Lamont’s vetoes go unchallenged by lawmakers
HARTFORD — The House and Senate convened in lightning-fast sessions Monday morning, then adjourned without attempting to override either of Gov. Ned Lamont’s vetoes.
So, the short budgetadjustment session of 2022 ended with 168 bills signed into law, plus the two unchallenged rejections, one of which means that West Haven will not be getting a military-surplus armored vehicle that could travel in flooded areas for rescues.
The other bill would have limited police immunity in vehicular chases.
“There wasn’t a significant level of interest by many of the members to come in and override,” said House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, after the nearly empty chamber adjourned for at least the summer, and likely until the next General Assembly convenes in January.
“There didn’t seem to be an appetite to override them,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, DNorwalk, outside the Senate chamber after the twominute proceeding. “We can always come back again next session.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, standing next to Duff, said that the police pursuit legislation in particular is likely to be revived during the 2023 session.
“I think there’s probably a path to enacting that in some compromise form next year,” Looney said of the bill, the impetus for which was the case of a 15-year-old passenger of a vehicle that crashed at high speed during a chase with a Shelton police officer. The teens parents sued the city in 2012. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that emergency responders have latitude for making discretionary decisions, such as engaging suspects at speed.
The acquisition of the armored vehicle from the town of Farmington would have dodged a state law from the 2020 police accountability legislation prohibiting towns and cities from acquiring military surplus equipment. Lamont’s veto message last month said that letting the vehicle go to West Haven would not be in the spirit of the type of “communityfocused policing” he supports.
“We really haven’t talked about that much,” Looney said of that veto.
During the 2021 session, Lamont signed 237 bills and vetoed four.