josh believes in
Access, Autonomy, and Dignity for Every Connecticut Resident
One in four Connecticut adults is disabled, and this state has spent decades treating that quarter as an afterthought. The Americans with Disabilities Act became law in 1990. Thirty-six years later, we still have public buildings you can’t enter, bus stops with no sidewalk leading to them, and a Medicaid program that tells disabled and elderly residents they can have $1,600 to their name and not a dollar more. That is not a funding problem - it is a choice political leaders keep making. As Governor, I will build access into our infrastructure, our budgets, and our laws from the start — instead of patch-working it in after the fact — and I will refuse to ask disabled residents to prove they are poor enough, compliant enough, or grateful enough to deserve a life here.
The solutions:
Accessibility Built-In From the Start
Bring the ADA municipal program to all 169 local municipalities: CTDOT’s program helping towns inventory broken sidewalks, missing curb ramps, and inaccessible bus stops is currently a pilot in 19 municipalities. As Governor, I would fund it statewide, ensuring every town produces a real transition plan.
Audit every polling place before the next statewide election: An accessible voting machine inside a building with a step at the door is not access. I would fund a full audit and the fixes needed for everyone to vote with ease.
Make the State Capitol fully accessible to the public.
Make accessibility a condition of state money: If a project takes state transportation, school construction, or municipal aid dollars, accessibility must be verified before the money moves, not litigated later by residents who are locked out.
Staff the enforcement: Our civil rights and public health agencies do not have the people to enforce the accessibility laws already on the books. A right nobody can enforce is a suggestion.
Bringing Medicaid Into the 21st Century
Eliminate the HUSKY C asset limit: Connecticut caps savings at $1,600 for an individual, lower than the federal standard used by most states, which was set more than fifty years ago and never adjusted. A car repair can cost someone their health coverage. As Governor, I would raise it immediately, index it, and phase it out entirely.
End the two-tier income rule: A non-disabled adult can earn roughly $1,800 a month and qualify for HUSKY, and a disabled or elderly applicant is capped around $1,370. Connecticut wrote unequal treatment into its own eligibility rules - and I would strike it.
A state supplement that clears the poverty line: Federal SSI pays a maximum of $994 a month, less than three-quarters of the poverty line, and the average check is closer to $737. Washington isn’t going to fix this; Connecticut can decide that no one in this state lives on $737 a month.
Pay the care workforce a living wage: Between 2012 and 2022, Connecticut posted the largest drop in direct care worker wages of any state in the country. Home care aides and direct support professionals are the infrastructure of independent living, and I would fund the state’s own rate study with pass-through requirements so the money reaches workers.
Autonomy and Supported Decision Making
Recognize supported decision-making in statute: In supported decision-making, a person picks trusted people to help them understand their options and keeps every one of their legal rights. In 2026, the legislature passed it 143-0 in the House and 33-0 in the Senate, and then enacted it only as a study. As Governor, I would sign the real thing.
Make guardianship the last resort in practice: Require probate courts to put in writing that supported decision-making and other less restrictive options were considered and found insufficient before stripping anyone of their rights.
Fund restoration of rights: Create a legal services pathway, with counsel provided, for people currently under conservatorship to end or narrow it. A conservatorship entered into at eighteen years old should not be a life sentence by default.
Affordable and Accessible Housing & Transportation
Build accessible, not just affordable, housing: Any development taking state financing or tax credits must deliver fully accessible units, with ground-floor units at minimum featuring a no-step entrance and a usable bathroom.
A statewide accessible unit registry: A wheelchair user looking for an apartment in Connecticut is essentially on their own right now. The state should maintain a searchable, verifiable list.
Fund home modifications at scale: A ramp, stair lift, or a widened doorway is often the whole difference between staying home and entering an institution, at a tiny fraction of the cost.
Treat paratransit as real transit: A third of disabled adults in Connecticut stayed home in the past year because they had no reliable way to get somewhere. I would set enforceable, on-time standards, publish performance data, and hold our non-emergency medical transportation contractors accountable.
Community Living Over Institutions
Close Southbury Training School: Connecticut spends roughly $500,000 per resident at an institution that stopped taking new admissions in 1986 and that the legislature voted to close in 2025. Individual treatment plans consistently show that 95% of the Southbury Training School residents can be supported in integrated communities–the placement most consistently recommended for them.
No forced moves, ever: Every current resident and their family gets genuine choice, individualized planning, and the option to move with their existing care team.
Every dollar saved goes to the waiting list: Nearly a thousand Connecticut residents are waiting for residential services under emergency or urgent need, some for decades. I would write into law that savings from institutional closure fund community services and cannot be swept into the general fund.
Emergency Management Planning That Doesn’t Leave People Behind
One statewide emergency needs registry: Right now Connecticut relies on voluntary, town-by-town "special needs registries," and not every town keeps one. I would replace the patchwork with a single opt-in statewide registry with real privacy protections and a real obligation that someone actually comes.
Guarantee power for life-sustaining equipment: When the grid goes down, ventilators, oxygen concentrators, home dialysis, and power wheelchairs go with it. I would fund backup power for medically dependent residents and require priority restoration from the utilities.
People Before Profit in Our Health Care System
Close the loopholes in last year’s law: Private equity bought Waterbury, Manchester Memorial, and Rockville General, sold the land out from under them, and left bankruptcy and a closed emergency department behind. The 2026 law bars majority ownership of a hospital's main campus and still allows minority stakes and majority ownership of everything else. I would close that gap.
Require ownership transparency: Create aA public registry of the real owners behind every licensed health care and long-term care facility in this state, holding companies included. You cannot regulate what you cannot see.
Dignity in Our Schools
Ban seclusion outright: In one school year, Connecticut schools reported over 46,000 incidents of restraint and seclusion involving more than 4,000 students, most heavily in kindergarten through fourth grade. Locking a child alone in a room is not an educational intervention.
Sharply restrict physical restraint: Limit it to imminent serious danger, prohibit any hold that restricts breathing, and require independent review any time it is used repeatedly on the same child.
Fund the alternative: Restraint is often the resort when staffing is thinand training is absent. I would fund positive behavioral supports and school mental health staffing, because telling districts to stop without giving them the means is a mandate they will ignore.
End the subminimum wage in Connecticut: A provision of federal law written in 1938 still lets employers hold a certificate to pay disabled workers below the minimum wage, averaging around $3.34 an hour. More than eighteen states have already ended the practice (as of Jan. 1, 2025). Connecticut had a bill to end it in 2026 and instead created a task force to study it until 2028–even though peer-reviewed research on every state that has already done so found no overall job losses. Our state is studying a question that has already been answered, and as Governor, I would sign the ban and fund the transition to real jobs at real wages.