Democratic and Republican legislative leaders in Connecticut announced on Wednesday that they had reached a bipartisan budget deal. The announcement comes three weeks after Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy vetoed a Republican-backed budget.
Connecticut Democratic House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz says all sides had to compromise during the two weeks of closed-door negotiations in order to get to the tentative deal.
“We all looked each other in the eye and asked if we were all willing to compromise to move the state forward and every single person in that room did.”
House Republican Leader Themis Klarides says they won’t give details until they have presented the deal to their caucuses.
“Our goal is to get it done as soon as we can. But nothing can happen until we go to our caucuses and let them know what the tentative ideas are and see if they like it or not.”
The leaders say members of the House will caucus on Thursday, while members of the Senate are scheduled to caucus on Monday. They are hoping the General Assembly can vote on the budget agreement next week.
Connecticut has been without a new two-year budget in place since June 30.
U.S. Representative Jim Himes, D-CT4, weighed in on the state’s budget woes at a career fair at Sacred Heart University on Wednesday.
“To be the only state in the union without a budget sends a bad signal around the country at a time when we want to recruit people and we want to recruit business. Now in reality, having this car crash that we’ve just had, it really got people serious about negotiations.”
