🔒Retiring Gallo reflects on 41 years lobbying CT’s General Assembly

For lobbyist Betty Gallo, winning in Connecticut's General Assembly hasn't always been easy, but after 41 years she has plenty of victories doing it her own way.

Gallo, 71, is slated to retire Oct. 31 from Gallo & Robinson LLC, a progressive lobbying firm she launched in 1981. The firm focuses on social justice issues like same-sex marriage, fair housing, gun control, abortion rights, civil rights for transgender individuals, improving health care and others.

The North Carolina native has been a well-known face and brand at the state Capitol. She transferred from Catholic University in Washington D.C. to Trinity College in her senior year in 1969. She earned a bachelor's degree in psychology there, graduating as one of the first four girls enrolled in its inaugural coed class.

Gallo was hired as executive director and chief lobbyist for nonprofit Common Cause in 1976. She was tasked with lobbying for an ethics code for public officials, which passed in 1977 as a checklist of possible conflicts of interest and to ensure public confidence in governmental decision-making.

During America's 1980 red wave, the year Ronald Reagan won the presidency, Gallo ran and lost vying for a seat in the state House of Representatives vs. Republican Bob Farr, who went on to serve 12 terms in the post.

Driven by a low-paying job in the nonprofit sector, Gallo out of necessity built Connecticut's second lobbying firm in 1981, pursuing domestic violence and equal rights issues that created unrest during her formative years.

Since then, she's grown the firm into the fourth largest in the state based on number of registered clients.

“The civil rights movement and the women's rights movement very much got me interested in being an advocate,” said Gallo, who was raised in Hickory, N.C., where the local high school was segregated until the mid 1960s. “It was one of the things that upset and worried me.”

Four decades lobbying

Gallo, a West Hartford resident, has notched several key victories under Hartford's golden dome. She successfully promoted new laws that expanded health coverage for women, such as mandating coverage for contraception, and helped push the state's first-ever gay rights bill in 1991, which prohibited same-sex discrimination in employment and housing.

Now Gallo will hand the firm's keys over to Kate Robinson, a partner since 2014.

The seven-employee firm, housed in Hartford's Frog Hollow office building at 227 Lawrence St., advocates for a wide variety of issues, but only takes clients whose issues they believe in. They include advocating for the Sandy Hook anti-gun violence bill, domestic violence issues, medical marijuana, anti-poverty initiatives and improving healthcare services for women and others combating AIDS.

Branded as advocates for the nonprofit community, Gallo & Robinson represented 43 clients during this year's legislative session, including Connecticut Against Gun Violence, the American School for the Deaf, the Partnership for Strong Communities and the Connecticut chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“I loved what we did,” she said. “I loved doing things I felt passionate about. It was such an amazing career, I've had so many great opportunities.”

Today's lobbying sector looks nothing like it did in the 1970s and 1980s, Gallo says. Law firms did most of the heavy influencing back then, and companies spent modestly for such services.

But that has changed.

Some companies now spend $200,000 or more on lobbying services during a legislative session, although that amount is seldom available for nonprofit clients. There are also far more women lobbyists in 2018.

Gallo said the top issues facing Connecticut lawmakers next session will depend on which gubernatorial candidate is elected to succeed Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

Lobbying has been ideal for Gallo, who relishes Connecticut's historic bipartisan support of gay marriage in 2008 and abolishing the state's death penalty in 2012.

“We have people in both parties that care about these things,” said Gallo, a 2011 inductee of the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame. “I hope that doesn't go away in our politics.”

Gallo's final lobbying days have been capped off by retirement celebrations and the American School For the Deaf in West Hartford naming a classroom after her. She had advocated for the school, the nation's oldest school for the deaf, since 1991.

She plans to travel upon retirement and volunteer in Greece, which has become a hub for refugees in southern Europe. Despite her travels, Gallo says she always has a home in Connecticut.

“I have to win sometimes,” said Gallo of living in Connecticut. “Here I won sometimes.”