Testify in Support of CT JP Bill – 3/10/2025
See our template to guide your written and oral testimony- Oral testimony can be by Zoom or in person. Maximum time allowed is three minutes, though legislators may ask you questions extending your time. Link to sign up is below.
Sign-up to speak or submit written testimony in Support of HB7150
- Register to speak in-person or by Zoom. Deadline to sign-up is 3PM Sunday. Three minute time limit. The speaker order is randomized and is released at 6PM on Sunday night.
- Submit your written testimony here. The hearing is on March 10, 2025 at 10:30AM. Indicate that you SUPPORT HB7150.
HB7150, An Act Concerning Justices of the Peace
The Justice of the Peace Association worked with the state legislators who introduced the bill, along with Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas on the language of the bill. This is the critical bill to address problems Connecticut JPs have reported:
- Establishing training and qualifications for JPs. The bill requires JPs to pass a test following their appointment. Training may be implemented, too.
- Inability to transfer JP appointments between municipalities. This will be addressed through a working group tasked with examining issues related to JPs.
- Favoritism and discrimination by DTCs and RTC impeding the appointment process. This will also be explored through the working group.
- Disparity toward unaffiliated and minor political party voters. The bill is a step in the right direction, creating a second window for non-major political party JPs to be appointed. JPus encourages testimony to support these vacant JP positions being filled at any time, not only during the two periods outlined in the legislation.
- Unbefitting JPs that make more work for town clerks and give professional JPs a bad name. This bill defines misconduct and establishes consequences for such behavior.
See the key points and the bill with highlighted language that relates to JPs who perform marriages.
Zoom Q&A, Two Sessions Scheduled Sunday: 9AM or 6PM
Questions? Join JPus’ Managing Member Loretta Jay on Sunday, March 9, 20025 at either 9AM or 6PM for more information about the proposed bill, guidance on how to submit written testimony and how to testify in person or by Zoom. Members and non-members are welcome.
- If you are on JPus’ email distribution list, please check your email for the Zoom links.
- If you don’t receive our emails yet, you can sign up here. A reminder will be sent on Sunday at 6AM with the link. If you missed that deadline, please email [email protected] to receive the Zoom links.
Related Links
- How-to Testify in support of the bill, with written sample
- See the bill, HB7150, with highlighted sections related to JPs who perform marriages.
- The Justice of the Peace Association’s white paper
- The legislative backstory.
- JPus 2023 Managing Member’s testimony to the Planning and Development Committee that summarizes the problem.
- Member Support article about how to advocate to support legislation
CT JPs – CoSponsors Needed
Contact YOUR STATE SENATOR and REPRESENTATIVE and ask them to
Co-Sponsor HB 6529 an Act Concerning Justices of the Peace
Please take a few minutes to call or email your Senator and Representative and ask them to cosponsor HB6529. This is the bill that addresses our concerns about JP appointments and qualifications.
Step One:
- Look up your State Representative and Senator here. Follow the link to get their phone number and/or email address.
- Call or send your State Representative and Senator an email asking them to cosponsor HB6529. Be sure to copy JPus on the email to let us know that you reached out to your legislators so that we can follow-up, too.
See talking points and sample e-mail language below. Please include your experiences so your legislators will recognize that this legislation is important to you — especially if you have been negatively affected by the current system.
See talking points and sample e-mail language below.
Step Two:
Be on the lookout for more information about a public hearing. We will want as many JPs as possible to testify. More info on that coming soon.
Current Situation:
The bill, HB6529, An Act Concerning Justices of the Peace, would:
- authorize municipal legislative bodies to fill vacancies in unaffiliated justice of the peace positions,
- require the Secretary of the State to oversee training and certification of justices of the peace and
- establish a task force to examine issues related to justices of the peace.
If passed, this legislation would create a roadmap to resolve the problems identified in JPus’ 2023 white paper.
Sample E-mail
Please remember to EDIT AND CUSTOMIZE and please copy [email protected] on the message.
Find your State Representative and Senator.
Dear (fill in the blank with your Senator or Representative’s name)
I am a (fill in the blank with Justice of the Peace or Town Clerk) in (Write your town).
Please cosponsor HB 6529, an Act Concerning Justices of the Peace. This much-needed bill will
- authorize municipal legislative bodies to fill vacancies in unaffiliated justice of the peace positions,
- require the Secretary of the State to oversee training and certification of justices of the peace and
- establish a task force to examine issues related to justices of the peace.
This bill will resolve problems that I have experienced. It is important to me.
Please feel free to contact me or Loretta Jay, the managing member of the Justice of the Peace Association, copied on this message, to discuss the details. Thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Key findings of JPus’ 2023 research
- Systemic unfairness in appointment process: Favoritism, inequality between political parties, lack of portability between towns.
- Disparity between municipalities: Three different rules are used to determine how many JP slot are available in each city or town.
- No training requirement: This creates opportunity for nonfeasance, jeopardizing the legality of marriages and quality of services to the public. Trained JPs are partners to recognize forced marriage and human trafficking and marriage fraud. Thus, they are another team member to protect our most vulnerable.
Related Links
- The Justice of the Peace Association’s white paper
- The legislative backstory.
- JPus 2023 Managing Member’s testimony to the Planning and Development Committee that summarizes the problem.
- Member Support article about how to advocate to support legislation
Marriage Fraud in the News
The Justice of the Peace Association has discussed and reported how the number of couples entering Connecticut for fraudulent marriages has increased since the pandemic. In some towns the clerks have managed to shoo them away. In others, there is a steady stream. Unfortunately the laws do not support JPs refusing to perform the ceremony. But JPus provided training so officiants know how to recognize and respond when they encounter suspected fraudulent marriages.
In the News
Some unscrupulous JPs have been knowingly performing marriages between a US citizen and a non-citizen who do not appear to know each other without taking additional steps to protect the vulnerable. These are some of the published news articles after an expose in New Haven, Connecticut.
- On November 7, 2024, the New Haven Independent released its investigative report about a justice of the peace who was performing an extraordinarily high number of what appears to be fraudulent marriages. US citizens marrying mostly Indian nationals. The couples didn’t appear to know each other and they didn’t live in New Haven, where the ceremonies occurred. Other JPs quoted in the article appeared indifferent to the situation, and unaware of the risks to vulnerable populations.
- The Mirror published the New Haven Independent’s article in its entirety.
- A week later, the Hartford Courant posted a follow-up news article highlighting legislators’ concerns.
- National news caught the story and conservative commentator Ann Coulter ran a story, using it to promote her anti-immigration views.
Related Links
- See what JPus is doing to raise the qualifications of Connecticut officiants
- JPus’ managing member was interviewed in this March 2024 Connecticut Post article about unregulated JPs
- Read JPus’ white paper, Civil Marriage Officiants in Connecticut: Solutions to Unburden the JP Appointment Process
- See JPus’s survey results about officiant qualifications and appointments
- See how JPus is advocating to address the problems with amateur officiants
- Learn about the JP and notary role, state-by-state
- We advocate on other marriage-related issues
NH – Emancipation Loophole
Action Alert – Chair of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Sharon Carson, intends to have the Judiciary Committee vote on an amendment allowing emancipated minors to marry. Please call Senator Carson’s aide, Matthew Schelzi at 603-271-3266 and tell him you support SB359 to end child marriage, but you oppose an emancipation loophole. Likely he won’t answer the phone, so please leave a voice mail message.
Emancipation is a Loophole
The following explanation describing how emancipation does not protect minors was shared by our partner, Unchained at Last.
- Emancipation is intended to help minors who cannot be reunited with their family by giving them some limited rights of adulthood so they can navigate the world independently until they turn 18 and attain full rights of adulthood. However, emancipated minors are not allowed to engage in activities that are unsafe or inappropriate for their age and are not necessary for their independence, such as buying tobacco, alcohol or firearms or voting (N.H. R.S.A. § 461-B(8)(V)(a)). Given the many serious harms of marriage before 18, which is considered a human rights abuse because of the devastating repercussions it produces, and given that marriage is not necessary for a minor to navigate the world on their own, emancipated minors also should not be allowed to marry.
- An emancipation loophole to the marriage age opens up the terrible possibility that minors will be forced to emancipate so that they can be forced to marry. Advocates have told Unchained they already see something similar happening in the United Kingdom, with parents setting up children with a fake job at the family business and a bank account the children cannot actually access, so the courts believe the children have an income and assets.
- Emancipated minors have only some rights of adulthood and still can become trapped in an unwanted marriage. For example, domestic violence shelters typically do not accept anyone under age 18, usually because of funding guidelines or concerns about liability. In Unchained’s experience, domestic violence shelters are reluctant to accept even emancipated minors. Further, emancipated minors often have a hard time accessing even the rights they do have. Imagine, for example, how a landlord would feel about renting an apartment to a 17-year-old, even one who is emancipated.
- To illustrate how emancipated teens often have a difficult time accessing their rights, take New Jersey Asm. Raj Mukherji. He was emancipated when he was a teenager and a “wunderkind” entrepreneur. He told Unchained even though he was legally allowed to enter contracts (and even though he was clearly brilliant and mature), he often had an adult business partner do so on his behalf because business associates were too skeptical and confused about entering contracts with a teenage boy. (Mukherji signed on as a co-sponsor to the bill that ended child marriage in New Jersey in 2018.)
- An emancipation loophole removes one of the only options Unchained and other advocates have to help minors whose family is taking them overseas for a forced marriage. Unchained and other advocates usually help such minors to emancipate, but advocates cannot do that if emancipation means the parents can marry off the minor without taking them overseas.
- Indeed, just months after Texas passed a bill in 2017 that allowed child marriage only for emancipated teens, that loophole trapped a 16-year-old Unchained client in a nightmarish scenario. Her parents were planning to take her overseas to force her to marry, and the courts refused to intervene to stop the trip. Unchained would have helped the girl to seek emancipation so she could refuse to travel with her parents, but, with the new law in place, Unchained could not seek emancipation for the girl out of fear her parents would immediately pounce on her emancipated status and coerce her to marry in Texas. If the new law in Texas were a “brightline” law preventing all marriage before 18, without an emancipation exception, the girl could have sought emancipation. She would have then had two years to finish high school, find a college and plan her next steps without concern that her parents would pressure or trick her into marriage.
- Marriage before 18 is a human rights abuse that destroys American girls’ health, education and economic opportunities and significantly increases their risk of experiencing violence. The devastating impacts of this human rights abuse do not disappear if we stamp “emancipated” on a girl’s forehead.
- The whole world, including the U.S., has promised to end child marriage by year 2030, under United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5.3, to help achieve gender equality. If other countries attempted to get around this worthy goal by emancipating girls before marriage and then insisting it is no longer “child marriage,” we would cry foul. So let’s not allow it in the U.S.
Related Links
- Information about our advocacy and partnerships for officiants about child and forced marriage.
- Education and training for officiants about child and forced marriage
- JPus has been on the forefront of legislative activity to end child marriage in other states
- Follow our state-by-state changes to marriage laws
- How membership voted to join the Coalition to End Child Marriage
- Working with our partners amplifies our voice and helps achieve our goals
Sign-on to Tell NH Lawmakers – End Child Marriage!
The New Hampshire Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on SB359, a bill to end child marriage in the state. All New Hampshire residents are invited to sign onto JPus’ letter in support of the bill.
- Read JPus’ Letter to the Judiciary Committee urging the passage of this bill.
- Add your name to our list of supporters and sign onto JPus’ letter
NH residents can also testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee: In-person on Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 9:15, Room 100 of the State House. If you will be testifying, please let JPus know so we can coordinate efforts.
Related Links
- Read about efforts to end child marriage in New Hampshire
- Information about our advocacy and partnerships for officiants about child and forced marriage.
- Education and training for officiants about child and forced marriage
- JPus has been on the forefront of legislative activity to end child marriage in other states
- Follow our state-by-state changes to marriage laws
- How membership voted to join the Coalition to End Child Marriage
- Working with our partners amplifies our voice and helps achieve our goals