A billionaire-backed advocacy group spent nearly $680,000 lobbying at the capitol, outspending companies and organizations like Eversource and the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, in a push for early childcare initiatives and reshaping Connecticut’s housing and rental policies, according to lobbying numbers from the Office of State Ethics.

 The Connecticut Project Action Fund is the independent 501(c)4 advocacy arm of its larger sister organization, The Connecticut Project, a 501(c)3 backed by Connecticut hedge fund billionaire Stephen Mandel and his wife Susan, who are well-known for their financial backing of Democrat candidates and organizations, including throwing an expensive fundraising dinner for President Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign. 

Although the organizations are relatively new – started in 2021 – their teams have plenty of experience in the world of Connecticut politics and policy; The Connecticut Project, Inc. is headed by former New Haven Superintendent Garth Harries, and their sizable staff comes from various organizations like the ACLU of CT, Voices for Children, the United Way, and former legislative staffers.

The boards of the two organizations include Kica Matos, head of the National Immigration Law Center, former Connecticut labor leader Larry Fox, and former Commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development David Lehman, along with the Mandels.

Stephen Mandel recently appeared in a New York Times article as one of the billionaire funders of the Searchlight Institute, which is trying to influence the Democratic Party to talk less about climate change and LGBTQ issues and more about kitchen table issues like affordability. In Connecticut, Mandel created The CT Project to focus on issues they believe the poor and working class of the state really care about. 

In its early days, the CT Project sent their people door-knocking in towns and cities to find out what really mattered to them and, according to Vice President of Advocacy and External Affairs Mel Medina, the answer always came back the same: affordability.

“We’re a new organization on the scene, and we’ve spent a lot of time – including organizers on the ground knocking on doors, talking to people where they live about the biggest issues that are impacting them,” Medina said. “What we learned pretty quickly was that the number one issue affecting people’s lives right now was affordability.”

“Some of the biggest ticket items people are experiencing in terms of affordability are also Connecticut’s biggest challenges: healthcare, housing, childcare,” Medina said. “These are big ticket items for working people, but at the same time, some of the biggest challenges the state has to face for both short-term and long-term.”

During the 2025 session, the CT Project Action Fund spent a total of $684,979, with most of that spend coming from $530,787 in paid advertisements to push legislation through appeals to the public. The only organization or company to spend more on lobbying was the Connecticut Hospital Association, which regularly tops the lobbyist charts. Even Eversource, facing a protracted battle with the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, spent $300,000 less than the Action Fund.

“Because we’re an organization focused on delivering results for working class people, what we understand is that to center these issues and get to the right solutions requires centering the people that are affected,” Medina said. 

The CT Project runs numerous ads on social media and mails flyers to residences advertising their advocacy for affordable housing, childcare, and economic opportunity, and encouraging people to join one of their local chapters; thus far, they have amassed 30,000 people to actively join their movement, according to Medina.

According to the Connecticut Project’s 2025 annual report, the organization joined with allies to support the early childhood endowment – a trust fund proposed by Gov. Ned Lamont that sent surplus tax revenue into an endowment to expand and subsidize childcare in Connecticut. The fund received its first $300 million this year but was criticized by Republicans for bypassing Connecticut’s fiscal guardrails, something Lamont had steadfastly opposed in previous years.

They also testified in support of a bill that would, among other things, institute a pilot project to give renters cash instead of housing vouchers; a bill that would limit rental increases when a new owner acquires the property, and pushed heavily for the session’s major housing bill, House Bill 5002, through a social media and email campaign that garnered more than 5,000 calls and emails encouraging Gov. Lamont to sign it. 

While most of the housing and rental bills the group supported did not pass, they have continued their ongoing campaign for a special session to use some of Connecticut’s surplus revenue to support Medicaid and SNAP benefits in the wake of possible federal cuts — which would require adjusting the state’s fiscal guardrails — and for a housing bill to be passed. They have the money to keep that advocacy rolling. 

According to tax forms for Connecticut Project, Inc., the group started out in 2021 with $500,000 but received $33.5 million in 2022 from a related organization. Although the name of the organization is not listed and would normally count as “dark money” when funneled to a 501(c)4 organization, Medina says they are open and transparent that the Mandels fund both the CT Project and the CT Project Action Fund, and they are grateful for the Mandels’ contributions.

By 2023, the Connecticut Project, Inc. still had over $35 million, making it perhaps the most well-funded policy and advocacy organization in the state, having more in the bank than either the CHA or the CBIA, and the money gets spread around.

In 2023, the organization distributed $5.7 million to groups and charities who have ample sway with lawmakers at the capitol; legislators often rely on those organizations’ research to prop up legislation and rely on their people to show up to speak at press conferences and offer legislative testimony.   

The United Way of Connecticut received $225,000, according to the Connecticut Project Inc.’s 990s, with many of their regional offices also receiving substantial donations; progressive think tank Voices for Children received $125,000; The Partnership for Strong Communities received $350,000 for their housing voucher and policy program initiative, and the ACLU received $150,000, among many others.

The Connecticut Project Action Fund received $300,000 in 2023 from the Connecticut Project Inc, but their own tax documents show they took in $1.3 million. Likewise, they spread some of the money around to some progressive 501(c)4 groups well known at the capitol, like the Connecticut Citizens Action Group, the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, Connecticut Shoreline Indivisible, and the League of Women Voters, all of whom received $11,425 each.

“We are a big tent in that we’re trying to build with community and with partners who share the vision that Connecticut needs to be fairer and more affordable for working class people,” Medina said. “And we need to be able to deliver actual results.”

Aside of helping push through the childcare trust fund in 2025, the CT Project Action Fund also put significant money behind two successful ballot initiatives.

In 2022, the Connecticut Project Action Fund put $250,000 into an independent expenditure committee that successfully pushed for early voting in Connecticut. In 2024, the Mandels and the Action Fund put $790,594 into successfully passing Connecticut’s no excuse absentee ballot referendum through an independent expenditure organization created by the Action Fund called Yes for Safe and Accessible Democracy.

That same year, Mandel personally donated $1.5 million to Impact CT, a pre-existing Democrat independent expenditure organization. Prior to 2024, the Mandels personally contributed only sparsely to state candidate and party committees, according to state election finance records; most of their contributions were on the federal level.

Despite the CT Project’s Democrat and left-of-center leanings, Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, says he’s had positive experiences with the organization’s lobbying staff even though they often fell on opposite sides of housing and rental policy. Sampson described them as open to ideas, and “not particularly partisan,” and “about solutions.”

“It’s certainly a left-leaning organization,” Sampson said, but described them as “very open about being inclusive of other people’s ideas and even trying to get me involved with some of their decision makers.”

“The sense that they would be a pretty progressive organization and I would have concerns about them dumping a lot of money for issues advocacy in this state is real,” Sampson continued, “but so far it hasn’t amounted to that, at least in any way that I can point to.”

The CT Project has also taken up one long-standing initiative that was part of former Republican Senate Leader Len Fasano’s “urban agenda” — reforming the benefits cliff whereby people receiving state benefits suddenly lose them completely when they reach a certain income level. 

Fasano argued the cliff kept people in the welfare system rather than assisting them in moving out of it through full-time work, and his proposals received some support from advocates on the other end of the political spectrum. To that end, the CT Project has hired former Republican State Representative Holly Cheeseman as a consultant to help push for reforms to the state benefits system.

However, Maria Weingarten of the organization 169 Strong, which has opposed the zoning and housing bills pushed by organizations like Desegregate CT, the Partnership for Strong Communities, believes “The CT Project is giving an outsized voice to these organizations to advocate against our municipalities and our residents.”

169 Strong had posted on social media about the CT Project and its support for this year’s big housing bill and for funding some of the other groups and organizations advocating for the housing bill. “This isn’t just policy debate – it’s well-funded, highly coordinated advocacy, much of it bankrolled by hedge fund billionaires,” the organization wrote in a lengthy August 17 post. “Critics argue this is billionaires funding nonprofits to create the appearance of grassroots support for housing bills – especially ones like HB 5002.”

“To me it’s just this dark money,” Weingarten said. “Every time I turn around, I see the interconnectedness of all these different groups.”

Lately, the organization has been advertising extensively online for a special session to address projected Medicaid and SNAP budget reductions coming out of Washington D.C., by setting aside “a portion” of surplus tax revenue that typically would be used to pay down the pension debt that has dogged Connecticut’s finances over the last fifteen years. 

While the state has paid down more than $8 billion in pension debt through surplus revenue tied to Wall Street earnings, thus saving the state hundreds of millions in annual pension payments, members of the more progressive wing of General Assembly Democrats have argued the guardrails should, at the very least, be adjusted to accommodate for more spending on social programs. 

The possibility of federal cuts to Medicaid and other services has added fuel to their arguments, as the state already faces deficits in its Medicaid program amounting to $100 million after the General Assembly allotted $284 million toward Medicaid cost overruns for 2024-2025. Much of the overruns are attributed to rising pharmaceutical and hospital costs, according to CT Mirror, who also list the Mandels as donors on their website. 

According to a report by CT Insider, however, the state has also spent “at least $80 million” on healthcare for illegal immigrants since the state began to cover immigrant children up to age 15 and pregnant women. However, enrollment and costs of that expansion exceeded initial estimates by more than double, and it has been criticized by General Assembly Republicans. 

According to the CT Project’s inaugural 2024 report, they partnered with and supported organizations like the Connecticut Health Foundation and Husky for Immigrants to assist with Medicaid enrollment and help those who were already on Medicaid to avoid losing coverage after COVID provisions began to unwind. The report claims that, as a result, Connecticut has the sixth lowest Medicaid disenrollment in the country and that 11,235 immigrants enrolled in Medicaid expanded coverage, “70% more than expected.”

The organization has also spent heavily on data and research endeavors tied to Medicaid, particularly with Yale University, to ensure those who are eligible for programs and particular tax breaks are making the best use of them. Yale received $340,000 to fund “two strategic data positions at the State Medicaid office, including a data scientist,” according to their 990 and 2024 annual report. “Among other projects to improve Medicaid access, this initiative introduced the idea of using SNAP eligibility to automatically enroll people in Medicaid.”

“Right now, we’re focused on Connecticut, which has the resources to ensure that people on HUSKY and folks on SNAP have the healthcare they need, have the food that they need to keep moving forward,” Medina said. “Connecticut is in a good position to spend the money right now on the emergency that is at hand, and we will continue to push legislators to get prepared for the likely budget cuts and impact of those budget cuts on Connecticut working class people.”

They are also pushing for a housing bill during a potential special session, something Medina says they hear about from people every day when they are door-knocking – that “their rent or their mortgage is the number one issue in their lives.” 

“I’m not going to pretend that there are easy solutions, but certainly the legislature put together a package of solutions that together aim to achieve a long-term vision for housing in Connecticut and ideally try to bring affordability down,” Medina said. “Right now, if you are an elected official, whether you’re running for office or in office, the number one issue facing people right now is housing and we implore the governor and the legislature to come back and tackle that issue.”

Like the CT Project’s efforts to get people to sign up for expanded Medicaid coverage, they’ve also made wide efforts to educate people about potential tax savings. According to their latest 2025 report, the CT Project also partnered with other organizations to door-knock, make phone calls, advertise online and on buses and billboards to educate people to file for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). According to their figures, 3,700 people filed for the tax break, 80 percent of whom “had not heard of the EITC before.”

Medina says that reaching out to people on the ground to help them take advantage of policies like the EITC or Medicaid coverage is one of his favorite parts of the organization; they don’t just reach out to the public to mobilize them to contact lawmakers, but also to “deliver to people directly.” The money, partnerships, and manpower allow the CT Project to not only reach a lot of people with their message but also gauge public sentiment. 

Medina says The CT Project is “deep” into towns like Bristol, New Britain, East Hartford and Manchester, talking to people every day and door-knocking, and they’re expanding into the lower Naugatuck Valley. But what they keep hearing is an underlying dissatisfaction with the way things currently are in the state and country.

“One thing we’ve learned that I think is representative of the larger politics of our country right now is that people are fed up, they’re angry, they’re frustrated, and they’re trying to figure out why they are working so hard, and their money seems to go not as far,” Medina said. “That issue, is the prime focus for us.”

“I give them credit for having people who are looking for solutions instead of hammering the same old progressive tripe day after day,” Sampson said. “They can be a force to be reckoned with, no doubt about it.”

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