by Jamil Ragland am CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT — A bill that would have moved all of Connecticut’s hate crimes to one place in the penal code sailed through the House of Representatives but had not been called for a debate in the Senate before the 2025 legislative session ended Wednesday.
House Bill 6872 would have consolidated the state’s various hate crime statutes into one place and also would have defined various hate crimes and the penalties associated with their violation. The bill was the result of work done by the Connecticut Hate Crimes Advisory Council, which recommended the consolidation effort.
The bill sat on the House calendar from April 24 all the way to Tuesday, June 3, when it was debated for more than 90 minutes before it was tabled. The main sticking point was an amendment offered by Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, that would make police a protected class in the bill. When the House picked it back up Wednesday afternoon, Fishbein withdrew his amendment, saying that he hoped the issue would be revisited in the next session.
Rep. Steven Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, offered an amendment today that he said “slimmed down” the original bill, and it was adopted on a unanimous voice vote, 150-0 with one absent or note voting.
“I hope my colleagues will support what we’re doing here today, which is to just consolidate the existing hate crimes into one section of the penal code,” Stafstrom said. “I do expect that there will be more substantive discussions on some of the underlying merits and open issues on our hate crime statutes as we move into next session, but this is a good first step to get at least everything consolidated in the right section of the penal code.”
Fishbein offered his support for the amended bill as well.
“I think the very important part that the chairman does highlight is the consolidation, which is a problem to begin with,” he said. “The commission needs to have a comprehensive document to look at to make recommendations and the problem right now is hate crimes are all through the statutes. So what we’ve done here today is one of the governor’s goals … to consolidate.”
However, despite the unanimous vote in the House the bill was not called in the Senate before the session concluded at midnight Wednesday.