodate and make sure that they're addressing each of the laws. And by us doing this pg/rr 102 bill, we'll put a little bit more pressure on the federal government to establish overall federal standards that everybody can tap into. So, I'm just gonna ask a few questions regarding the bill just to make sure that these issues of access, being able to delete and correct information are in the bill. So regarding the bill, how is this bill prioritizing the transparency by the data brokers? Through you, Madam President.

Through you, Madam President. Thank you for the question. And so, one of the requirements is for the registered data brokers that they can't process data in ways that violate our existing data privacy laws, or the laws of this act. Within this act, we create a registry. And so then on that registry, which will be through the Department of Consumer Protection, the Department of Consumer Protection will then create two different websites. Well, they'll create a website. So they'll have the registry where the companies go register, submit their information. There's a list of information they have to submit. Then, the Department of Consumer Protection will create a website that'll have the link to this universal deletion mechanism, as well as a link to all of the information on the data brokers who have registered. So you will then be able to see a list of all of the registered data brokers in Connecticut with certain information about them. So increased transparency on who is considered a data broker and working within the State of Connecticut. Through you, Madam President. pg/rr 103

Thank you, Madam President. So what I understand is that the public will be able to access this website through the Consumer Protection agency website. And on that website, we will have the list of data brokers and their contact information. Is that correct, Madam President?

I apologize, Senator Martin. Would you mind repeating that question?

Thank you, Senator Martin. Senator Maroney.

Thank you, Senator Maroney. Senator Martin.

Thank you, Senator Martin. Senator Maroney.

Thank you, Senator Maroney. Senator Martin.

Thank you, Senator Martin. Senator Maroney.

Thank you, Senator Maroney. Senator Martin.

Thank you, Senator Martin. Senator Maroney.

Thank you, Senator Maroney. Senator Martin.

Thank you, Senator Martin. Senator Maroney.

Thank you, Senator Maroney. Senator Martin.

Thank you, Senator Martin. Senator Maroney.

Thank you, Senator Maroney. Senator Martin.

Thank you, Senator Martin. Senator Maroney.

Thank you, Senator Maroney. Senator Martin.

Thank you, Senator Martin. Senator Maroney.

Thank you, Senator Maroney. Senator Martin.

Thank you, Senator Martin. Senator Maroney.

Thank you, Senator Maroney. So granted. Will you remark further on the amendment? Will you remark further on the amendment? If not, let me try your minds. All those in favor of the amendment, say aye. pg/rr 114

Thank you very much, Madam President. Nice to see you up there. Just very briefly, I wanted to first thank Senator Maroney for all his work on this. And I know we all work in teams, but you are definitely a leader on this and you have been for many years. And I had the privilege of listening to you give a lecture in this area. And you are beyond an expert, and it's really a privilege to be able to hear you on these topics. And I just wanted to thank Senator Maroney and the committee for this bill in particular for many Connecticut residents who have been victims of data breaches and for the numerous constituents who actually came to me to raise their concerns about facial recognition technology being used without their knowledge or their consent. And so this bill does more by creating enforcement of violations, by creating categories to protect financial data, biometric data, mental health data, login credentials, and protecting that as sensitive information, and especially preventing the sale of geolocation data. There's so much in this bill that is important for consumers and constituents in the State of Connecticut, and I just thank Senator Maroney and the committee for bringing it forward. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. Will Senate stand at ease for a moment?

Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, I rise in support of the legislation, a bill that I think is a critical bill in our democracy agenda this session, one of which I believe is going to, again, be modeled across the country. We have seen time and time again as we had our Bill 397 last week, we've had Senate Bill 5 five yesterday and today with consumers and residents of the state can be more protected by the laws that we pass here in the State of Connecticut. These things are critical to our state in ensuring that we're doing everything we can to keep up with technology, keep up with people's desire for more privacy and not to have a sense where there's always, government is watching you or the private sector is watching you without your knowledge, your consent, and with being able to opt out if possible. Many things in here that I believe are extremely important for us. One is the facial recognition. We saw earlier this year where we saw retail establishments that were using facial recognition, which is different, mind you, than when somebody, a store or retail section just has a camera for a closed circuit to monitor you, but facial recognition, which could determine whether or not if you've been there before, whether or not, based on pg/rr 116 your smartphone, dynamic pricing, whether or not what times of the day you tend to come in, using data in a way that you don't even know about. This bill helps to takes a giant first step in trying to fix that. The second is something that's very, very important, which is data brokerage. That's something that we worked on last session. It is only becoming more pervasive in our communities. We see where based on how we're using our phones, how we're using our devices, that data because of our privacy laws, what we see now is companies taking our data in totality, selling it to the highest bidder. We're even seeing where private companies are selling the data to the federal government to spy on Americans. I think that should really raise the hair on everybody's neck, the back of their necks when when they think that at the moment that the federal government is buying data from data brokers and using that to spy on Americans. We're also seeing that data brokers selling information to private companies for profit as well. Many ways which we would never allow. We as consumers, if we had a choice, would never say yes to. And this bill takes a giant step in that and really gives people the option to say no. Banning or selling precise geolocation data. We've seen that as legislators where in Minnesota, unfortunately, with Speaker Hortman, the precise geolocation data was used in her murder. But beyond that, even for an average consumer, seeing where, again, you walk into an establishment and your geolocation data is used potentially for dynamic pricing, for other means in which to track you or to show your habits in ways in which we would never ever agree to individually as consumers before the digital age. So, we are working to really help to keep taking steps that we've taken for many years now on data privacy, ways in which we protect our state. pg/rr 117 The federal government has failed miserably on protecting our data. We're one of the only countries that doesn't have a federal data privacy law. So what we have to do is we have to take the reins just like we're doing with AI in the state to make those kinds of laws to protect the residents of Connecticut. And we're doing that. And as a matter of fact, with our data privacy laws, as Senator Maroney has worked on so long have become a model around the country. So there are other sections of the bill such as the Comm act and expanding that in ways that the federal government hasn't done and other provisions of this bill that will, I believe, will garner a bipartisan vote today. And I would hope that it would be the same in the House as well. Thanks to Senator Maroney and his work, our staff, my staff who's been working on this so hard. I really appreciate everybody's work. Appreciate the support of Senator Looney, who has been a real great partner in understanding and supporting the need to hold these actors accountable, to ban certain practices, and to put a stake in the ground to say, this is not something that Connecticut is going to stand for. We're going to create our own destiny. We're going to have strong laws, and we're going to make sure that while the federal government has failed the State of Connecticut, and our government is going to stand up for the people. Thank you, Madam President.

Good afternoon, Madam President. Very good to see you there. Speaking in support of the bill as amended. Madam President, first, I wanna begin by commending once again Senator Maroney for his pg/rr 118 groundbreaking work on this subject, data privacy protection, as well as his work on Senate Bill 5, the AI bill. So I think Connecticut is a real leader here in recognizing threats that we need to address, and our majority leader, Senator Duff, has been a champion on these issues now, and helping to educate our caucus and others about the issues that are at stake here. What is at stake here, Madam President, is over the years, in recent years in particular, we have seen an accelerating loss of privacy in our society in so many different ways due to advancing technology, and the concern is that so many people may be even unaware of that loss of privacy and the incursions on their privacy that have already occurred, they may not even be aware of. And perhaps younger people growing up in this era are not even aware, perhaps, that at one point there was a general expectation of greater privacy than what they have now, or see as the reality around them. And that's probably the most disturbing point of all. And this bill is a movement to try to put the brakes on and to provide some protections in an area where a lot of frightening incursions have already happened. As our majority leader said, one of the grave concerns about is the activity of data brokers who can just assemble data in so many ways, and then market them and sell them in ways that were never contemplated by the person whose data has been gathered and assembled. So this bill will provide that consumers may request at no cost deletion of any personal data that's collected by a data broker. That's an important safeguard, because otherwise, this problem is only going to accelerate and get much worse. Mentioning the facial recognition technology, which we already see has been used in some stores in Connecticut, with people not even being aware of the compromising nature of that. The issue of dynamic pricing where strict disclosure pg/rr 119 requirements will apply, when businesses are using algorithms in pricing. So this bill is an important consumer protection bill in an area where a few years ago, we didn't really need to think about consumer protection, but because of advancing technology, now we do. This is a whole new front, where people can be put at risk, not just from price gougers or shady practices by people in business, but by this whole new sophisticated world in which we live that creates exposure and risk and manipulation for people. So, this is a really important bill, companion bill along with Senate Bill 5, and one which I think upon adoption will be a signal that Connecticut is aware of these issues and is concerned about these issues, wants to safeguard its people, and are ready to do something significant about it. Thank you, Madam President.

An immediate roll call has been ordered in the the Senate.

Total Number Voting 35 Necessary for Adoption 18 Those voting Yea 31 Those voting Nay 4 Those absent and not voting 1

for House Bill No. 5044, an act establishing Connecticut vaccine standards, as amended by House Schedules A and B. There are several amendments.

Good afternoon, Madam President. Madam President, good to see you there. Madam President, I move acceptance of the Joint Committee's favorable report and passage of the bill in concurrence with the amended bill, in concurrence with the House of Representatives.

Yes, Madam President. Madam President, this is a status quo bill. I wanted just to give a little bit pg/rr 121 of a background of the bill. Madam President, if you want people to be a little quiet in the background, perhaps.

Thank you so much, Madam President. So, Madam President, this is a status quo bill. And this bill, I'm gonna try to explain about the rationale for the bill and where we are. And it's important because this bill has caused a lot of people to be concerned across the state, but a lot of people have information that I think it's just worthy to go through in detail today. I look at the bill in two broad parts. One of the part is about what's happening at the national level. To put this in perspective, Madam President, right now at the federal level, we have President Trump who has appointed RFK Jr. to an important position. And Mr. Kennedy, what he has done is there is an entity by the name of Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the ACIP. ACIP is the organization which has historically, for decades, been the center point for best recommendations on immunizations across the country. They actually have the advisory role for the CDC. Mr. RFK Jr. actually fired all the 17 individuals who were part of it, and these were world's experts who had knowledge, understanding, experience, but also were top in the scientific literature and academic practices of vaccines. And when that happened, he was able to place multiple people into the same position. So now the ACIP is made up of different group of individuals with different backgrounds. Just to give you a little background of some of the individuals, pg/rr 122 there's a gentleman by the name of Dr. Robert Malone. Dr. Malone claimed that the Americans were hypnotized into taking COVID vaccine, and he suggested that the vaccine causes AIDS. So think about this. This is a ACIP expert placed in by Robert F. Kennedy who says that the COVID vaccine was causing AIDS. And then there was another doctor, Martin Kulldorff, who's the co-author of selecting the herd immunity is the best way to deal with COVID at that time, which basically was saying that it's okay for a certain percentage of the people to die. Another gentleman by the name of Dr. Retsef Levi, he acknowledged in one of the conversations that he did not have any information on vaccines or immunology, but here he was on ACIP. And then there's Dr. Kirk Milhoan, who basically said that the vaccines were deliberately engineered to cause harm to the people. So if you think about it from this, these are now the world's experts in the ACIP at this time making recommendation. And as one would expect, they're one of the few recommendations that came out was to stop the hepatitis B vaccine. Now just to put this in perspective, thankfully, we do not see hepatitis B in our country anymore, but other parts of the world where hepatitis B is there, it is a commonest cause of causing cirrhosis, and it is also a cancer causing virus. The hepatocellular carcinoma is linked with hepatitis B. So these recommendations came up, and many of the states across the country made a decision that they wanted to protect their citizens as opposed to what was going on in Washington DC at that time. So, Madam President, there's conversation about other vaccines with hepatitis A, RSV, and rotavirus vaccines that are being looked at as well to be removed from some of the protections that would be available or should be available to the people. As we look at this bill, it's important to put in perspective what this bill does not do. And I want to spend a little bit more time on this part of the pg/rr 123 conversation, because a lot of people have a belief that this bill does certain things, and I'll walk you through what this bill does. But we will talk about what the bill does not do. The bill does not have a vaccine mandate. I'll repeat this in case if people do not hear me well enough. The bill does not have a vaccine mandate, and it has no impact on the 2021 law that was passed. So it is not expanding or reducing that existing law, and it does not have the ability to change the vaccine schedule for the schools, and there's no unilateral authority to mandate a vaccine through this bill. So the commissioner does not have a unilateral power to be able to mandate the vaccine, and there is nothing in this bill that would make the commissioner stop anybody from working or require any of the workers to get a vaccine before they would go to work. So there's nothing in this bill in that capacity, and there is nothing in this bill which would restrict the insurance industry to have some kind of a bias on individuals who are unvaccinated. So this bill does not have any of that information. It's important to keep that in mind because I know people are concerned about some aspects. But let's talk a little bit now about what this bill does. So one of the things that the bill does is that it establishes a standard of care for immunization for both adults and children that would take into consideration the existing ACIP and the CDC. So if we were to just stop here at this point, I've been saying this, this is pretty much close to where the existing law is in the State of Connecticut. But what we are saying at this time is because of what is happening at the federal level, which is not necessarily in the control of the people around this circle or perhaps in the people out in the community, we are actually adding medical organizations, which includes the American Academy of Pediatrics and American College of OBGYN, obstetric and gynecology that is, and American Academy of Family Physicians. So these organizations pg/rr 124 have been at the forefront for many years, and American Academy of Pediatrics may have had decades of experience on making the best recommendations, which are followed by every medical institution with science, background, and understanding. So this bill is saying that the standard of care will be initiated. Now, why are we using the term standard of care? It is what has been part of the existing law, the standard of care. So we are using the same terminology, but the standard of care is not automatically a mandate. That's another confusion that's out there. I heard many of the people who spoke about this as well. So at the same time, while this is not the mandate, but this gives the State of Connecticut the power to be able to have contractual relationships to be able to buy the vaccines, because what is happening in the existing law is that if the CDC says that they are changing their schedule, and I'll give you an example, if they say if they no longer want a hepatitis B vaccine, as a result of that, the State of Connecticut will not be able to buy hepatitis B vaccine. So can you imagine all the healthcare workers who need to have hepatitis B vaccine? The state will not have that anymore. So if they don't have it and the person chooses to have the hepatitis B vaccine based on their own personal decision, they will not be able to get the vaccine. Their choice will be taken away from them. And that's what is going to happen if other states don't follow what we are doing, but I know at least 28 plus states are following what we are doing as well. There will be a disaster of healthcare challenges in other parts of the country. So with that in mind, this gives a capacity to purchase the vaccine for the Connecticut standard of care that we are placing in this bill. Also, the bill is going to allow the Department of Public Health commissioner to adopt regulations for nursing homes regarding respiratory viral diseases. Currently, the nursing homes require residents to pg/rr 125 have pneumonia and flu vaccines, and with both medical and religious exemptions that are available. So in that case, but we know that one of the main causes of death for our community members who are in nursing homes is respiratory illness, unfortunately, that leads to their health being impacted, and that's why if there's a prevention strategy, that is there. But it is not going to be a mandate if they choose not to have it in that situation. Another part is the mandatory school vaccination schedule requires the commissioner to go through regulations review committee process. I think this is important to understand, and I'm gonna spend a few more minutes on this part. I know it's a very emotional issue because a lot of people who felt that their opportunities for their children's education was impacted because of the 2021 bill, what had happened is that there is a religious exemptions were taken away. When the religious exemptions were taken away, that was through a process. Now the fear people have is that the commissioner could theoretically or anybody within the the state government could unilaterally put some new vaccine into that standard. The answer to that is no, they cannot. And I'll give you an example. Let's say that there is a new virus that comes out. The name of the virus is xyz, and then that virus has a protection. And we find that there's a vaccine that can fix that and they feel that it's going to impact the children, the commissioner will not be able to put that new vaccine into the schedule. In order to be able to do that, they would have to go through a process which would be to make recommendations, and those recommendations will have to go through the regs review committee, which has equal number of Democrats and Republicans and who would have all the data and information in front of them, and they will make the best choices at that time. So it's going to go through a process at that time, and people will have an opportunity to learn and understand what is going on in that situation. pg/rr 126 So I think it's worthy to be aware of that aspect as well. Another thing is about the public health emergency. So again, we do not make laws when we have an emergency. We make laws prior to an emergency because by definition we do not have the luxury of sitting down and making laws when there is an emergency. I think that's an important thing. If you are not prepared for a disaster, then you are actually going to cause one. So that's part of the process is to be ready for a situation and emergency to be prepared and have those options available if there is an emergency of some kind. Hopefully, we'll never have to do this. This was a hundred year thing. It's behind us. And perhaps hundred years from now, somebody else can deal with it. But this is the time for us to at least be prepared should there be an issue. Another part of the bill is to look at the adult vaccine program for the uninsured and the underinsured adults, and they would be able to receive them through free clinics or municipal health authorities only if they choose to have them. Only if they choose to have them. That's the whole idea in this one. And then it requires group and individuals. So this is again relevant as what is happening in the federal arena. If a decision is made by the federal government, and I'll use the example of hepatitis B, they say that hepatitis B is no longer part of the schedule. The insurance companies will turn around and say, well, we are not covering it. And that leaves a gap that would be in that situation. So this bill is going to address that as well and say that whatever is going to be the standard of care recommendations, the insurance companies would be expected to cover that. And that's part of the bill as well so that people who choose to have that vaccine will have that covered. pg/rr 127 And another part of the bill looks at allows the pharmacists to prescribe and administer vaccines to the adults age 18 and older and to youth 12 to 17 with parental permission. Again, this is going to be based on the standard of care. So these are the cleanup parts that are necessary because of what the federal government has decided. Ideally, if the federal government was following the guidelines and the recommendations that it had for the past, long, long time or decades of time, we will not be sitting here having this conversation. But here we are, we are having this conversation because of the decisions that have been made at the federal level. So, Madam President, what I've done is I've given a little bit of a background of why we are doing this part of the bill. We have talked about what's happening at the federal level and what impact it's going to have to the people in our state, and we have touched on the various parts of the bill that are, what the bill will do and why it will be addressing the aspects of continuing the care for our citizens. Now with that, the second part of the bill is important to to talk about too, and this is the section that I wanna spend time on because it's important to understand this concept. We have a US constitution. We have the State of Connecticut constitution as well. And when we had passed this bill and became a law in 2021 for the religious exemption removal from the school schedule, this was tested. The lawsuit was put forward, and it went through the Supreme Court in Connecticut. And when it was assessed by the Supreme Court in Connecticut, it was tested for the US constitution and the State of Connecticut constitution, and it passed the constitutional test. It did not have an impact or the court did not identify it as was against the constitution. So that's something I think is important to know and keep in mind in the further part of the conversation. pg/rr 128 But there's a Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993 that was at the federal level and also in the State of Connecticut. When this law was passed, this bill that we are looking at actually amends and refines the boundaries of the RFRA Act. And in that act, the boundaries are defined so that the school vaccine laws and the higher education vaccine laws are carved out of the RFRA Act. And the reason for that is that the intentions of the bill and the law that we had passed in 2021 was very clear. It was very clear. It was clear because the people who voted, the majority of the people who had voted, they wanted to take the religious exemptions out at that time. That was the intention, and then it was very clearly intended in every conversation that was held at that point. Now, what is happening is there's a loophole, and that's why in order to address that loophole, this is being addressed and fixed at this point, so that the intentions that were made before are not going to be impacted, and we stay true to the intentions that were made at this time. So, again, this is just maintaining the status quo. The first part that I spoke about was status quo. The second part that we had talked about is also part of the status quo as well. There is a fair argument to be made that, well, there is an existing lawsuit that is going to be consideration, how does that impact, and is this the wrong thing to do? And I think it's a worthy part of the conversation, and I'm sure throughout the course of our conversation today, we will discuss some of this as well. I will share a few thoughts on this because it's important to look at this. I think during the first Trump administration, there was this law that was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 2017, wherein that particular law, part of the law was changed, that was to allow to have the congress had put the law where the tax was changed to zero for the Affordable pg/rr 129 Care Act. And that little definition change would make it easier for another lawsuit to be brought forward to address the Affordable Care Act because it was quite clear that the administration was against the Affordable Care Act. So that was a very clear example of how a law was modified for a lawsuit at that time. In the same way during the Bush era, the immigration court challenges for the Real ID Act, across the country there were lawsuits that were put forward in the different courts. And at that time during the Bush era, the congress passed the Real ID Act to make sure that the passage and the pathway was going to be restricted for individuals who were trying to have the opportunity to have the courts decide. I wanna also share what has happened in Connecticut with the Connecticut former governor, Rowland. There was a lawsuit with our Mashantucket Pequot tribe, and we were, as a State of Connecticut, the legislators used legislation to change and recognize the different land mark demarcation, set the boundaries, and cleared the legal disputes through that as well. And then within this body, some years ago, we looked at the statute of limitations for the victims of abuse, and then many of the lawsuits followed after the definition for the look-back period was changed. That look-back window when it was changed, that resulted in lawsuits that came from that situation as well. And we don't have to go that far. House Bill 5249, that my colleagues in this circle, from both sides of the aisle, have proposed a bipartisan bill that is to intervene into the sale and pending matter before PURA and the courts for the Aquarion issue. And then that's another classic case where there is this entire conversation about changing the law when there's a lawsuit that is in place right now. And this is happening not even in the distant past of the Bush era or the previous Trump era, this is in Connecticut today in 2026. People around this circle, they're part of this. pg/rr 130 So I just wanted to put that as well because it's important to look at the broader perspective. I know this has caused a lot of the people in our state concern, and sometimes when the questions that are asked, I recognize that is there's a lot of information out there, and frankly, there's a lot of anxiety out there. And I can empathize with the parents, who strongly believe that their children should not get vaccinated, and and I respect that fact. The challenge that we have is that the risk of infection to the others may be impacted, and that's where the 2021 decisions were made and discussed. They were not perfect, but at the same time, that was in the best interest of the public health. We have reached a point that we have one of the highest rates of vaccination in the country. For our kindergarten children, we have the highest rates that we have. And to give you an example, in 2020, from a public health lens, we had declared victory against measles. As a country, we had said that measles is going to be history. It's going to be just like polio that is no longer going to be seen ever in our lifetime. But in the last two years, we had 4,000 plus cases and some deaths as well. But what has happened in other parts of the country where there's a measles case that results in spread to hundreds of people. But when we had a measles case in Connecticut, it did not spread to a single person. So that's the difference in one of those infections. And I know that while there are two or three or four percent of the people who are passionately not in favor of some of these things, we have to respect that, but identify the ways to be able to continue the work that needs to continue on. So with a lot of respect, care for everyone on all aspects of this, Madam President, I wanted to give the background of this and then make sure everybody understands why we are doing what we are doing and why is it necessary to maintain the status quo. And pg/rr 131 I'd urge all my colleagues to join the House as well to vote in favor of this amended bill. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam President. And I rise for a few comments and a couple questions on the bill as we go through my comments. But first, I wanted to start by saying, I see this bill as anything but the status quo. This is a reckoning or a disruption in many ways. And I wanted to give you my background because I want people in the circle and listening to know that I am person of science. I spent 25 years in -- pg/rr 132

Senator Somers, we're happy to have you pose questions, but could you step over to Senator Sampson's microphone? Because we're informed that folks on CTN are not hearing you. So we want to make sure that everyone can hear your questions to Senator Anwar. We've been having technical issues with our mics.

You go ahead, Senator.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Somers. pg/rr 145

Thank you, Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Somers.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Somers.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Senator Somers.

Thank you. Senator Anwar. pg/rr 147

Thank you. Senator Somers.

Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Mr. Clerk, if you could put the amendment on the board, please.

Senator Somers.

Thank you. Please do summarize.

So we will have a roll call vote on the amendment. And Senator Anwar, would you like to respond?

pg/rr 149 Thank you. Will you remark further on the amendment? Will you remark? Senator Somers.

Thank you. Will you remark further on the amendment? Senator Martin.

Thank you. Senator Somers.

Thank you. Senator Martin.

Thank you. Senator Somers.

Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, can I ask the proponent of the underlining bill, what is his opinion is on that since he is a doctor? And does he see it that way? Through you, Madam President.

Madam President, may I suggest because this is on the amendment, depending on if the amendment passes or not, I can answer that questions perhaps later so we stay on the amendment. pg/rr 151

That's unfortunate. We're sort of in the moment right now. It'd be nice to know that information. But thank you, Madam President, for allowing me to ask those questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, just because of the quorum of how we communicate when there is an amendment, that's why I wanted to be careful not to have three-way conversations. But, Madam President, the bill is saying that it has to be offered. It is not being required. And once you offer and document that you have offered it, it is good enough to be able to read that position. That's the part of standard of care that is defined in this bill at this time. So I wanted to clarify that. And then because of the language to one of the honorable senators who asked me me the question, would have been that because it's offered and it's in the bill, anybody can sue anyone for any reason, but the issue in this situation is that they may not have the legs to stand on because of how the bill is written. So I just wanted to, again, mention that I respect my colleagues' view on it's necessary, but I would urge my colleagues to consider not voting in favor. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you, Madam President. So I think what I understood here is as long as the doctor offers that standard of care, that is a vaccination, he'd be protected. Through you, Madam President. Is that correct?

Through you, Madam President. Correct.

An immediate roll call vote has been ordered in the in the Senate. We're voting on Senate Amendment "A". This is not the bill. We're voting on Senate Amendment "A", substitute for H.B. No. 5044, AN ACT ESTABLISHING CONNECTICUT VACCINE STANDARDS. This is not the bill. We're voting on Senate Amendment "A", H.B. No. 5044. An immediate roll call vote has been ordered in the Senate, H.B. No. 5044, AN ACT ESTABLISHING CONNECTICUT VACCINE STANDARDS. An immediate roll call vote in the Senate.

Total number Voting 34 Total voting Yea 11 Total voting Nay 23 Absent and not voting 2

Sorry, we're sharing microphones over here today. Well, I'm disappointed. And for the physicians that may be watching today, I'm sorry that we couldn't cover you with liability. Mr. President, the clerk is in possession of LCO 4632. I ask the clerk to please call the amendment.

Thank you, Mr. President. I move adoption of the amendment, and waive the reading, and seek leave to summarize. pg/rr 154

Thank you. This amendment simply changes the word from residents back to children, like it was originally established when we passed it a few years ago. And the reason for this is we talked about children. These are recommendations for children's vaccines because we want children to get to an adult age, but residents include everyone. Right? Me, you, everyone here, people in nursing homes, etc. So I believe that people, especially when they're 18 years or older that are not children, should be given the choice to take what they want and what they don't want as far as their medical care. Therefore, I would like to have the words reverted back to what passed a few years ago, where this is focused on children and not residents. And I urge adoption of the amendment, and when the vote is taken, I ask that it be taken by roll.

Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I want to thank my ranking member for the amendment, and I understand the essence of the purpose of this. There's a little technical rationale for this. For us to be able to buy the vaccines for adults, we need residents' title in there. So, we will not be able to get vaccines for our seniors and the people in nursing care facilities. So, that will be part of it. pg/rr 155 And then also with respect to the comment, the choice issue, nothing in this bill is taking the choice away from anybody. So that part should not be bothersome except that our ability to buy the vaccine would be paramount. So, I respect the amendment, but I would respectfully ask my colleagues to vote no because we want to be able to buy vaccines for everybody. Through you, Mr. President. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. Through you. How are we able to purchase vaccines now for individuals without the word resident yet with children, but in the future, we would not be able to, Mr. President? Through you, Mr. President.

The pause I have is that I don't have the amendment. May I suggest that we work on the amendment, and then I can defend the bill if --

Do you have a copy of the amendment? pg/rr 156

Thank you. It's about the amendment, why you're saying no to it. I'm asking you, if you're saying we need to change the language from children to residents because we can't buy vaccines, how are we buying vaccines now without that language? Through you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, CDC is able to provide us for the children. There's a different mechanism to be able to purchase the vaccines because we are responsible, and the federal government has traditionally been responsible for providing the vaccines to the children. One of the challenges for the adults, traditionally, it's been the insurance, but there are people who do not have,access to the coverage. We, as a state, help out in that situation, and that's why there's part of this bill talks about pg/rr 157 that aspect as well. But irrespective, even if the purchase was not an issue, the choice is still there. So, my position is that we should still keep the language as is. So I would urge my colleagues to vote no on this. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you. And I want to talk about this amendment a little bit longer because now that I heard what the good Senator has to say, I don't think that we should be having sweeping legislation where we're creating a resident standard of care, meaning for all adults, because we want to purchase vaccines. We purchase vaccines out of the insurance fund, which is part of our budget. So, it doesn't make any sense to me why we're changing that. Are we trying to buy them cheaper, get them for free? I'm not sure exactly where this is going, but we get vaccines now for adults that choose that want to be vaccinated. But in this bill, we are changing the language from children to residents, and we are creating a resident standard of care. So a standard of care for everyone that then this is what could happen. I go to my doctor, I don't know, I don't want to get a shingles vaccine. I've deviated the standard of care. You know what's going to happen? My insurance company is going to say, I'm dropping you. You didn't follow the standard of care. Or my insurance company can raise my rates because I'm not following the standard of care set forth by the state of Connecticut. There's nothing in this bill that prevents that from happening, and that is a conclusion that is based in pg/rr 158 reality that could happen at any single time. We have it right now with our own health care system. If you don't comply, if you don't get your eye exam, if you don't go get your heart exam, your rates go up. So we are going to change the language creating this whole new adult structure of standard of care so we can buy vaccines, but we're buying them now. That's why I urge adoption of this amendment, which goes back to the original language, which specifically talks about children. And I urge adoption of this amendment. And when the vote is taken, again, I'm not sure if I said this before, I ask that it be taken by roll.

Thank you very much, President Cabrera. Great to see you up there this afternoon. And I would commend Senator Somers, first of all, for her wonderful discussion of the underlying bill in response to the proponents. And I stand in strong support of this amendment. I think we're traveling down a very dangerous road. I was in opposition when we push this procedure and this protocol on the folks that wanted to exercise their religious rights. And I thought that was a mistake then, and I think it's a mistake now. And the fact that now that matters pending before this Supreme Court and we want to sort of backtrack, that's horrible. But that's not what this amendment does. This amendment under the guise, and I will not attribute any ill motive to my friend and colleague, Senator Anwar, who I enjoy serving with tremendously. And I know that he cares passionately about public health. pg/rr 159 But we can't change broad brush public policy just because of some alleged inability to get vaccines. I think we're awash in vaccines. I have never, since the end of the pandemic, seen vaccines pushed for that virus as much as I see now. Because I think the companies that made it have tons of stockpile and they don't know what to do with it. Because the public wised up after that pandemic and said, we were being sold a bill of goods. Now, I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but I keep hearing news dribbling out, did Dr. Fauci get brought into the CIA? I don't know. Were doctors silenced out in California for trying to say that the response to the pandemic was way overboard and unnecessary? I think there's some merit to that. The more we learn about what took place during that period of time, the more disheartening it is. And certainly, there are issues associated with the pandemic vaccine that still hasn't been completely flushed out. There were adverse consequences as that baby was being pushed on our public hook line and sinker, especially for young people where its necessity is really questionable. So now, with one language change, we're changing this standard of care protocol from children to all residents. That means all of us. And it's being sold to us because we need to get vaccines. I have seen zero, zero evidence that there's any danger that we can't get vaccines. I watched, for example, Survivor last night. I couldn't go through one commercial break without being a commercial on some illness and some drug. Some requiring vaccines, some not. We are awash in medicines being sold to us. Now, I don't know if that's because we have an older population. I don't know. I wonder if that's just big pharma. Big pharma just zipping out drugs and they've got to sell it. And it's not allowed to be pg/rr 160 sold via commercial in Europe. We're always being sold, oh, Europe does this and Europe does that and we should be like Europe except when it comes to this stuff. And now we're having everything shoved at us, and you're going to tell me we need to expand the protocol, the standard of care to everyone in Connecticut because we can't get drugs? I don't think so. Now, if you're saying we want to get better prices, then we're going to get better prices. I'm starting to see a theme of this year that the federal government is all bad and we have to be very afraid and we need to do this and that and the other thing because the federal government on this administration is terrible. Well, I'm a little bit skeptical. You may disagree with certain policies, you may be completely unhappy, but the wheels haven't come off for the bus. Our American civilization is not going down the drain, and we are not in danger right now in Connecticut of not having vaccines. Senator Somers is exactly right. You create a standard of care that applies to everyone, there will be consequences. Now, a doctor can recommend? Now, I've heard the answer to the previous amendment, oh, all they have to do is recommend, and if you say no, okay. Well, being an attorney, I can see how this is going to unfold. I've said it when we discussed this bill earlier, this is how it's going to be. Someone's not going to follow their doctor's advice, there's going to be a bad consequence, and they're going to end up suing their doctor. The doctor's going to say, I told that person to do this and they told me in the office I don't want to do it. Okay. Now, we're going to get to the proof, and it's going to be a battle of documentation. So what's the next step? I would suggest that the physician is going to have to have a document where pg/rr 161 the patient was recommended X, Y, Z, and if they chose not to do it, they sign here or at least it'll be something that says, I, Dr. X, said to do all of these things, fully inform the patient, and this is to acknowledge that they were fully informed. There's going to be those consequences once you create standards. We already have a medical malpractice system that I worked back in the day really really hard to reform, but making sure that injured patients were able to seek redress. Yes, I did not take the side of the physicians in that debate, but we were able to make it a better system, so that doctors could still remain in practice, and not have their rates go through the roof. It was a difficult balancing test, but we made it through. And we've made it through more than a decade of time since then. This is a huge change. Here's my other concern specific to this bill. By creating a standard of care that now goes beyond children, we've already used a hammer against children when we wanted the majority that supported that previous bill to push that policy. Such that, and it blows my mind that we were able to pass constitutional mustard with our State Supreme Court withdrawing a constitutionally guaranteed right to a free public education. That was a huge hammer hanging over the head of every family member, making sure their kids got the vaccine. And I never heard answers to Senator Somers questions regarding about the neighborhoods, the towns, and cities where there was a really low percentage of individuals, children that were getting vaccines, because you know what, had nothing to do with a religious mandate, had nothing to do with the religious exemption. But for those poor people that wanted to follow their Lord and their God and their religious principles, well, the hammer came down on them. So, pg/rr 162 now, if we expand it beyond children, what's the hammer going to be? Now, we're being told right now, oh, there's no hammer. There's not going to be any push to have everybody follow this. But once you establish the protocol, now what about next year's legislature? What if the majority then says, we're paying so much money for insurance, everybody needs to follow these protocols, everybody needs to follow the standard of care? What can they do to start mandating that? I'm fearful. I don't trust the government when it comes to this stuff. They have a terrible track record. So, now, anybody that's involved with a state contract, you could have your contract pulled if you don't follow the standard of care? Is it something that if you have a benefit in any way, shape, or form from the state of Connecticut that can get yanked if you don't follow the standard of care? What if you really want the physicians to push certain things? Can you put pressure on them? See, I just don't trust putting all this authority into the government's hands, because again, I just don't have to look back that far to see the system abused. We were living through a crazy age during the pandemic. You couldn't go to church but you could have package stores open 24/7. Corner stores had to be closed but Home Depot was open. It was a world turned upside down. And depending on the state, the laws were completely different. Well, now we're expanding this standard of care, this protocol to every resident. That means all of us. I don't believe that we need that to have access to vaccines. To me, that's a straw man argument. I'm happy to be told I'm absolutely wrong. If someone presented me with information in my hand that spelled it all out, then I'd take a second look at pg/rr 163 that. But that's not here. There's nothing in here regarding that. Not at all. So what are we doing? We're happily going down a path where not too far from here, government can change its mind and start imposing its will. And they will have established the predicate grounds to do that. Hey, if I didn't have to look back too far and see that it was abused, I might look at this differently. But again, I've been through that pandemic. It just really hurt a lot of young people and it hurt a lot of people in my constituency, and it still has ripple effects. We're resilient as human beings. We put a lot of that nonsense out of our head, but I cannot forget that the government has that authority. Governor Lamont could just declare an emergency, and I've been here in this circle. I was here when I got sworn in outside the building in the freezing cold because I had members that didn't even want to have the session in this Chamber. You don't have to go back too far. And now we are going to require all residents to participate in vaccines if they want? If they want today, but maybe they must tomorrow. And there'll be some reason why that is being pushed. And I don't have to imagine too hard. It's going to be insurance costs, and it's probably going to start with state employees. I'm already grappling with this. My youngest son is 22 years old. I am in a fight with the comptroller's office, not with the comptroller, but they farmed out to a third-party out in the Midwest to prove that my son is my son living with me, so that he can continue to have the health care that I get as a state employee. He was born under the state health care plan. He took his first breath under the state health care plan. I got divorced five years ago. I have divorce papers that say, he is my son. And yet, I'm going through pg/rr 164 all these hoops so he can stay on the plan, because state employee health benefits are fabulous. Well, when you have a fabulous benefit, that is fabulous leverage for policies. And by the way, we have that whole precedent here as state employees. If you have that health care, there are things you have to do each and every year, or you lose your health care. You can pay for it, and so you instead of losing it, you pay like another $400. And trust me, I slipped up on an eye exam and I ended up going like a whole year paying extra money because it's really hard to get an appointment with my eye doctor. So I've been through all this just by accident, without the government deciding it's going to ram its power down my throat, like it did not that long ago. It's happening now. State enforces its will on us now if you're a state employee and you want this Cadillac of benefits that we have unless you pay a lot more. And as you get older you realize I got to do X, I got to do Y, I got to do Z, I got to do X. In a previous discussion with some of my colleagues prior to coming out here, I said, I can't believe because I don't feel I'm old as old as I am on paper, but I hit a certain age and I indicated that my doctor just retired, one that I loved, just a wonderful, wonderful physician, and he decided to retire at the end of 2025. So I looked around and asked for some help, and lo and behold, someone said why don't you go see this doctor and she's awesome. She is so good. She's 38 years old. She's really up to speed on all the new, everything. And now she's telling me about the shingles vaccine, and I'm not big on vaccines. But then she told me the consequences. Well, it depends on what part of your body might get the shingles. And if it's up near your eyes, you might go blind in one of your eyes and all this stuff. pg/rr 165 And Dr. Anwar, Senator Anwar, he's nodding his head because I'm sure he's given this advice to people himself, that there are consequences for not taking vaccines that are known to actually diminish your chances of getting something, or may even stop you from getting it totally. And so, I am getting the shingles vaccine, and I got the first of two doses. Also, I didn't know, but you hit a certain age there's a pneumonia vaccine. So I got the pneumonia vaccine. So these are choices that I have, but they weren't rammed down my throat. By the way, in bringing out the bills, Senator Anwar talked about this measles outbreak. And I saw Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was beloved by the left until he became part of the Trump administration. And suddenly, he's like vilified. And I, actually, am so thankful that there's someone in the federal government changing our health policies because I think we've been led astray by big pharma, and Big Food, and other giant multinational corporations for a long long time. And when they had sugar turn the food pyramid upside down against fats, that was a huge mistake. You cannot look at people from the 1970s and compare them to people now, and not shake your head and say, what the heck happened in America? It is not all because of cell phones, and sitting in front of the TV, and stuff like that. I am of the firm belief that powerful interest in Washington from the sugar lobby made sugar less detrimental than fats. And all of a sudden, the steak houses that we had in the '70s and everything else vanished, but other things crept in. And we had big tobacco buy up food companies, and all of a sudden, foods with chemical bases that make you want to eat after one Dorito more and more and more, and it's not a slight against that snack food pg/rr 166 because I love those darn things. But there's powerful interest in Washington that corral policies, and it's not always good for us as human beings. Well, I don't want to give government in Connecticut not that it's as horrible as in Washington, but that kind of power. And I'm less concerned with big giant corporations in Connecticut getting that. I'm more concerned with very good meaning majority party people, unless we in the minority, get control sometime in the near future, deciding this is a great idea and not enough people are on board and we need to nudge them into this position. So, what starts out as persons or just residents of Connecticut, now that vehicle is there to be used to push policies. And I don't want policies pushed on me because I value my liberty. It's amazing we still let people smoke cigarettes because that is so clearly a really bad thing for your health. But guess what? We just make too much darn money off the revenue of sales of cigarettes to ban it outright. I mean, come on, think it through. I've had too many people die too young because of smoking and cancer, and I think that's pretty, pretty obvious. Heart disease, lung disease, everything else, and yet it's not banned. But we find something else and maybe the cohort is narrower and not a tax consequence that we have to deal with, then we can make it all wiped out. I don't think it's necessarily bad that we want to influence the behavior of adults in Connecticut, but I don't want to do it this way. And I don't want it sort of like casually slipped into a bill that, oh, well, it was children yesterday but it's residents today. To me, that's a sea change. That is huge. Huge. We had that giant battle about the religious exemption, and we lost that battle for so many people because they were easily targeted. pg/rr 167 Senator Somers pointed out, if we have a vaccine problem, let's address the vaccine problem for children. And that had nothing to do with the religious exemption, but they were the ones easily targeted. We didn't really, from what I can tell, address the problem primarily in our urban areas and people that weren't educated or have health care available to them. And now, we want to expand this to people? To all adults? I say no. So I think there's a lot of reasons to put the brakes on right here and pause. I think there's a lot of other issues that are going to come to the fore regarding this bill based upon amendments that Senator Somers and others on our side of the aisle are going to bring forward. But I couldn't sit silent on this one because I think this is one of the biggest changes of this bill. Going backwards and wanting to change the supreme court midstream? Yes, that's an issue. Trying to reverse the policy or trying to address some of that policy regarding children, but we sort of fought that fight and lost. And you know what? I'm not a bad sport. If I fought the good fight and I lost, okay. We run on the principle of the will of the majority. I get it. But don't sneak this stuff, even if it's an accident, but don't just sort of get this in there and say, oh, it's not a big deal. We needed to get vaccines. We're not at a loss. Senator Somers said, we're not at a loss. Right now, there is no headline anywhere in Connecticut says we're in great danger of losing vaccines. That is not the case. It's not how it's done. They're stockpiled. They're available. And there may be a measles outbreak internationally, because I listen to the testimony in Congress, because I'm wonkish that way and crazy, and not only pg/rr 168 will I watch CTN, I'll watch C-SPAN. And I saw the responses that the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary Kennedy gave. And our response to the measles crisis in America has been great compared to other parts of the world. And yes, it did sneak up on us, and God forbid, we ever see polio again, too. And there's things we haven't even dreamed of yet. I don't want to undermine the ability of good, great physicians and nurses and everybody associated with health care, like Dr. Anwar, who he's in here. I don't know how he does it. I don't know how Senator Gordon does it. I don't know how these men do it, or women, or anybody involved in health care, how you juggle that and do this job at the same time. God bless your soul. Their patients have really dedicated great people helping them in their health care. But when it comes to public policy, I think all of our voices matter. And I'm just not ready to be brought into that cohort where I'm being told what vaccines I must take or must not take. And right now, I agree. Senator Anwar said no one's saying you got to do this, I get it, but it starts off with, well you don't have to, but we're going to put you in this category of you're going to be required to be told. And that's all well and good, but that doesn't always last forever. And so maybe I'm being overly pessimistic or overly cautious or distrustful of government, but I've just seen this play play out too many times now. And I've been around this circle for a while. If you would ask me pre-pandemic if I had these kind of concerns, probably not so much, if at all. If you had told me that the government on a federal level would have brought people into the CIA or silenced physicians that had a different view of health care, or gone into the web and silence pg/rr 169 certain people that were singing against the government song, I would have said, no, that doesn't happen. I'm still one of these guys that really does not want to believe that our government had anything to do with the assassination of President Kennedy. But every day I wake up, there's one more illusion that I guess I was living under, and I just believed in, and I guess I'm just an old fogey because it was wrong. I'm not a big conspiracy theory guy. I'm just not. But if you give people the right tools at the right time, the tendency is to try to use them. And I don't want them there. I want it to be hard. Senator Somers, I'll conclude with this, said the balance of powers, Judicial Branch, Executive Branch, Legislative Branch. It's not always equal, but it should be a balance. But the other thing that our founding fathers made really important in the construct, not only of our federal government, but we replicated it, sometimes they took the ideas from us here in the Constitution state of Connecticut, we made it hard, hard to set up government policies and actions, because we were fearful of big government from afar. We didn't want to be dictated to by Parliament in London that was taking away our rights as loyal colonists. We didn't rebel because we wanted to be revolutionaries. We rebelled because we felt that we were English citizens that were being stepped on and trodden upon. It was just April 19th, ladies and gentlemen, that the first shots were fired in Lexington, just a few days ago, 250 years ago. Let's not freely give away our liberties willy-nilly. I support this amendment. Thank you, Mr. President.

Immediate roll call vote has been ordered in the in the Senate. We're voting on Senate Amendment "B". This is not the bill. We're voting on Senate Amendment "B", substitute for H.B. No. 5044, AN ACT ESTABLISHING CONNECTICUT VACCINE STANDARDS. This is not the bill. This is Senate Amendment "B", H.B. No. 5044. An immediate roll call vote has been ordered in the Senate on Senate Amendment "B" of H.B. No. 5044.

Total number Voting 34 Total voting Yea 12 Total voting Nay 22 Absent and not voting 2

Thank you, Mr. President.

I got to figure out which microphone to use here.

Thank you, Mr. President. Through you, I have just a quick clarification for legislative intent to the proponent of the bill.

I wanted to ensure that any possible vaccine that may be added to the standard of care which, in my opinion, of course, is a vaccine mandate, that it would have its full clinical studies from Phase 1 through 3, it would have been evaluated and cleared by the FDA and the CDC, and it would be part of the VAERS system. Through you, Mr. President.

Thank you. Through you, Mr. President, yes.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. President. And I rise to speak on the bill. And I'm going to preface my remarks with a few statements that I think are important to discuss, because as we know, this is an emotional issue. Of course, issues dealing with people having their right to decide what they do for themselves, what they do for their own health, what happens with their bodies, what happens for their children, what happens with their religious beliefs. Of course, that would be a lot of passions raised, a lot of emotions raised. And I respect that. I expected that would be the case. And I want to make certain that those who have these concerns, these serious concerns, some of whom are here today, exercising their rights to let us, as legislators, know what they think that that's acknowledged because that is important throughout all of this. And I'll get back to that when I talk a bit about this bill and what went into things. But one of the other things that's extremely important to talk about and to make certain that people understand is that despite various statements that have been made, not here in this Chamber, but during this whole process, some of which has been made outside of the Capitol, that if you are not in favor of this bill does not mean you're not in favor of public health. I'm a state Senator, but I'm also a doctor. I understand public health, I understand medicine. And we can work to uphold our rights and our medical pg/rr 173 freedoms. We can work to respect people's religious beliefs, but still uphold public health. And the two are not at odds with each other. They're not mutually exclusive. And that's extremely important to know, that when there are serious legitimate concerns raised about this bill and what this bill does and does not do, including what I think are very serious things that it does and does not do, that we still are looking to do what we can to uphold public health. And the reason I say that is that even though there is a role for government, to a degree, in public health, including in times of emergencies, the constitution of the United States of America does not go away. It does not disappear. It is not diminished. It is there. And it is a foundation, not only of our country's founding, but a foundation all throughout our country's history. And it's wonderful this year to be celebrating the 250th of this country. That's remarkable. And despite all the twists and turns in our history as a state and as a country, some good, some bad, various crises, wars, things like that, the constitution never disappeared. It was there. Over time, it's been amended, and that was a process built into the constitution itself, but how you can amend the constitution. But the constitution is there and doesn't go away. And even though we look to see what we can do for public health, and I respect those very much who work in public health, we have to, at the same time, make certain there is the proper balance of respecting people's rights. And these are rights that government doesn't somehow graciously give to us. These are rights that we have, and the constitution of the United States of America and the constitution of Connecticut are there to uphold our rights. And in fact, very specific wording that we have is there to say that pg/rr 174 not for people to abridge various of our rights, and just as importantly, not to have government abridge the rights. Very specific wording put into the constitutions, and it was done for a very clear reason. And when we think about what we do for public health, for example, we need to keep in mind people's rights. And the two are very important, but we can't let certain public health things trample on people's rights, people's decision makings, people's medical freedoms, and people's religious beliefs. We may agree with their decisions, we may not agree with their decisions. We may practice under different religious beliefs. And in fact, even under one religion, there's a whole, almost infinite range of religiosity. People's own relationship to God, however they feel that is. But we still have to respect that they make their decisions, they have their religious beliefs. And so, even though I am a doctor, I very much keep these things in mind in my role as a state Senator. And in fact, as a doctor, I have to keep these things in mind as well when I'm practicing medical care. And I'll get into that in a little bit. But I just want to make certain people understand that this is not one against the other. This is trying to make certain we are upholding both issues about public health and people's rights, freedoms, and religious beliefs, and seeing where we are balancing that. And I don't believe that this bill strikes the right balance. I think it overweights to a government role, no matter how well-intentioned, that I feel is not the right balance. And I've been very clear about that, including during my comments during Public Health Committee meetings and outside of the committee meetings. And I'll get into that in a bit. pg/rr 175 One of the things that we always have to be mindful of is that a prime directive, a fundamental principle of our free society rests on the rights of individuals, including of parents, to make their own decisions and have their own beliefs. Law-abiding people do that every day throughout Connecticut and throughout our country. In fact, there are many people around the world that wish they could have the rights and the freedoms and ability to exercise their beliefs, as we do and we take for granted, but we still need to make certain that we're there every day defending the rights and people's ability to exercise their rights. Because rights don't exist just by themselves. It takes people to defend them, and people who exercise them to stand up. And for me, that's extremely important when we look at a bill like this. And as I said, I believe this bill is too weighted to the role of government and not good with regards to what it does to abridge people's rights, medical freedoms, and religious beliefs. And I'll get into that in a little bit with regards to some other aspects that I have concerns about relative to this bill. One of the things as well that we want to make certain that we attend to is that we listen to people. Now, I spend a lot of time listening to people. Sometimes, one of the best things to do is not talk and just listen to people. You learn an awful lot, of course. And part of our role as legislators is that we are here to listen. And one of the important aspects of that is when we hold public hearings. And the first operative word in a public hearing is public. That's actually the key word, is public. And overwhelmingly, the Public Health Committee heard from and had testimony from people who were opposed to this bill because they're concerned about their pg/rr 176 individual rights being abridged. They're concerned about their parental rights being bridged. They're concerned about their medical freedoms being abridged. They're concerned about their religious beliefs being abridged. And one of the terrible aspects of that public hearing was when there was a vote and the Majority Party voted, before the public hearing even listened to the first person testifying, to arbitrarily set a time to limit debate, knowing that not everyone who abided by the rules signed up to testify by the deadline that was listed was going to be able to testify. And then from there, later on, things fell apart. And then we reached the magic hour when the public hearing had to end, I was proud with my Republican colleagues to host, an informal public hearing for those who had stayed to listen to what they had to say. But if you listen to what they had to say, if you looked at the testimony, overwhelmingly people raised the same concerns. It wasn't a cookie-cutter concern. It wasn't this form email concern. These were legitimate concerns by each one of those people. And that sends a clear message to us that when people overwhelmingly are telling the legislature that they feel their rights and freedoms and religious beliefs are being abridged and trampled on, that should cause us to pause and to think about what we're doing. The committee went ahead. I voted against this bill, and I was clear in my reasoning, and I've been consistent throughout, and I haven't changed my reasoning. In fact, continuing to hear from people, including many of my own constituents, has reinforced to me that I'm making the right vote for them. It's not a vote for me, but a vote for them. And the reason it's not a vote for me is I make my own medical pg/rr 177 decisions. Now, sometimes, my wife may argue, I don't always make the right decisions. She's a doctor, so, I do at times listen to her, but I do make my own medical decisions. I've decided to be vaccinated, but that's my own decision making. I look at the science of vaccines, I look at what the vaccines can do, and I've made my own decision. But I don't put that my own decision and tell someone else, you have to do exactly what I do. I make my own medical decisions because I have my individual right to do so and my medical freedom to do so. And if I decide not to do something medically, then that's my decision. But I don't hold it against anyone who decides not to take a vaccine just because I do. I'm not paternalistic. And in fact, in all my many years as a doctor, my role has been to use my education, my experience, my knowledge, my skill, to give people the best advice as I can at any given time. And give them information, give them opportunities to ask questions, and they make their decisions. Now, I may not agree with the decision sometimes. I'm a cancer doctor. Sometimes I tell someone, you have a 99% likelihood of being cured of a cancer, and they may decide they don't want chemotherapy. May not be what I would decide, but it's not my decision. They decide. Or I may tell someone, you have a cancer, unfortunately, that is difficult to treat. It's not likely we're going to be able to do anything. I don't recommend it, but they still want to do it. I think it's still within appropriateness for medical care and safety parameters, then I work with them. May not be a decision I would make if I were in that situation, but I respect their decision making, and that they've had the opportunity to pg/rr 178 think through information provided, ask questions. And the same applies to vaccines. Do I advise people to get vaccines when medically it's appropriate? Because sometimes I have to tell people who don't have immune systems from chemotherapy effects, you shouldn't get a vaccine at this particular time. But, yes, I do. But I'm giving the information and giving them the opportunities. But this bill goes beyond that, and that's a serious concern and a serious issue with one of the reasons I cannot support this bill. With that said, there are some things that this bill does, and I'll get into those in more detail. One is I believe it does create a medical standard of care. I do believe that it opposes real world mandates, even if it doesn't use the word. You don't have to use the word mandate to impose a mandate. I do believe, as I said, it bridges people's individual rights for their own decision making as competent adults and competent parents, law-abiding. I believe it bridges people's religious freedoms and beliefs, every time I read the bill. And I believe it unnecessarily interjects politics. And we've already heard today some of that, referencing things happening at the national level, into decision making here at the state level on serious public policy. That, we should not be doing. I'm not going to be interjecting that, and I'm not factoring that in to my decision making on the merits of the bill and how I take my vote of a no on this bill. And there are some things that this bill does not do. This bill, I believe, does not change the state's ability to purchase vaccines that are approved by the federal government. There may be something changed with the CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but we also have FDA approval of various things. pg/rr 179 And I don't see at all that the state is limited in its ability to purchase vaccines that are FDA approved, or that become approved through the process that's built into law that the federal government uses. I believe that this bill does not respect individuals' rights to make their own decisions, and I don't believe it respects individuals' rights for their religious beliefs. And I'll get into that in some more detail. I won't go section by section through the bill. I'm tempted to, but I won't right now because I think I can put different sections of the bill into different groupings. I'll leave that for others who might want to go through individual sections if they so choose. One of the things that we heard about, and we've had some discussion already about here in the Chamber, and this was brought up during the Public Health Committee, which is a committee I enjoy serving on and working on. Certainly, as a doctor, a committee I sought to be on, and I'm happy to have that opportunity, is we've heard about standard of care. Now, standard of care has two different definitions. There's a medical definition, in a sense, then of course there's the legal definition. Now, legal views on certain things that happen in the world of medicine are not always the same as what happens for those of us who have the medical view. But there's many different types of variations on theme of standard of care. And one of those more or less is what a reasonable person of similar skill, education, or training would do in a similar circumstance. And there's various definitions that the courts, at times, will recognize or lawyers, I'm not a lawyer, will use. But when you are setting certain standards of care, it does set certain expectations, and it does set up certain types of mandate situations, even if you don't call it a mandate. pg/rr 180 Now, standards of care are not necessarily etched in stone, that if you deviate by one iota, you're in trouble. Now, there are some big ones out there that you don't want to do. But we recognize that there's a lot of flexibility that needs to be taken into account from individual cases to individual cases when we provide medical care. And each person's care throughout the spectrum of care is fluid and dynamic and changes. It's one of the challenges and excitements of practicing medicine. I think it's also wonderful opportunities for us to be helping people throughout all those spectrums of care. With that said, however, there are some expectations. We can argue about different shades of a color, but sometimes, things can be very different with different colors of the rainbow from each other. And so, that's where some of these concerns are raised relative to are we talking with a standard of care with different shades of a degree of red versus arguing, is it red or is it green? Two very different situations. And one has to be concerned that when state government is interjecting itself to say that we're going to say more what a standard of care is, this bill very much has into it about setting standards. And even if that's terminology in current law, this is adding to that and expanding that. And we have to be mindful of that. When you set certain standards and government does, that falls to those practicing health care doctors and other health care professionals that are you following that? What happens if a professional society has certain recommendations in a certain specialty or subspecialty that's not fully recognized in this law, could you potentially be in trouble? Could someone be concerned about what you advised or didn't advise? pg/rr 181 People may say it's not a mandate because the word mandate's not there, but in the real world that we live in, and you have to practice medical care in, it does very much have mandate effects. No way around that. That's my view. I think it's crystal clear reading through this bill. Others may disagree with me. That's fine. But I have yet to hear any cogent or coherent arguments that have changed my thinking on that. That's a serious issue, and I don't think that's the role for government. We can codify into law certain overarching things, such as someone shows up in an emergency room and you shall provide care. I think that's one aspect of medical care, but we're not sitting there and codifying 10,000 different items that you shall do this, here's a new standard. So, professional medical societies, and there's many of them, don't necessarily have to follow the CDC. Usually, they do, but they don't always have to. Sometimes there's certain scenarios where even the CDC gives flexibility, knowing that in different aspects of care, things are looked at certain ways versus another aspect of care. So, I want to make it clear that trying to interject into this about the CDC and people's feelings of the CDC or whatever may happen, I don't think is right in trying to create new or additional standards of care here in the state of Connecticut. Those are serious concerns that I would have about that. Those are real issues that we have to attend to when we are looking through this bill and thinking on this bill. I've already talked about one section of this bill relative to being able to purchase vaccines. And I don't think I need to go into that in too much detail further, but I might if needed. But that's important to understand that even though we hear about, well, this bill will allow the state to pg/rr 182 purchase some vaccines, even if it's not on the CDC list, unless the FDA has revoked approval for something, which is a whole different entity, and things that sometimes the FDA has to do on certain drugs which have happened over time for good reasons, usually it's safety reasons, or it approved it and then data later came out showing that the benefit really isn't there, and then it will yank an approval, the state of Connecticut can still purchase vaccines. And in fact, it purchasing vaccines is not bad. It can leverage its ability to bulk purchase and help get things out to public health departments, things like that. But I don't believe this bill gives anything additional to the state. There are people who may try to say that it does, but I don't see that it does. The state already has it, I believe. And I haven't seen anything in here that really adds much more to that. One of the other major parts of this bill that I've already talked about that is serious issue is about religious beliefs. Most states in this country have a religious exemption, and there's a lot of them that actually also have a philosophical exemption. I don't like to use the terms red and blue states. I really just refer to them as states. But no matter how you wish to define the states politically, across party lines in various states, many states have exemptions. Religious, plus minus philosophical. That's separate from medical exemptions where there are legitimate and known medical reasons not to take a vaccine. We know that. That's different. But religious exemption is something else. And interestingly, and it's important to highlight, that Connecticut, I believe, was the first state to institute a state law relative to religious freedom and restoration. In fact, it's the Connecticut Religious Freedom and Restoration Act. pg/rr 183 In this very Chamber, I wasn't here at the time, all 36 senators voted for it. And in the House it passed almost near unanimous. There were a handful, I think, of absent votes. And actually, even in the federal level, when the feds passed a similar law, think during the time of President Clinton, a Democrat, it had huge support. Now, there was a Supreme Court case, a US Supreme Court, that said that that law had limitations on how it could tag to the states, and then you saw states do stuff. But Connecticut was a leader. We hear all the time when various bills come out. We heard it today on S.B. 4, we heard it yesterday in S.B. 5 that Connecticut is a leader. Let's be proud of that we hear. Shouldn't we be proud of the fact that we are one of the first states, if not the first state, to not only recognize, but uphold religious freedom and religious beliefs? Overwhelming. Again, unanimous in this Chamber. Later on, then, I think it was 2021 was when the religious exemptions were, I believe, attacked, and you saw things being removed. That was a huge backtrack on what this state did previously to try to defend and uphold people exercising their rights for their religious beliefs. And just as importantly, in the law, there is a provision to say that people can seek redress. And they seek redress two ways. They talk with us and "lobby" us as legislators, or they use the court system. And in fact, people have looked to use the court system. And we've heard about a lawsuit that this bill tries to short-circuit, and I think it was Spillane v. Lamont, went through this Connecticut Supreme Court. Now, we've heard that supposedly the court found all aspects, met constitutional muster, pg/rr 184 and the court felt that the issue was settled. That's actually not fully true. If you read through the court case, and I won't read it here in the record, but I have a copy if anybody wants to read it, it's very interesting reading, that one of the, I guess, counts that the plaintiffs raised was not actually fully dismissed. And that's why there's still the issue about what's happening with this lawsuit. And one of the things that I spoke on prior in the committee and very much want to highlight here today, which is another reason I cannot support this bill, is that it is terrible for the Legislative Branch of people's state government to feel it's not going to like the outcome of a lawsuit, and decide, you know what? We're not going to wait to see what the court says because the state government might lose. So, you know what? Pull the rug out from under the plaintiffs. Cut their legs off. Short circuit the process. And then we don't have to worry about what the courts are going to say because now it's moot. Can you imagine doing that? Can you imagine using a state law that was put in, giving people the opportunity to seek redress? They follow the law, they seek redress of concerns about their religious beliefs and the state interfering with that and bridging it and limiting it. They go through the process. They follow the process. They go to the Supreme Court of the State of Connecticut to argue their case before the justices there. And the court did dismiss some counts, if that's the right legal terminology, but didn't outright dismiss one of the counts. And when you read through that, guess it's the opinion of the court, it was very interesting what the court said and why. And didn't outright say, pg/rr 185 you're all done. There's still a pathway for them to redress government, to seek redress, because they feel they've been harmed. And to have state government want to completely change the rules as they're going through that process is absolutely terrible. There is no legal argument, I believe, you can make to explain why you would do that. There is a political argument that is being made, not by me, but by others. And to put into this bill to try to short-circuit that is absolutely terrible. I have heard no good explanation for why. I hear certain overarching things about public health, but this provision in this bill is not about public health. It is absolutely very clearly about some people in the legislature and some people in the political sphere of things so concerned that the court will side with the plaintiffs on that remaining count that they don't want to get to that point. So let's just change everything. That's exactly what this is. In fact, when there's no other way to explain it and when you show the facts to the "average" person in Connecticut, they know how to connect the dots on this. And they know that not only do they feel that their religious beliefs are affected adversely, but their legal ability to seek redress with the very same state government that is adversely affecting their religious beliefs has been just completely shot out from under them. Absolutely terrible thing to do and a terrible civics lesson to the kids of Connecticut. Just incredibly bad. And for that reason alone, we should not pass this bill. Because if state government today, by some people, can do that on this issue, then there is nothing at all that will prevent state government at any time by some people to do the exact same thing on other issues. Nothing at all. In fact, it opens pg/rr 186 the door so wide that I think you'd have to expand I-95 and 91 and 84 because you can drive unbelievable convoys of trucks through on anything you want to change at any time to short-circuit things in a court system. Absolutely terrible precedent, I believe, that that would set. And that is not what we should be doing in a bill. Let the court system play out. If you don't like the end result, then you don't like the end result. But don't, at all, take away from people their right, their legal right, per law that was unanimously passed some years ago by this very chamber, some of whom are still here, and take it away from them at this point in time. And if there's any kids who are watching, be very aware that this is a prime civics lesson for you about why the constitution of our state and the constitution of our country was written to protect our rights and to make it clear that government does not exist for its own sake, but government exists because of the consent and agreement of the people. That government is here to serve people, not serve itself or serve any special interests. This is, I'm not going to say wonderful civics lesson, but this is an important civics lesson. And pay attention to the vote because that's part of the civics lesson. And you'll also see those who evidently have learned that lesson, or ignored the lesson, and those who very much recognize it and abide by it. Very important civics moment in our state. Mr. President, the clerk is in possession of LCO No. 4622. And I ask the clerk to please call the amendment.

LCO No. 4622, Senate Amendment "C".

Thank you, Mr. President. I move adoption of the amendment, waive the reading, and please seek leave to summarize.

Thank you, Mr. President, This is a very straightforward amendment. In fact, I think it's maybe one of the shortest amendments I've ever brought up. pg/rr 188

Will you remark further? The question is on adoption. Will you remark further? Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Will you remark further? Will you remark further? If not, the machine will be open. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Have all the Senators voted? Have all the Members have voted? If all the Members have voted, the machine will be locked. Will the Clerk, please, announce the tally?

The amendment fails. Senator Gordon.

pg/rr 199 Thank you, Senator Gordon. And good afternoon, Senator Sampson.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Sampson.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Sampson.

Thank you. Senator Anwar. pg/rr 204

Thank you. Senator Sampson.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Sampson.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Sampson.

Thank you, sir. Will you remark further on the bill? Will you remark further on the bill? We will stand at ease, and let Senator Perillo get to his seat. Senator Perillo, will you remark on the bill, sir?

Thank you. Mr. Clerk. pg/rr 219

Thank you. Senator Perillo.

Thank you. The question is on adoption. Will you remark on the amendment before the Chamber? Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Will you remark further? Senator Perillo.

Thank you. We will have a roll call vote. Will you remark on the amendment before the Chamber? Senator Martin.

Thank you. Senator Anwar. Oh, I do apologize. That's unusual. Senator Perillo. Sorry about that.

Thank you. Senator Martin. pg/rr 223

Thank you, Senator Martin. Will you remark further on the amendment? Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Will you remark on the amendment before the Chamber? Senator Martin.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Martin.

Thank you. Will you remark further on the amendment? If not, will you remark further? The machine is open. Mr. Clerk, please announce the vote.

Have all the Senators voted? Have all the Senators pg/rr 226 voted? The machine is locked. Mr. Clerk, the tally, please.

Thank you. Amendment fails. Senator Perillo.

Thank you. Mr. clerk.

Senator Perillo.

Thank you. The question is on adoption, and we will have a roll call vote when we do that. Will you remark on the amendment? Senator Anwar.

Thank you, Senator Anwar. Senator Perillo.

Will you remark further? Will you remark further? If not, a roll call vote is ordered.

Have all the Members voted? If all the Members have voted, the machines will be locked. And would the clerk please announce the tally?

The amendment fails. Sorry. Will you remark further on the bill? Senator Perillo.

Thank you. Will you remark further on the bill? Senator Sampson.

The question is on adoption. Will you remark? Oh, sorry.

The question is on adoption. Will you remark?

Will you remark? Senator Gordon.

Thank you, Senator Gordon. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. A roll call vote will be ordered. Will you remark further? If not, would the clerk please announce a roll call vote? And the machine will be opened.

Have all the Members voted? If all the Members have voted, the machine will be locked. Will the clerk please announce the tally?

The amendment fails. Will you remark further? Senator Fazio.

Senator Anwar.

Senator Fazio.

Senator Anwar.

Thank you, Senator Anwar. Senator Fazio.

Senator Anwar.

Discuss the longest public hearing was in Connecticut. We wanted to make sure that there was a public hearing. We did not have to do this in an emergency. But also ACIP and CDC foresee and make regulations on all age groups. They do not necessarily do it for children. They do it for everybody else as well. So, it was very clear the direction that people were moving in, the statements that they had made. So, you look at the members of ACIP that have been appointed by RFK who actually made the statement that they don't understand immunology and they don't understand vaccine, but they are sitting making that guideline. The other person made the statement that COVID vaccine gave AIDS to people, which when you hear the perspective and the capacity of the individual sitting there, you have to prevent a human made disaster to the best that you can. And then that's one of the aspects. It had already started. It started to show. Thankfully, the courts have intervened for the time being. We probably may hear more about the changes that are there. With respect to the insurance part, we had to cover that as well. The reason being that the insurance would find a reason not to cover something. But they have been excellent partners in our state, and they're willing to work with the standard of care to be able to follow the insurance coverage for our patients. So, that was some of the other parts to that reason on the rationale. Thank you for your question. Through you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Senator, for the dialogue. I don't think I'm satisfied with the rationale. Again, if we wanted to grandfather the existing standard of care because of the concerns about decisions made, if we wanted to broaden the authorities on which the health commissioner could rule, if we wanted to expand our purchasing of certain vaccinations for public availability, I would understand the rationale. I might not vote for the bill, but I would understand. But more broadly applying the standard of care, potentially catching up all adults, all residents in the State of Connecticut, giving the Governor special emergency powers and the ability to declare emergency powers on his own or her own, among other regulations, seems far afield from those justifications that were set out in the beginning. For now, I think I have completed the questions I would like to ask of the good Senator. Unfortunately, I was not satisfied with the explanations. You know, I remember the old quotation, never let a good crisis go to waste. I think that when there is a controversy at hand, that too often government uses it and members of government use it as a pretext for expanding and concentrating power in ways that they always wanted to, and to make every citizen and conscientious objector break to the saddle of government and its desires. I do not think that that is how we should govern and how we should lead in a great state with a great history of freedom in this country. I have great concerns about this legislation today for any number of reasons. I believe that we can protect the public health and preserve personal freedom, and that preserving personal freedom goes hand in hand with pg/rr 243 protecting the public health. They are not actually in opposition. And imposing more controls and more mandates on individuals across our state will actually do harm across all dimensions. The only thing that it will accomplish is the desires of many in government to impose decisions on so many who do not see life their way. Giving the commissioner of health new and broader discretion will obviously concentrate more power in a single individual, an appointed health commissioner. I have heard that under present law, that the health commissioner could be interpreted to already having fairly broad powers over what can be considered as part of the vaccination schedule or the standard of care. If that is the case already in current law, then even under the rationale of the proponents of the legislation, this section of the bill would not be necessary. I remain concerned that explicitly broadening the powers of one individual in this state over health decisions for so many is a bad precedent. But at least if that was the sole justification, the sole purpose of the law, we probably would be having a less fraught debate today. Giving so much or so much more power to a single individual is likely to result in unforeseen consequences that will come into the future. The individual making those decisions will not always be that individual whom you envisioned from the onset. It will not always end up exactly how the proponents of the legislation intended. It was very curious and surprising, and concerning, that minors or children who were the under existing law, the area of cognizance for the standard of care for the vaccination schedule would now be expanded pg/rr 244 to all residents under this proposal, potentially catching up millions and millions of Connecticut residents under the mandates of the state government. We saw during COVID all the mistakes that were made by government at the federal and the state level, and how it ruined people's lives and ruined people's livelihoods. People had their jobs and their sources of income taken from them for reasons and decisions that months or years later, most people recognize were mistaken, or at least overreach. This could mean, as I read it, any number of things, any number of potential consequences for regular people in their daily lives, significantly disrupting their livelihoods and their lives here in our great state. It could mean that people in state government work could be subject to new mandates and standards that if they do not comply, they could lose their jobs. It could mean local government employees, including teachers, losing their jobs. It could mean that people even working at private companies, if they have any sort of contract or work with government, could be in jeopardy as well. I'm concerned that students going to university or college in this state, people with insurance coverage in this state could potentially have consequences for themselves, for their lives in Connecticut. These people deserve protection and consideration, just like everybody else. Just because they are conscientious objectors shouldn't mean that they should now fear potential loss of their income, their jobs, their educational opportunities, their ability to reside in a nursing home, or other sorts of residences. It is yet to be seen exactly what the consequences of this section of the bill will be in reality, but pg/rr 245 it is not a far conclusion that changing the regulation from minors and applying it mostly to public schools, to all residents, could have the potential of negative consequences for adults, for seniors, in the workplace, in their healthcare and insurance, in their areas of residence, and so much more. I have difficulty understanding what the potential benefits or purposes of this regulation would be otherwise. The upside is difficult to see. It's not obvious. But the downside is enormous. To individuals who we represent, who we should all care about, who we should all want to see succeed and remain in our great state, the downside could be almost everything. They could lose everything. Many people here did lose so much during that hour of pandemic and government overreach. It shouldn't be the standard that we set going forward. We should learn from our mistakes as a state government, as a state, and as a nation, and correct them. We should not be doubling down on those mistakes of the recent past. My memory is not so long, and ours are so short, and ours in this state government should not be so short. It was referenced before that mistakes were made. Excessive intervention, excessive elimination of people's personal freedoms during the COVID pandemic. They were more than just minor mistakes. Government makes mistakes. We all make mistakes. These were historic errors. Historic errors that took away people's livelihoods, destroyed their small businesses, that jeopardized their mental health, that took lives from loneliness and depression, that potentially caught up an entire generation in lost learning, in lost socialization, in lost development. pg/rr 246 The consequences of these highly interventionist denials of people's freedoms during the pandemic should be a lesson that we heed, not a lesson that we double down on in our state. Again, we can protect the public health, public safety, and protect people's personal freedoms. It has worked historically in Connecticut, and it should continue to work in Connecticut. Likewise, giving the ability to the Governor himself to declare a statewide public health emergency and act in a unilateral fashion for any number of reasons and in any number of ways is a violation of our own identity as a state in Connecticut, the constitution state. Constitutions imply that there are checks on the power of government, and especially checks on the executive branch. Maybe to put it more colloquially, no kings. We should not be acting as a constitution state to concentrate powers in a single individual like this as a matter of course. Even during the pandemic, my very first vote in this Senate was to extend or not extend the emergency powers of the Governor. But there was a vote of the legislature to do that. As adamantly opposed as I was to it, there was a vote. And there were repeated votes to extend that power for a couple of years; longer than it should have been, more power than it ever should have been. But there was a vote, and there was repeated votes. Here, we would just be casting one vote as a legislature to surrender even more of our powers to a Governor who could unilaterally declare an emergency. Again, never let a crisis go to waste. To act without checks or without sufficient checks from a legislature that should always exist, and that regularly exists. That is deeply troubling. It is deeply troubling. We should not be concentrating powers. We should, in fact, have no kings. pg/rr 247 The policy interventions, the justification for them, the public health justification for them, I do not think align with the actual policy presented in this legislation. For major diseases and vaccinations, we have well above herd immunity, and we have always had well above herd immunity, even with allowing conscientious objectors for religious reasons, for philosophical reasons, for personal reasons, not to vaccinate. For measles, we have a vaccination rate of 98% in Connecticut. Very important, very good. Herd immunity is considered around 95%. And we have always had well above the herd immunity level before we eliminated the religious exemption, before we took away more personal discretion. For polio, we have a 98% vaccination rate. The herd immunity rate is 80%. That is great, and that was always the case before we took away the religious exemption and discretion. For Hib, likewise, 99% vaccination rate. Herd immunity, 70 or 80%. That is excellent. And that was always the case well before we took away more personal discretion and the religious exemption. So, Connecticut has vaccination levels well above the national average. In so many departments, well above the required percentages for herd immunity. And we have always been that way as a state, and we have always been that way even when we had a religious exemption, we had discretion for individuals to choose how they should treat themselves and their families. It is almost as if persuasion and freedom works better than government force. What period did we see a decline in vaccination levels across different treatments? It was during COVID. First of all, because we closed down so many doctors' offices and ways to access medical treatment. That had any number of deleterious health pg/rr 248 effects, yes. But also, because the imposition of so much more force on people's personal choices actually generated more skepticism than trust in government in these directions. So many of the great vaccinations like measles, the measles vaccine, the polio vaccine, they were proven to work and have positive health consequences to the public, and the rates at which we vaccinated here in Connecticut were extraordinarily high because people chose to do it, because people saw the benefits. It is when government consolidated more power and imposed more and more of their force on individual decision making that we actually have seen trust decline. This is why I say that personal freedom and persuasion works hand in hand with public health. They're not in opposition. And I think that those who might vote with good intentions today in favor of this legislation, which is so flawed, they might come to regret their vote because this will only generate more distrust in the public for authority, and for these guidances that are being set out. If it's so good, why do you have to force so many to do it, who do not otherwise feel inclined to do so? Let's not generate distrust in government. Let's have government do its basic job well, and that is how you actually generate more trust in our institutions in our country. It is no surprise that as government in Connecticut and government elsewhere has become more and more powerful and asserted more and more force over the population, that you've seen distrust in our institutions and our government and our leaders rise. When we do a few things well and effectively, we will see more trust. I think we will see more comedy in our country, in our state, and in our government. Religious liberty is a basic tenet of our country and our state. It's written into the very first pg/rr 249 amendment of our US Constitution. It's written into our state constitution. It was, in fact, even before then, a reason for settlers to come to the colonies, especially in New England. And it's a tradition that we should protect and embrace in our country. So much so that in the 1990s, a set of prominent Democrats with Republicans in Congress, including a man named Chuck Schumer, authored the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. They authored it in order to protect Native American tribes who had deeply held beliefs against laws prohibiting use of certain substances. And so, Schumer and others in both parties set out to pass in bipartisan fashion the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The State of Connecticut acted in concert, passing its own Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993. What that law says is that the state can undermine deeply held religious beliefs only in very, very unusual, rare circumstances where the public interest is so enormous, and where the measure undertaken by the government is the least restrictive option. That seems like a good balance of the different considerations. None of us should be extremists or radicals in government. We should all understand that anyone and any policy can go too far. You need balance. You need to balance public interest, sometimes with certain rights. Rights should come first, but there are some cases where government needs to act. And so, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was passed on a bipartisan basis at the federal level and the state level. And it was done so for the hard cases. It was done so to protect minority beliefs. It was done so to protect the unpopular beliefs, not the popular beliefs. Freedom does not exist. Our individual rights are not written into our pg/rr 250 constitutions in order to protect the majorities, in order to protect those who are popular. It is and exists because we must write it there to guide ourselves in the future, and protect those who are unpopular, who are minorities. That is what freedom exists for. And that's why we set out in our laws, in our constitutions, for ourselves in the future, for our posterity, that they remember these values are important. And even when momentary temptation says otherwise, that we do not violate people's freedoms and rights, and deeply held beliefs. And if we are ever to do so, it must be in the least restrictive fashion, and for the highest level of public interest and concern. That's exactly what RFRA said. And it should not be something we reverse course on today. This legislation that turns back RFRA in the State of Connecticut is not adequately justified. The fact that it is retroactive and specific to the standard of medical care discussed in this bill kind of gives away the problems with it. It's not broad based. It's not saying the principle is wrong. It's saying that we're going to violate our principles because we want to, because we feel like it in this case. The US Constitution also talks about the fact that there should not be ex post facto laws. Those are criminal laws that look back in the past and assign a crime to an activity that wasn't a crime at the time. For criminal law, that's very important to write into a constitution. It's not written into the US Constitution for civil or other types of laws, but the principle exists that law and lawmaking and legislating is prospective. Because it's fair that you set out the standard everyone agrees on or the majority agrees on now, and that people have an opportunity to know about it and obey it into the future. It gives the law more pg/rr 251 weight. It gives the policy more weight. That it's for everything going forward, and we are not going to unfairly impose on people retroactively for actions that were already undertaken, and that were understood to be valid when they were taken. Here we are saying retroactively that your freedoms, which were guaranteed, which were written into our law, we had a religious exemption, that retroactively those freedoms aren't valid. As a resident of Connecticut, as someone who might move to Connecticut, what would you think when we start retroactively taking away rights? What should I think about my rights today and exercising them? What if tomorrow this state starts eroding more and more of them retroactively? Does that mean we should be calling into question all our rights today because tomorrow they might be taken away? It raises a significant concern. It's why freedom is supposed to be across the board. It's why rights are supposed to be across the board, because it's too tempting to take it away when it's popular. It's too tempting to take away when it's popular. Our framers, our founders understood that. The founders of our state and the past leaders of our state understood that, including as recently as the 1990s. Only five states in our country do not have a philosophical or a religious exemption for vaccination schedules. California, Connecticut, Maine, New York, West Virginia. Beautiful states, many poorly run. Very unfortunate that we are in a minority of just five states. And yet, even then, even though we are currently in a minority of five states, we still don't believe that our government has intervened enough. We still don't believe our government has violated enough individual liberty in our state. Even though we are one of just five currently, we do not think the state government is powerful enough. pg/rr 252 Come on. Give me a break. I truly believe that we can protect the public health, that we can make these vaccinations widely available, easily accessible to everyone in this state. That if there is a problem elsewhere, that we can react to it directly. And at the same time, protect people's deeply held beliefs, their religious beliefs, their personal liberty, their medical liberty. And that persuasion and freedom go hand in hand with the public interest and the public health. This standard that we are passing today, this concentration of power that we are advancing today, will in the long run undermine the public health in addition to personal liberty. Madam President, I would at least like to attempt to make the proposal better. I believe that there will be well meaning people voting in favor of it today. I would like to attempt to amend it and make it better. Madam President, the Clerk is in possession of a few amendments that I would like to introduce in that endeavor. The first is LCO No. 4624, and I would ask the Clerk to please call that amendment.

The question is on adoption. Will you remark?

Please summarize.

A roll call vote will be ordered. Will you remark further? Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Will you remark further? If not, the Clerk please announce the roll call vote. The machine will be opened. pg/rr 254

Have all the members voted? If all the members have voted, the machines will be locked. Will the Clerk please announce the tally?

The amendment fails. Will you remark further?

LCO No. 4628, Senate Amendment "H". pg/rr 255

Thank you, Madam President. I move adoption of the amendment, waive the reading, and seek leave to summarize.

Thank you, Madam President. This amendment would do something similar. It would restore the religious exemption here in Connecticut on the vaccination schedule. The system in Connecticut for many years worked well. There was a religious exemption. We only, in the last several years, joined just four other states with no philosophical or religious exemption to make us one of the least free states in the country in this area of policy. Our vaccination rates were among the highest in the country before we adopted this policy, taking away the religious exemption. And now, I think we only see more skepticism and concern and distrust of government because of it without any public health benefit. Let's go back to how it was in Connecticut, where there was religious liberty and conscientious objection recognized by the state. There was not a public health crisis then. There was personal liberty. There was the recognition of religious objectors. And there was no crisis to find because of it. This amendment would do just that. It would restore the religious exemption, how it long was, how it should be, and how it is in most places in the country, blue states and red states for that pg/rr 256 matter. I would urge adoption from my colleagues. And when the vote is taken, I would urge that it be taken by roll call vote. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. I wanted to thank my colleague for proposing this amendment. This brings us back to 2021. I think that's something that's a policy difference between the two parties, and I would urge my colleagues to vote no. Thank you.

An immediate roll call vote has been ordered in the is Senate Amendment "H" of House Bill No. 5044. This is not the bill. We're voting on Senate Amendment "H" of House Bill No. 5044, AN ACT ESTABLISHING CONNECTICUT VACCINE STANDARDS. An immediate roll call vote has been ordered in the Senate on Senate Amendment "H" of House Bill No. 5044. An immediate roll call vote in the Senate.

Total number voting 33 Total voting Yea 11 Total voting Nay 22 Absent not voting 3

Thank you, Madam President. I'm disappointed that the last two amendments to defend religious freedoms failed in the chamber. I have one more amendment that I would like to introduce. Madam President, the Clerk is in possession of LCO No. 4621. I would ask the Clerk to please call that amendment.

Senator Fazio.

Please do summarize.

We will have a roll call vote, sir. And the question is on adoption of the amendment. Will you remark on the amendment before the chamber? Senator Anwar.

Thank you, Senator Anwar. Will you remark further on the amendment? Will you remark further on the amendment? If not, the machine is open. Mr. Clerk, would you announce the vote on the amendment?

Have all the Senators voted? Have all the Senators voted? The machine is locked. Mr. Clerk, please announce the tally.

Amendment fails. Will you remark further on the bill before the chamber? Senator Cicarella.

Thank you. Please prepare yourself, Senator Anwar. Go ahead, Senator Cicarella.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Thank you. Senator Anwar. pg/rr 267

Thank you. Senator Cicarella?

Thank you. Senator Anwar?

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Senator Cicarella. pg/rr 270

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Senator Anwar. pg/rr 275

Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Thank you. Senator Anwar.

Thank you. Senator Cicarella.

Thank you, Senator Cicarella. Will you remark on the bill? Senator Martin, good evening.

Thank you, Senator Martin. We will stand at ease for just a moment until Senator Duff gets to his seat. And we wonder why our microphones don't work. Good evening, Senator Duff.

Thank you, Senator Duff, for your remark. Senator Harding, good evening.

Thank you, Senator. Good evening, Senator Looney.

As The United States Of America, the power to vaccine, the right to compel vaccines goes back to George Washington's army during the American Revolution, when there was a danger there of a smallpox outbreak and other diseases. At that time, it was far more risky because the vaccines were really experimental, but yet it was done with a degree to protecting the army, protecting the public health. So, we cannot take a narrow view. We have to take the broader view. Everything is a balance between individual rights and liberties and societal needs, especially protecting public health and public safety, and the right of states to regulate in the area of public health and public safety have been well established by decisions down through the years. Again, it has to be reasonable, it can't be an overreach, it can't be something that selects, pre- selects one religion for favorable treatment as opposed to another, has to be even handed, has to be fair. That's what we are doing here. We are not in any way impinging upon religious rights. We are asserting the right of our people to be safe and to celebrate the success that we've had for the last five years since the passage of that act, increasing our vaccination rates, increasing the safety of our students in the schools. That's what we're all about with the needs in mind of those poor children with compromised immune systems who are at risk every single day if they go to school and their classmates are not sufficiently vaccinated. That's what we're about here. That's what the focus should be on. That's why this is truly a good bill in the American tradition, Madam President, and I urge support tonight in concurrence pg/rr 297 with the House of Representatives. Thank you, Madam President.

An immediate roll call vote has been ordered in the Bill No. 5044, AN ACT ESTABLISHING CONNECTICUT VACCINE STANDARDS as amended by House Amendment Schedule "A" and "B". An immediate roll call vote in the Senate. We are now voting on the bill. This is House Bill No. 5044, AN ACT ESTABLISHING CONNECTICUT VACCINE STANDARDS as amended by House Amendment Schedule "A" and "B". We're now voting on the bill. An immediate roll call vote has been ordered in the Senate on House Bill No. 5044. An immediate roll call vote in the Senate.

House Bill 5044. Total number voting 34 Total voting Yea 22 Total voting Nay 12 Absent not voting 2 pg/rr 298

Madam President.

Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, I move for immediate transmittal to the Governor.

Thank you. And on Senate Bill 4, I move for immediate transmittal to the House of Representatives.

Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, we have a few more items.

Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, on Calendar Page 39. On Calendar Page 39, Calendar 375, substitute for House Bill 5289, I'd like to recommit that bill, please.

Thank you, Madam President. On Calendar Page 16, Calendar 184, substitute for Senate Bill 445, I'd like to move that item to the foot of the calendar.

Thank you, Madam President. And on Calendar Page 32, Calendar 327, substitute for Senate Bill 307, I'd like to move that item to the foot of the calendar, please.

Thank you, Madam President. It is our intention to be back in session on Tuesday at 10:00, and we will let people know schedule then. But I would urge people to hold -- We'll be in session Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Hold Saturday, please, because it's our last Saturday before session ends. pg/rr 300 And then, we'll be in session Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And for journal notations, Senator Miller, Senator McCrory, Senator Needleman, Senator Flexer, and Senator Osten missed votes because of business outside the Chamber.

We're not in on Monday.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Hold Saturday, please.

Thank you, Madam President. And with that, I move that we adjourn subject to the call of the Chair.