Power struggle erupts as Lamont emergency orders wind down

A showdown has exploded over the extension of Gov. Ned Lamont’s emergency powers beyond the April 20 expiration date, as majority Democrats claim the orders are still needed in the pandemic, while Republicans charge the governor is dodging legislative authority.

The House of Representatives will meet Thursday afternoon to vote on the extension of Lamont’s powers until at least May 20. That is expected to pass, since Democrats hold a 96-53 margin, pending two special elections.

Among the issues hanging in the balance: mail-in voting, which passed temporarily in 2020 for the general election and is in force for the upcoming special elections and some municipal races under Lamont’s executive orders.

Setting the new deadline will allow local voter registrars in cities with local elections in May to seamlessly use the mail-in absentee ballot system.

That’s one of more than 90 executive orders in force, most with multiple sections, leading Democrats to say the legislature, slow-moving by nature, could not oversee an orderly deletion of some rules, as pandemic conditions continue to change rapidly.

Lawmakers will sit down with Lamont’s staff to see what issues, such as vaccine protocols and public safety measures including masks, should continue after May 20, said Speaker of the House Matt Ritter, D-Hartford and Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney.

“We need that bridge until May,” Ritter said in a phone interview, stressing that the House could approve the extension in a few minutes, but he expects the scheduled late-afternoon debate to go several hours. Ritter stressed that by mid-May, the vast majority of state residents who want to be vaccinated against COVID are likely to have had the opportunity.

“We will have a huge inventory of information available in the next six weeks,” Ritter said. “I’d rather have as much information as possible, and then make a decision in May.”

Republican leaders say the legislature needs a voice and must regain the power it lost for most of 2020. Lamont’s emergency powers were announced in March, then extended in September and again in February.

“Our position is that the emergency declaration was certainly needed back last March,” House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said Tuesday. “We started parting ways last fall. Now we need to find a way to transition to normal functions, with the legislature making decisions and the governor implementing them. He’s been allowed to operate under a cloak of secrecy, outside the public process.”

Candelora said his staff have reviewed the hundreds of individual sections within Lamont’s 91 executive orders and that a debate over the necessity of some individual orders will likely result on Thursday.

Candelora noted that a recent Superior Court decision challenging Lamont’s order for face masks to be worn in public schools that is now heading to the state Supreme Court, could result in a declaration that Lamont has been acting in an unconstitutional manner. In that ruling, the Superior Court Judge suggested the full legislature, not a smaller group of leaders, should have voted to give Lamont the emergency powers.

“This conversation is whether the legislature should be delegating authority to the governor,” Candelora said.

Paul Mounds, Lamont’s chief of staff, said Tuesday that the emergency public health and civil preparedness emergencies go beyond maintaining the state’s eligibility for reimbursement under the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“Contrary to claims made by Republicans, the declarations of emergencies are in place because we are very much still in an emergency,” Mounds said in a late-afternoon statement. “For example, the emergencies provide the necessary flexibility for our nationleading vaccine distribution program to continue, helping our state get back to normal. The emergencies allow for increased SNAP benefits to support our residents in need.”

Ending the declaration could also lead FEMA to believe that the state’s pandemic emergency is over, Mounds said. “That is a risk the governor has chosen not to take as it could jeopardize millions of dollars to which Connecticut is entitled. Indeed, to the best of our knowledge, no other state has terminated its declaration(s) of emergency at this time.”

Looney, D-New Haven, and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said it’s still too soon to tell whether the pandemic will subside before the scheduled end of the session June 9.

“We have been a leader in the country on how we handled this pandemic from the very beginning,” Looney told reporters outside the Capitol. “I think there are still circumstances where the governor’s powers to issue executive orders have to be in play. I think it is also important to note that the Republicans have not, to my knowledge, proposed one executive order that they would vehemently object to or seek to repeal.”

He said that majority leaders are awaiting recommendations from Lamont’s new legal counsel, Nora Dannehy, on what orders to retain in the longer run and which can be rescinded. “Frankly, only the executive can act quickly in the wake of an emergency,” Looney said. “The General Assembly is a deliberative body that is not set up for emergency action.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford, complained that Republicans are being shut out of talks with Democrats, including the governor.

“It’s been a year folks,” Kelly told reporters outside the State Capitol prior to a Senate session. “Our system of government is not wired for one-person rule.” He called for some kind of “hybrid” reopening of the State Capitol, which has been closed to the public since March 12 of last year.