Bill Summary: SB 385 - Human Rights and Opportunities Revisions

• Reorganizes the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities structure by reducing human rights referees from seven to three and renaming them "referees" with a "chief referee" overseeing operations instead of separate hearing officers

• Expands protected classes under discrimination statutes to explicitly include sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and learning disability across employment, housing, credit, and public accommodation laws

• Reforms complaint processing procedures by introducing mandatory mediation within 30 days, earlier legal intervention, and expedited case assessment reviews, with stricter timelines (15 days to serve complaints instead of 20)

• Changes terminology throughout statutes from "creed" to "religion," replaces gendered pronouns with neutral language, and reorganizes section 46a-51 definitions to consolidate 47 defined terms related to discrimination

• Repeals obsolete sexual orientation discrimination sections (46a-81b to 46a-81o) and consolidates retaliation and discrimination-by-association provisions into new section 9