The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Dems plan to revisit bills rejected by Insurance Committee
HARTFORD — Demoof cratic majority leaders on Monday said they will try to revive as many bills as they can from the dozens pieces of legislation that died suddenly last week when the co-chairmen of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee failed to agree on action items before their deadline.
It was the first time in memory that a legislative committee of the General Assembly failed to approve any proposed legislation, letting at least 40 bills die from inaction.
Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said outside the Senate chamber Monday afternoon that the nearly three dozen bills that died March 20 at 5 p.m. will either live on as amendments to other bills, or they can be brought to debate through a process called emergency certification. All of the bills had been subject to public hearings, which is mandatory to advancing bills. Several of the expired bills were drafted by Senate Democrats to help protect consumers, he added.
Among the legislation that died was Gov. Ned Lamont’s bill aimed at reducing the cost of prescription drugs; another on mental health parity; and another bill that would allow small employers to join so-called affinity pools to save money on the cost of health insurance.
“I think the content of the number of bills pending will be seen again in another form,” Looney said. “One way or another I think we will see some of these bills again.”
Speaker of the House Matt Ritter and House Majority Leader Jason Rojas said there are parliamentary ways around the problem, including amending related bills from other committees when they reach the House and Senate floor for debate.
But they stressed that the inability of the two Democratic committee co-chairs — Rep. Kerry Wood of Rocky Hill and Sen. George Cabrera of Hamden — to agree on an action agenda was disappointing and complicates the flow of bills as the General Assembly closes in on its midnight May 8 adjournment.
Ritter said that Wood and Cabrera could not agree on items for the committee’s deadline day. “There was a desire to add additional bills to the agenda that were morecontroversial and they could not find an agreement on what those additional bills should be,” Ritter said. “They just ran out of time to come to agreement,” said Rojas, D-East Hartford.
“There are ways and strategies that you can bring stuff back,” Ritter, D-Hartford, told reporters prior to the House session on Monday. “The reality is you’re probably going to need a lot of cooperation from all four caucuses to keep that from being a long, long
“One way or another I think we will see some of these bills again.” Martin Looney, D-New Haven, Senate President Pro Tempore
debate. There are just some strong personalities and that committee has begun, I think over the last couple of years, it’s been tough, but there are bills that we care about and we’re going to find a way to resurrect them.”
Rojas added that the committee leadership would have to prioritize which bills they can agree on. “There are other insurance-related matters in other bills in other committees. Perhaps those can be the vehicles. Yes, some work will have to be done about what can go forward.”
As for who was at fault, Ritter said there was enough “blame to go around” between Wood and Cabrera. “There are two types of chairs. There are chairs that basically let every bill go through. Then there are some chairs that are a little more old school, and they say ‘we don’t have time for this right now.’ ”
Sen. Tony Hwang of Fairfield, a ranking Republican on the Insurance Committee, said outside the Senate on Monday that the affinity pools bill is important because it would be a way for smaller employers to offer their workers insurance, by gathering a variety of different trades and occupations. “It’s a good plan,” Hwang said. “It’s a bipartisan plan. It’s a plan that would help address critical cost concerns and affordability for individuals and small businesses that are really the engine of our state but they can’t afford it.”
“I think what happened in the Insurance and Real Estate Committee was unprecedented,” Hwang said. “It was disrespect to many of the advocates who came and testified, experts who gave their opinions and made real efforts to make contributions through the legislative process. Their voice wasn’t heard and that to me is the greatest travesty. We didn’t finish the work. My hope is these important bills that we argued and deliberated and had public hearings on will find another place. The most important thing we had a public hearing. We had the vetting. We just didn’t have the committee of cognizance voting on it. There were many good bills that we had.”
Ritter said that the rare, historic committee collapse is a learning experience. “Maybe it’s a good lesson in the future. On both sides, you’ve got to spend more time thinking about these things earlier than later,” he said.