🔒Rep. Wood: Building reform, associated health plans key issues for 2026 legislative session

For Rep. Kerry Wood (D-Rocky Hill), two of the key issues to be addressed in the 2026 legislative session are reforming building regulations and approving association health plans. Wood was a featured speaker at the Connecticut Retail Network’s annual meeting, attended by more than 60 people on Thursday at the Bushnell Performing Arts Center in Hartford. In her presentation, Wood discussed the 2025 legislative session that ended in June, the special session scheduled for Nov. 12-13, and the short legislative session that begins in February. Wood, who co-chairs the legislature’s Insurance and Real Estate Committee, and Rep. Stephen Meskers (D-Greenwich), co-chair of the Commerce Committee, have been holding a working group with home and apartment builders with the goal of producing a joint bill. “What we want to do is streamline building codes and regulation around putting shovels in the ground,” she said. “When you talk to builders, it's almost shocking, the timeframes, the challenges, the money that is being spent. For every project, the goalpost is different. That really shouldn't be how Connecticut works.” Wood also said the effort to approve legislation to allow for association health plans will continue in the session next year. “We'll continue to push that,” she said. “What association health plans means is that associations can pool together, spread out that risk and be able to purchase health insurance like a large employer.” Efforts to approve legislation to allow association health plans have failed in the two previous legislative sessions. “I don’t know why there is such a battle” over this bill in the legislature, she added. “If we can help you lower those costs, we should absolutely do that.” For the special session, Wood said the debate is over whether to use the budget surplus or the rainy day fund to cover the costs of programs that are not being funded during the federal government’s shutdown. As a member of the legislature’s moderate caucus, she said, she prefers to use the rainy day fund. A debate is also raging over House Bill 5002, which would have made some major reforms to how local governments approve housing developments, but was vetoed unexpectedly by Gov. Ned Lamont. Wood said few legislators have seen a revised bill that is expected to be raised during the special session. “I don't really know what to say, because we don't know what's in the bill,” she said. Tim Phelan, president of the Connecticut Retail Network, asked Wood whether she would support revising the state’s annual sales tax holiday, noting it has been years since it was last changed. Phelan said his organization’s members support both expanding the sales tax exemption to other items as well as broadening the clothing that can be purchased. Wood said she would support the expansion.