Nick Menapace

East Lyme residents, if you take only one thing away from this newsletter, please let it be this: The 2026/27 budget referendum takes place Thursday, May 21, at the East Lyme Community Center, 37 Society Road. Voting is from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The Session ended last Wednesday, and I'm proud of the hard work put in to achieve positive results for Connecticut residents.

Just four more days at the Capitol (Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday) left in the session!

The days (and nights) are long, but the session is short. We've begun a stretch of session days where we have taken up, and will take up, legislation, including gun violence reduction, no-excuse absentee ballots, homeschooling, vaccines, and medical credit cards, among other things. 

This is my first short session, so the whole thing kind of felt like we were in the home stretch. But we REALLY are in the home stretch, with fewer than 30 days left before sine die.

I recently joined colleagues from across the state—including advocates from the Niantic Tenants Union—to demand just cause eviction protections in Connecticut.

On Thursday, the House was in session and passed two important bills: Senate Bill 298 and Senate Bill 299.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, one of the most prominent civil rights leaders to emerge after Martin Luther King Jr., died today after a lifetime fighting for racial justice, voting rights, and the poor.