Unconstitutional Assault on the First Amendment Religious Freedoms of CT Residents

Press Release, Capitol Building, South Portico Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 11 AM.

Press inquiries: 203-585-7493

Bill 450 “An Act Concerning the Standard of Care for Immunization” is an unconstitutional assault on the First Amendment religious freedoms of Connecticut residents. It is also a reckless codification of the unbridled gubernatorial power that allowed Gov. Lamont to close schools, shutter businesses, and isolate Connecticut residents, causing countless “deaths of despair.”

On March 17,2020 Governor Lamont issued executive Order 7C closing all public schools, restricting access to nursing homes, prohibiting gatherings of more than 50 people, closing all religious assemblies, restaurants, bars, and other public gathering spaces. These orders were renewed again and again.

Shutdown measures like these almost certainly killed more people than the COVID virus, according to numerous studies. Unemployment, the collapse of businesses that owners spent decades building, loneliness, all led to drug addiction, alcoholism, suicide, and chronic illnesses. In short, deaths of despair.

The shutdowns in Connecticut and many other states across the country were supposed to “flatten the curve” and end after 15 days. They went on for many months at the discretion of one person—a governor turned autocrat.

Bill 450, Section 8 repeats the mistake, empowering Connecticut’s future governors with unlimited authority to repeat that reckless and deadly mistake by declaring a health emergency. As the future governor of this state, I reject this dangerous bill.

Instead of passing this bill, Connecticut lawmakers should heed the warnings of Justice Neil Gorsuch in Arizona v. Mayorkas: (May 18, 2023)

“Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country… Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private.

“The concentration of power in the hands of so few may be efficient and sometimes popular. But it does not tend toward sound government.”

Part II

The Vaccine Mandate is unconstitutional, and without a doubt, will not survive a US Supreme Court challenge. The Court spoke clearly about vaccine mandates in its assessment of the limited precedent set by its ruling in Jacobson v. Massachusetts in 1905, a case involving that state’s mandated smallpox vaccine.

In Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York v. Andrew Cuomo, November 25, 2020, Justice Gorsuch reminded the nation that even in times of health emergencies when the fear of disease is great, the Constitution does not take a sabbatical.

It is true that in1905, the Court upheld Massachusetts’s smallpox vaccine in a challenge brought by Mr. Jacobson, but the importance of that case is limited, writes Gorsuch, because Mr. Jacobson had options. The Massachusetts law did not contravene his constitutional liberties. He could “take the vaccine, pay a fine, or identify a basis for an exemption.”

The Massachusetts vaccine mandate survived only because “it did not contravene the Constitution of the United States” or “infringe any right granted or secured by that instrument.”

The current Connecticut bill 450 does contravene the First Amendment and will be struck down.

Gorsuch offers the warning we should all heed as this bill is debated:

“EVEN IN A PANDEMIC, THE CONSTITUTION CANNOT BE PUT AWAY AND FORGOTTEN.”

BILL 450 should be repudiated by all who value our liberty and our Constitution.

PAID FOR BY BETSY 2026, DIANA COLWELL, TREASURER, APPROVED BY BETSY MCCAUGHEY

PAID FOR BY BETSY 2026, DIANA COLWELL, TREASURER, APPROVED BY BETSY MCCAUGHEY