Senate conference committee weighs removing federal agents from S 208 and asks advisory board to draft model policy

A Senate conference committee meeting May 28 to reconcile differences on S 208 focused on whether federal agents should be included in proposed law-enforcement identification standards and on completing a model policy in the interim.

The committee’s chair said the House amendments appear to mirror practices law enforcement has already described in testimony and that recent appellate developments raise constitutional risks. “It’s highly likely…that this would be found unconstitutional,” the chair said, arguing that the committee should consider removing federal agents from coverage to reduce litigation exposure.

The committee said it had sought legal advice from the attorney general’s office and legislative counsel and consulted constitutional-law expert Professor Rodney Smola. The chair said those consultations informed the view that keeping federal agents in the text could make the measure vulnerable in other circuits.

Committee members discussed timing and strategy for preserving options. One member said drafting an administrative model policy now — assigned to the law enforcement advisory board as an expert body in the draft language — would allow the state to refine standards and, if higher courts later uphold similar rules, convert that policy into statute. “Having the policy work done in the interim…we can put that in place later,” the chair said.

A separate committee member urged caution about relying on appellate decisions from other circuits, noting prior examples where courts overturned provisions but the statutes remained on the books. That member said the Supreme Court will ultimately resolve the legal question and proposed seeking a middle ground in drafting.

No formal motions or votes were recorded in the transcript. Instead, members agreed to take a break, work with legislative counsel on compromise language, and to reconvene the same afternoon, tentatively at 3:30 p.m., to continue drafting and address remaining sections of the conference report.

The committee also referenced recent state actions — including Connecticut’s enactment of related language and ongoing measures in New York — as context for the timing and litigation risk. The meeting closed with scheduling logistics and a commitment to return to drafting later that day.