Prepared for The Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information by Liz Gemski, Kozak & Salina
The 2026 legislative session was the second year of a two-year session called the short session, convening on February 4 and adjourning on May 6. The short session marks an election year for all members of the Connecticut General Assembly. The 2026 elections will also incorporate the election of the five constitutional offices.
The largest threats to any weakening of the FOI Act continue to be issues relating to personal privacy and safety as well as Federal actions taken by the Trump Administration. These threats played out in the 2026 legislative session. The session saw the introduction of 22 bills that would impact FOIA. Two of these 22 bills were introduced during the amendment process, one of which was “fixed” (HB 5155, cannabis, via HB 5222 – Fix bill) another was an expansion of an existing exemption (HB 5567 – DOC Ombudsman).
The 2026 legislative session started off with quick action on legislation impacting the State’s Freedom of Information Act with the passage of an emergency certification bill on February 25 in the Senate and the 26 in the House. SB 298, An Act Concerning The Reallocation of Certain State Funds and Various Provisions Relating to Education, Public Safety, General Government, Elections, Intermediate Care Facilities and Warehouse Distribution Centers.
The passage of SB 298 by the General Assembly settled a long-disputed issue relating to public access to the state’s voter file, adding restrictions to public information on voter information. The bill allows for disclosure of ONLY the birth year unless for a governmental purpose as well as restricting voter information for certain purposes. The bill also settled a recent issue regarding municipal ballots and specifically exempts them from the FOIA.
Many of these bills were reintroductions of bills from previous years with a few new concepts raised in 2026 including: higher education exemptions (HB 5548 and HB 5550 – syllabi); home addresses (SB 325, SB 492 & HB 5548); expanding the state’s address confidentiality program (SB 485); creating a new state office of Government Oversight (SB 324 & SB 462); amending the vexatious requestor law (SB 466); requiring notification of changes to FOI (SB 324); unclaimed property exemption (SB 488); FOI training for state agencies (HB 5528); FOIC legislative package (HB 5250); studying state agency response times (SB 250); AI use in FOI requests (SB 325); regulation of AI (SB 4); and ALPR exemptions (SB 4, SB 397, HB
5449 & HB 5552).
At the end of the legislative session, the negative impacts to FOIA were limited to the voter file and the DOC Ombudsman exemption expansion regarding the complaint process. FOI issues in bills that were negotiated during the legislative process include the ALPR bill, unclaimed property exemption and the cannabis bill limiting the FOI exemption to enforcement issues in executive session of the Statewide Cannabis, Hemp, Controlled Substances Enforcement Board.
In addition to fending off legislation that would weaken the act, CCFOI continues to identify and expand the number of allies in the legislature to recognize on specific transparency issues with 3 new elected officials being honored this year. We will also be circling back to Speaker Matt Ritter’s Office to request his assistance in developing legislation in the 2027 legislative session that would be more responsive to the safety and security issues identified in most bills introduced annually. The initial discussion lead to consideration of amending the safety and security exemption in the act to mitigate the negative legislation we have been working to prevent from being passed annually, which require a considerable amount of time, resources and political capitol.