Retiring Connecticut Senate President Martin Looney (D-New Haven) was praised at a special session that was convened by his colleagues on Wednesday, and attended by two governors and past and present state politicians.
“Marty, we are here ‘cause we love you on both sides of the aisle,” Democratic Governor Ned Lamont said.
He lauded Looney for legislative achievements for working families while maintaining good relationships across the aisle.
“Everything you’ve done, raising that minimum wage, getting it up from $10 to $17. And in particular, the earned income tax credit,” Lamont said, one of two governors who attended the session.
“What you were so good at was not just understanding the importance of a piece of legislation and what it would be for our state, but you also knew how to get it done,” said former Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy, who was in office from 2011 to 2019.
He complimented Looney for landmark bipartisan gun laws following the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting and the 2017 bipartisan budget that helped fix years of fiscal crisis.
Looney was also commended for his bipartisan work by former Republican Senate President Len Fasano of North Haven, who shared senate leadership with Looney in 2017-18, when there were equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans in the senate.
“We found that when we really drilled down to the policies, we had very little difference. We actually believed in the same policy, we just went about it differently,” Fasano said, who had been friends with Looney, even before he became a lawmaker.
“And what makes Marty extraordinary is not what he passed, but how he governed. With patience, with principle, and an unshakeable belief that government, when done right, can lift people up,” said Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, who got Looney initially involved in politics in New Haven in the mid-1970s.
Looney is not seeking reelection this year after a legislative career that spanned more than four decades – 12 years in the House and 34 in the Senate.
