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Public testifies en masse against bill to end bipartisan composition of regs review committee
Summary
Dozens of public commenters and a former regs-review co-chair urged the Government Administration and Elections Committee to reject HB 5554, saying it would dismantle the committee’s long-standing 50/50 structure and hand single-party control to the majority.
Several dozen residents and one former committee co-chair told the Government Administration and Elections Committee on April 5 that HB 5554, which would replace an equal-party composition on the Regulations Review Committee with proportional membership, should be rejected.
Maria McNamara of West Hartford, who said she represents "more than half of the 550 citizens whose voices you actively suppressed last week," testified that changing the committee’s makeup is not a technical adjustment but a move to "dismantle the checks and balances" that prevent single-party rule. "Vote no on HB 5554," she told members.
Former Regulations Review Committee co-chair Sen. John Kissell of the 7th District told lawmakers the panel was created in the 1970s as an evenly balanced legislative check on the executive branch. Kissell cited past interventions — including holding up an electric-vehicle regulation and forcing review of a nursing-home staffing policy after cost questions emerged — as examples of the committee protecting the legislature’s role. "So I am concerned about the tyranny of the majority," he said, urging members to preserve bipartisan safeguards.
Other public commenters — including Melissa Miller, Munji Gerber, Mike O'Connell, Gino DeGiovanni, Christina Trotichot, Amy Johnson and Wendy Sears — framed the bill as a "power grab," said the cochair separation requirement provides an important procedural safeguard, and asked the panel to retain the 50/50 structure. Several speakers linked recent increases in public engagement and earlier testimony on related bills to heightened concern about the proposal.
The repeated theme from the testimony was that equal membership and cochair rules produce a forum where executive regulations are vetted with bipartisan input. Speakers asked the committee either to reject HB 5554 or to adopt an amendment explicitly preserving the current equal-party cochair requirement.
The committee heard no formal motions or votes on the bill during the hearing; members asked clarifying questions of several speakers but took no final action. The public hearing then closed.
