Connecticut lawmakers passed two emergency bills this week. Gov. Ned Lamont has already signaled he doesn’t support a major part of one of them.
The bills are HB7066 and HB7067.
HB7066
The first of the bills bans the purchase of Chinese-made drones, allows the University of Connecticut to pay its athletes and requires school districts to assign an administrative point person to deal with immigration officials.
It also includes $800,000 for Planned Parenthood and $225,000 for the Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services. It would allocate $62,500 each for 20 other organizations — including the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants, Jewish Family Services of Greenwich, and Kids in Crisis.
House Speaker Matt Ritter (D-Hartford) said it’s in response to actions by the federal government.
“We're trying to send a message that we see what's going on in this country, and we're trying to fight back. This is how I know how to fight back: to legislate and pass laws to show your support,” Ritter said.
Most Republicans didn’t feel the same way. Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding said the legislation didn’t constitute an emergency — and should have gone through the typical public and committee hearings.
“We're forcing all of us in this chamber, without a proper public hearing, without proper discussion, without proper review, to be forced to vote on something that usurps the entire legislative process,” Harding said.
Republican colleague Sen. Rob Sampson (R-Wolcott) agreed.
“Not a single one of these things is going to change the outcome of the vast majority of constituents' lives for the better in the short term,” Sampson said. “Nothing is on fire. There is no pandemic. There's nothing really going on, except for, as was mentioned, a political emergency for the majority.”
The bill passed the House 94-49 and the Senate 25-9.
HB7067
The second bill proposed allocating $40 million to schools for special education. But Lamont — who is in India this week on an economic opportunity trip — said he won’t support the funding because it conflicts with the state’s spending cap.
“Even while well-intentioned, the way this funding was hastily approved by the legislature is reminiscent of how budgeting was dangerously done in the past,” Lamont said in a statement. “These concerns, combined with expenses that are already pushing beyond the spending cap, are why I cannot support adding this significant expenditure this late in the fiscal year without a plan to cover budget overruns.”
Lamont noted that his budget proposal includes increased state funding for special education.
At a press conference last week announcing the proposal, advocates said they needed the money, which would come from the Excess Cost Grant program, to balance their budgets this year.
Lamont could use a line-item veto to get rid of the special education funding and approve other parts of the bill — which deal with hospital sales, car tax, and property tax for veterans.
The bill passed the House 145-5 and the Senate unanimously.
