A.     Earned Income Tax Credit(EITC) -  The Finance Committee, on April 1^st, amended Senate Bill 657 "An Act Concerning A Taxpayer Relief Plan" to include a 10% state EITC. This means low income taxpayers will receive a state tax credit equivalent to 10% of their Federal Earned Income Tax Credit. The original request was for a 20% tax credit. This was reduced due to budgetary concerns. The vote was largely along party lines, with only a few Republicans voting in favor of the bill.   

        News story, with more details on the bill.           

B.     Counseling of Minors Receiving An Abortion-   Legislation was voted out of the Select Committee on Children, with bipartisan support, to raise the existing age for a minor to have counseling before an abortion from under 16 years of age to under 18 years of age. (H.B. 5499 An Act Concerning The Required Age For Counseling). This legislation was the result of an informational hearing on Parental Notification held before this committee during the 2007 legislative session.  Unfortunately, the Public Health Committee, to which it was referred, allowed it to die by not acting upon it before their deadline. The Conference will continue to pursue the goal of this legislation. It is strongly opposed by the pro-abortion lobby.

C.     Health Care Reform

Significant legislative activity is not expected in the area of universal health care coverage this session. However, a bill (S.B. 561) to expand the Money Follows the Person program was voted out of the Human Services Committee and then amended and passed by the Appropriations Committee.

The bills goal is to allow more people to be cared for at home instead of in a nursing home. All services provided to a person in a nursing home would be available 24 hours a day in their home. Currently, there are 700 slots available for the program. This legislation raises that number to 5,000. Language to create a special fund to assist in developing the program was eliminated in the Appropriations Committee. The bill is still a major step forward in providing home health care.  

    News story, with more details on the bill.

D.    Housing - The Appropriations Committee provided no new funds for 

         supportive housing in their proposed budget An increase in supportive

      housing was also not included in the Governor's budget. Advocates of

      supportive housing were seeking 650 new units of supportive housing this

      fiscal year.

       Legislative developments on housing.

E.     Immigration -  The Conference is  attempting to address the situation of

       abused women and children in undocumented families. These women and

       children are fearful to report this abuse due to their undocumented status.   

       The Conference is pursuing a study group to review domestic violence  

       issues within the immigrant community. Several meetings have been held

       with other concerned groups and legislators.  No specific legislation has yet

       been presented. The Conference will also oppose any legislation harmful to

       immigrants. 

F.      Sex Education and Teen Pregnancy Prevention -  Two bills were initially  raised related to teen sexual education in public schools. Both pieces of legislation are almost identical and severely flawed. Both of the bills would have both allocated $1 million dollars to local school boards to increase the teaching of comprehensive sex education. The primary supporter of the legislation was Planned Parenthood. The Conference believes abstinence education should be the primary focus of any sexuality education program. The original language in the bill would also allow the money to pass-through the local boards of education to organizations, such as Planned Parenthood, to teach programs in our public schools.

          H.B. 5591- An Act Concerning Healthy Teens (older version of bill -

      newest version is not yet available)was voted out of the

      Education Committee with several modifications recommended by the

     Catholic Conference. These changes help to insure money is used for

      curriculum development and any use of the money is approved by the local

      boards of education. These changes help deter the money from going to

      outside organizations, and insure that the boards of education and parents have

      more knowledge and input on what is actually being taught in our classrooms.

      The Bill was also voted out of the Appropriations Committee. Only

      $500,000, not $1 million, was included in the Appropriations Committee's

      budget.

         S.B. 461 - An Act Concerning Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Programs 

   was completely rewritten and voted out of the Public Health Committee. The

   changes focused on prevention of teen pregnancy through other programs, not

   just on sex education in local schools. The rewritten bill was acceptable to the

   Catholic Conference. The bill died in the Appropriations Committee, but

   $50,000 was added to teen pregnancy prevention in the budget. The funds will

   be used by existing programs.  

G.    Environmental Justice - The Office of Urban Affairs of the Archdiocese of Hartford, with the support of the Catholic Conference, is urging passage of legislation that will require the state and towns to consider the existing locations of power plants and trash facilities before authorizing new construction. Too often these pollution emitting facilities are located in the same geographical areas and effect lower income people.  These two bills have been voted out of committees and are awaiting final action by the House and Senate:

            H.B. 5145- An Act Concerning Environmentally Stressed and  

                     Environmental Justice Communities  was voted out of the 

   Environment Committee.

           S.B. 118 - An Act Concerning Environmental Justice was voted out of

   the Energy and Technology Committee.

H.    Open Adoption Records - S.B. 345 was voted out of the Select Committee 

        on Children, but died in the Public Health Committee. The Conference will

        continue to oppose efforts for  adopted children to obtain birth parent

        information, if the legislation is retroactive and does not require consent of

        the birth mother.  Most states do not allow this information to be given to

        adopted children. The privacy of the birth mother is of major concern. The

        only true method of privacy when dealing with an unplanned pregnancy

      would be abortion, if this legislation was adopted.

Issues being monitored -

A.     Same-sex Marriage  - activity on this issue will vary based on the outcome of  the Connecticut Supreme Court decision.

1.      Court rules against same-sex marriage - Supporters of same-sex

marriage have publicly stated they will launch a strong lobbying effort in 2008 to have the legislature adopt same-sex marriage. The Conference will have to strongly lobby against this effort.

 2.  Court rules in favor of same-sex marriage - In November of 2008 a question will appear on the ballots in the state asking if a constitutional convention should be called for modifying the State Constitution. Urge people to vote "yes" on this question. This will open up options for dealing with this issue in the Constitution. Also, lobby for legislation clearly granting conscious protection to religious organizations and individuals.

                     The Conference testified against H.B. 5925 "An Act Concerning Civil

                     Unions", before the Judiciary Committee. Although the bill was aimed to

                     address some issues with the civil union law, section three of the bill would

                     have given recognition to out-of-state same-sex marriages. This would have

                     created a legal position weakening the State's current policy as only

                     recognizing marriage as between one man and one woman. The bill was

                     never voted on and died in the committee.           

B.     Gender Identity - H.B. 5723 An Act Concerning Discrimination grants legal protections for transsexuals. The bill contained an exemption for religious organizations. The Conference has not actively opposed this bill due to the exemption clause. The bill was voted out of the Judiciary Committee and is awaiting action by the House.

C.     Statutes of Limitation for Sexual Abuse - The Conference will oppose legislation that would extend the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases from 30 years to 40 years.  This could potentially have the church defending it self against cases occurring back in the late 1950's. In most of these cases the priest and many witnesses would be dead, making a defense nearly impossible. Last year proposed legislation was killed in the Judiciary Committee. No legislation has yet been raised during this session.