Written testimony submitted to Connecticut’s General Assembly has quadrupled over the past decade, reaching more than 43,800 submissions in the 2026 session, including nearly 8,000 that were filed without a name, according to data reviewed by the Associated Press.
The figures, drawn from legislative records, show that bills addressing homeschooling, vaccines, and gun regulations each received more than 2,000 written comments — an unusually high volume that lawmakers say was concentrated on measures that have drawn organized advocacy. The General Assembly’s own numbers indicate the steep rise is part of a longer trend: written testimony counts have been climbing for decades, though the 2026 session saw an abnormally large total.
Seth Warner, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Connecticut, cautioned that the surge may not represent a grassroots increase in individual participation.
“The increase might not be a result of individual civic engagement,” Warner said.
The Associated Press reported that the reasons for the spike remain murky, and legislative data did not indicate whether any coordinated campaigns were responsible for the flood of anonymous submissions. Almost one-fifth of the testimony this year carried no name, a proportion that state officials acknowledged was unprecedented.