Connecticut Dems missed chance to boost democracy

The Connecticut General Assembly came together Monday for a quick session to spend some money, extend some freebies and fix a few things — all of which were headed for easy approval in the afternoon.

My issue is how it was all done — in a way that missed an opportunity to boost democracy.

It was a lovely collection of measures: extending the 25-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax for a month, then phasing it back in slowly for six months; spending $105 million on cash handouts to some, but not all, front-line workers who toiled in the pandemic shutdown 2 ½ years ago; extending free local bus service through March; adding $30 million for fuel assistance to families this winter; and a slight change in the bottle bill related to how some products are labeled.

That list would have been four separate, unrelated bills in the regular

session that starts Jan. 4. But in a one-day special session, it was all packed into one complex dish for lawmakers to swallow up or down.

Why? Because Democrats in the House and Senate overwhelmingly agreed on all five measures. “We see no reason not to package it all in one bill,” Senate President Pro-tem Martin Looney, D-New Haven, told me last week.

Trouble is, that way of operating forces lawmakers to vote for parts of the bill that they oppose, or vote against parts they like. “You have people that are going to support this bill because they don’t want to be tagged with a ‘no’ vote,” said Rep. Vin Candelora, R-North Branford the House GOP leader.

On its face, this is inside baseball with little or no meaning to the 99.9 percent of Connecticut residents who don’t follow this sausage factory under the gold dome in Hartford. Who really cares whether lawmakers took one vote or five on a sunny, late-fall day after Thanksgiving?

Meaningless to most people, yes — but it points to something that does matter in an era when the nation, and even the state of Connecticut, stands sharply divided politically with anger between the parties.

The single vote works like a trap by Democrats against Republicans. Let’s say a rank-and-file Republican supports the fuel assistance and the free bus rides but opposes the pandemic relief bill and wants to see the gas tax break extended in full through June — as all Republicans did. That lawmaker might vote no on the whole package, leaving him or her open in two short years to a Democrat claiming, correctly, that “my opponent voted against fuel assistance when we had spiking prices for heating oil!”

This was a chance for the Dems, who totally control the state, to hand an olive branch across the aisle, saying, “Yes, we get that a single vote helps us politically but we’re going to try to heal the wounds of a nasty era.”

Besides, it just makes logical sense to divide bills into their parts if the parts are unrelated. Debates are better and voters can follow the action more easily. In this case, the sections of the omnibus bill broke out easily into four measures, which Republicans proposed to divide in an amendment. They lost on a straight party-line vote.

“The fact that they’re not allowing legislators to vote on each issue and look at each issue from the perspective of the people we represent … it isn’t fair,” Sen. Kevin Kelly, the Senate GOP leader, told me before the debates started. “I don’t think people believe that is the way we legislate.”

There may even be some Dems who preferred separate votes. One Democratic lawmaker told me it makes little sense to bunch the package together but declined to criticize leadership, which controls bills and committee assignments.

Looney and House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said it’s just a matter of smooth operations, not political vengeance. Separate bills might have taken more than one day, which could be tough in the offseason, during the holidays, for a part-time legislature. “Special sessions are not easy and just having one bill was I think the way we decided to go,” Ritter said.

Tougher to accomplish, but for the sake of healing and democracy, why not make a magnanimous gesture? Collaboration has worked well in the recent past — notably in the 2017 budget compromise that led to the massive surpluses we’re seeing now, by forcing certain tax receipts into the rainy day fund.

The Democrats just won an added seat in the Senate, giving them a veto-proof, two-thirds majority. They gained a seat in the House, a rarity in a presidential midterm election, for a 98-53 lead in that chamber. They won every statewide office and every Congressional seat, just as they have since 2008.

They can afford to make gestures. So far, we ain’t seeing it.

“What has been their magnanimous gesture toward us?” Looney asked.

“I try to be magnanimous when I can,” Ritter said.

One small issue, not to be overblown. As Republicans spent the day raising a laundry list of objections to the five measures – including Sen. Ryan Fazio of Greenwich decrying the lack of true reform – Ritter offered up a calming response, “judge us on the totality of what we do.”

Not to be overblown, but it’s worth watching for the danger pointed out by Rep. William Petit, R-Plainville, who did not seek re-election after six years in the House.

“Connecticut has got one-party rule,” Petit, a retired physician, said matter-offactly before Monday’s vote. “That’s what they voted for, that’s what they get.”