Connecticut Senate Democrats have a good relationship with Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont despite the governor’s veto of parts of an omnibus bill they passed last week.
“I’d say the relationship with the governor is excellent at this point because in the end he did not line-item veto a couple of things that we thought he would,” Senate President Martin Looney (D-New Haven) said on Wednesday.
The two items are a $1.7 million earmark for an adult education grant and another $1.7 million to provide aid for people filing unemployment claims. Looney said.
Lamont would let those two stand, and the others would be negotiated, he said.
The governor had used his line-item veto authority to strike out six earmarks in the omnibus bill worth more than $4 million over transparency concerns on Tuesday.
One of the earmarks is a $750,000 grant to a school-based agency where Senator Doug McCrory (D_Hartford) works. The senator is under an FBI investigation.
Lamont has said he will not approve the vetoed earmarks until lawmakers enact earmark reform legislation.
That’s a position supported by the Republican minority.
