Internet outage affects Connecticut legislature, governor’s office

An internet outage affecting some Connecticut government employees and the legislature was reported Tuesday, forcing lawmakers to delay hearings and committee meetings while officials worked to resolve the issue.

Around noontime, the disruption appeared to be impacting both the General Assembly’s website and CT-N, the network that streams legislative and other government proceedings. Staff in Gov. Ned Lamont’s office were also impacted by the outage, a spokeswoman said.

House Speaker Matt Ritter said in a text message that the outage delayed meetings of the Banking, Housing and Children’s committees until at least the mid-afternoon. A spokesman for Senate Democrats said that the Appropriations and Human Services committees were also delaying their meetings.

Neither the House nor the Senate had been scheduled to hold floor proceedings on Tuesday, their fist working day back from the Presidents’ Day holiday.

In an email to lawmakers and staff on Tuesday, the General Assembly’s ITS Technology and Support Manager Jay Aronne said that an issue with the state’s Bureau of Information and Technology Services — which provides internet access to the Capitol and other government agencies — was causing “periodic slowness” in the General Assembly’s Internet, remote networks and email connections.

“BITS is currently working to resolve the issue,” Aronne said in the email. “We will keep you updated as information becomes available.”

A spokesman for the Department of Administrative Services, which operated BITS, did immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday afternoon about the cause of the outage, or which agencies were impacted.

The outage did not appear to impact the state’s Judicial Branch services on Tuesday, according to spokeswoman Rhonda Herbert.

Ned Gerard/Hearst Connecticut Media Government employees and legislators at the Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford were affected by an internet outage Tuesday that delayed meetings at least until mid-afternoon.