This story is part of CT Mirror Explains, an ongoing effort to distill our wide-ranging reporting into a "what you need to know" format and provide practical information to our readers.

Connecticut’s 2026 legislative session ended on Wednesday night with lawmakers passing 218 bills concerning homeschooling, federal immigration actions, absentee voting, AI regulation and more.

But many bills never made it out of their committees — or, if they did, were never voted on by the full legislature. That’s in part because legislative sessions in even-numbered years are shorter and because it can be politically difficult to pass contentious bills in an election year.

Here’s a look at some of the bills that didn’t make it to final passage this year.

Aquarion sale

Frustrated by regulators’ decision to approve the sale of the Aquarion Water Company in a deal worth $2.4 billion, some Fairfield County lawmakers sought to use the session to throw a new wrinkle into the transaction. Their proposal, H.B. 5249, would have amended parts of a 2024 law allowing the South-Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority to bid on Aquarion. Later, the bill was amended to give the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, which only regulates private, for-profit utilities, the ability to exert continued oversight of Aquarion should it transition toward a quasi-public entity alongside the RWA. The bill failed to get much traction in either chamber and died without a vote. Opponents are now reviewing options to challenge the deal in court.

— John Moritz, Energy & Environment Reporter

Cellphones in schools

Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said Wednesday that Gov. Ned Lamont’s bell-to-bell cellphone ban, House Bill 5035, didn’t have the votes in the upper chamber. It died there when the clock struck midnight Wednesday night, despite the House’s bipartisan support. On Thursday, Lamont brushed off H.B. 5035’s failure as a scheduling issue. Most Senate Democrats, he said, had been supportive. “Sometimes it takes a little while,” he said, noting the same was true for universal breakfasts. He cut in as reporters began discussing Duff’s comments. “It’ll pass next year,” Lamont said sternly. 

— Theo Peck-Suzuki, Education Reporter

Climate superfund

Advocates applauded when the legislature’s Environment Committee passed the framework for a sweeping ‘Climate Superfund’ bill in March. The legislation proposed charging some large oil companies — specifically those which produced more than 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the last two decades — with the costs of adapting to climate change in Connecticut.

The bill was modeled off of similar laws in New York and Vermont, which have been tied up in legal challenges by the fossil fuel industry. But lawmakers said they wanted more time to see how the lawsuits in other states played out before committing Connecticut down the same path.

— John Moritz, Energy & Environment Reporter

Data centers

Lawmakers ended the session without taking up two bills intended to slow the development of large-scale data centers in the state. The first, S.B. 245, would have eliminated tax incentives for data centers that were enacted by Gov. Ned Lamont. The second measure, H.B. 5469, would have established regulations for data centers that are located next to, and draw electricity from, an existing power plant such as Millstone Nuclear Power Station. Ultimately, lawmakers said that interest in the issue faded as it became clear that Connecticut’s high electricity costs were dissuading developers from wanting to locate data centers in the state. Only one company has qualified for the data center tax incentives since 2021.

— John Moritz, Energy & Environment Reporter

Healthcare affordability

A Senate Democrat priority bill on healthcare affordability — SB 3 — never got taken up by the Senate, but several of its smaller measures passed as part of the budget, including directives for the Lamont administration to plan for state support if federal changes leave residents with higher insurance costs. But the big ticket items failed. These included Affordable Care Act subsidies, $200 million for healthcare affordability from the state’s Federal Cuts Response Fund and measures to strengthen hospital financial assistance policies. 

— Katy Golvala, Health Reporter

‘Golden Girls’

Although it gained Senate passage ahead of the legislative session’s end, a bill that would have required towns to allow homeowners to rent out rooms in their houses wasn’t called in the House. House leadership said there were concerns about the lack of an age restriction in the bill. Nicknamed the “Golden Girls Bill,” Senate Bill 339 would have required that single-family homeowners be allowed to rent out rooms in their homes to long-term tenants.

— Ginny Monk, Housing & Children’s Issues Reporter

No-fault evictions

A bill that would have required landlords to provide a reason when they evict renters failed for the fourth year in a row this legislative session. Senate Bill 257 died without a vote in either chamber. Although Senate leadership said they had the votes for passage, they didn’t want to take the time on it because the House couldn’t pass it, lawmakers said. The controversial bill would have ended no-fault or lapse-of-time evictions, which typically occur at the end of a lease, at larger apartment complexes. These protections already exist for seniors and people with disabilities.

— Ginny Monk, Housing & Children’s Issues Reporter

Overdose prevention centers

A bill that would have made Connecticut one of the few states in the country to open overdose prevention centers where people can use illicit drugs under supervision, failed to secure support. A similar bill also failed in 2025, after facing last-minute opposition from Gov. Ned Lamont behind the scenes. On Wednesday, House Majority Leader Rep. Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, told reporters the centers remain controversial, despite benefits to public health: “It’s a very hard thing for people to get their head around.” Advocates say the centers fill a gap in services and prevent deaths.

— Laura Tillman, Human Services Reporter

Shield law expansion

In the wake of a recent legal battle over the abortion medication mifepristone, advocates renewed calls to pass Senate Bill 295, a proposal that included specific protections for providers of telehealth reproductive and gender-affirming care from out-of-state legal action. But, by midnight on Wednesday, the bill hadn’t been taken up by either chamber. Following a press conference on Tuesday, Attorney General William Tong encouraged legislators to pass the telehealth protections, but also said he believes the state’s current ‘shield law’ to protect providers of reproductive and gender-affirming care already extends to care delivered via telehealth.

— Katy Golvala, Health Reporter

Nepotism ban

The House passed an ethics-related bill in the final weeks of the legislative session, but stripped out a provision that would have created new rules banning public officials from using their positions to obtain jobs for their relatives. That “nepotism” clause was requested by state ethics officials in the wake of the federal prosecution of former state deputy budget director Kosta Diamantis, who helped his daughter land a job at the Connecticut Chief States Attorney’s office. The law would have prohibited “public officials and state employees from using their office or position to help their spouse, child, parent or sibling in obtaining a new job or position.”

— Andrew Brown, Investigative Reporter