Senator Bob Duff represents Connecticut’s 25th Senatorial District, which includes Norwalk and Darien. Re-elected to the State Senate in 2020, he was chosen by his Senate colleagues in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021 to serve as Senate Majority Leader.
Bob’s Norwalk family ties go back five generations. His passion for public service began at the age of eight. That’s when Bob voiced his concerns for the future of Duffy Field to then-mayor William Collins. Today, we still have Duffy Field — now renamed Veterans Park.
Since joining the legislature, Bob has been a tireless advocate for job creation in Connecticut. He has helped bring businesses to the state and played a leading role in championing landmark jobs legislation. As part of this legislation, later expanded, Connecticut created the Small Business Express Program which provides loans and grants to small business to spur business growth and promote new jobs.
Bob has earned a reputation as a consumer watchdog. As Chair of the legislature’s Housing Committee, he created the state’s first Housing Trust Fund to build more affordable housing in Connecticut. As Chair of the Banking Committee, Bob worked to safeguard Connecticut homeowners from the ravages of predatory lending by creating a package of first-in-the-nation reforms to reduce the number of home foreclosures in the state. Included was the foreclosure mediation program, Mortgage Crisis Job Training Program (the first iteration to the federally recognized and nationally acclaimed Platform to Employment program) to help those unemployed or underemployed avoid foreclosure and a law that provides tools to municipalities ensuring lenders maintain their vacant properties.
Bob’s consumer advocacy continued as he went on to Chair the Energy and Technology Committee. As Chair, Bob championed two major pieces of energy legislation which taken together implement a new comprehensive energy strategy for Connecticut: restructuring support for renewable sources of electricity to provide for cheaper, cleaner and more reliable energy for consumers and businesses. Bob also supported the nation’s first cybersecurity report by a state government relating to safeguarding our electric grid and water utilities.
Under Bob’s tenure as Majority Leader, he is most proud of his role in 2017 leading the rewrite of the state’s decades-old education funding formula to better help children in our urban centers and those who live in poverty and when English is not the student’s primary language.
In addition, the Senate Democratic caucus with Bob has achieved numerous legislative victories. Most recently, the caucus passed legislation standing up for DREAMers, the National Popular Vote, net neutrality, data privacy, health care access, Time’s Up, gun safety, LGBTQ rights, equal pay for equal work, raising the minimum wage and Paid Family Medical Leave.
Bob has long been fierce in promoting the needs of his district by securing funding to assist in the rebuilding of Norwalk’s downtown, supporting school upgrades, creating and rehabilitating affordable housing, and passionately supporting arts organizations, like the Wall Street Theater, the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum and the Music Theatre of Connecticut, to name a few.
Bob has also been involved with the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) serving on both the Foundation Board and Nominating Committee and active in their leadership programs.
Throughout his legislative career, Bob has been honored by The Workplace Inc., AARP of Connecticut, the Lockwood-Matthews Mansion Museum, the Save Cranbury Association, Side-by-Side Charter School, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, Greater Stamford Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Women’s Business Development Council, the Maritime Aquarium, the Norwalk NAACP, the Norwalk Marching Bears, Inc., Action for Bridgeport Community Development and the Norwalk Public Schools Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee.
After graduating Norwalk Public Schools, Bob earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Lynchburg College in Virginia. There, Bob honed his political skills as a student senator, campus leader and intern for then-U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT).
In May 2010, Bob returned to Lynchburg College to deliver the commencement address to the graduating class and was awarded a degree of Doctorate of Humane Letters.
Bob has been a real estate professional with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty for 25 years. Prior to his election to the Senate, Bob represented Norwalk’s 137th Assembly District for three years.
Bob, his wife, Tracey, and their two children live on Toilsome Avenue in Norwalk with their rescue dog, Molly
