Donovan: "We're doing the
budget fight all over again."
Photo by Steve Kotchko
Posted 9/28/09
Supposedly the drawn-out state budget crisis ended in early September when Republican Gov. Jodi Rell turned up her nose at a Democrat-created state budget plan, refusing to sign it, but allowing it to become law without her signature, to break the stalemate.
However, every budget needs a set of so-called implementer bills to put the financial game plan into action. Usually, passage of these items happens in the final days of the regular session with little fanfare.
This year the implementer bills have managed to blow up the “finality” of the budget drama, turning the debate into a new version of the fantasy tale “The Neverending Story”. Lawmakers and the Rell administration spent two days and nights last week negotiating or fighting (depending on which version of the story you listened to), and wound up the week without full resolution on the budget bills.
That means lawmakers must return to the State Capitol yet again to vote on the implementer bills, when and if their leaders and the Rell administration can iron out all the problems.
Why did the supposedly mundane task of passing implementers turn into another stalemate? State House Speaker Chris Donovan (D-Meriden) claimed it has to do with this year’s unusual budget saga.
“Usually the implementers are based on a budget agreement,” said Donovan. “We don’t have a budget agreement; we have a budget disagreement,” he explained. Donovan said while Rell allowed the budget to become law without her signature, she clearly has disdain for much that is in the bill.
“We’re sitting down and going through the language (of the budget), and in some ways we’re doing the budget fight all over again,” said Donovan.
Others claim the new round of bickering has more to do with Democratic in-fighting than any struggle between the majority party and Rell.
House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero (R-Norwalk) said Democrats were battling each other in private caucuses that were focused on details of the implementer bills. “The Democrats, among themselves, are saying ‘we want this, I wanted that, I’d like to sneak this in, etc., etc., etc..’, ” he said.
Democrats vigorously denied Cafero’s allegation of opportunism, using the implementation process as a last-ditch effort to gain spending or projects they lost during the basic budget debate. Instead, Donovan charged that Rell was “doublecrossing” them, sending her budget team to negotiate with them behind closed doors, then bashing Democrats for fee hikes and spending tricks in public statements.
Indeed, Rell sent legislative leaders (and reporters) a letter threatening veto action if certain “problems” in the implementers were not fixed. In the end, Rell did veto a revenue-related bill because it contained across-the-board hikes in state motor vehicle fees.
Explaining the veto, Rell said: “The public is paying close attention right now, and they’re saying ‘enough already’.” Rell ordered her budget experts to search for areas of spending that could be cut to make up for the fee hikes she rejected.
Donovan charged that Rell’s horror over DMV fee hikes was puzzling, because she proposed similar fee hikes earlier this year. Rell’s GOP defenders said the governor had agreed to look at fee increases, but only if there were major cuts in state spending—something Republicans said Democrats declined to make in the overall budget discussion, or in the implementers.
The bottom line here is that elected officials look foolish again. They spent days tackling a supposedly routine task, and turned it into yet another failed effort, each side pointing the finger of blame at the other.
When the implementer bills are back in play, legislative leaders would be wise to do all the negotiating upfront, so they have finished products to put on the floor for debate, before they call rank-and-file lawmakers back to the Capitol for a vote.
Let’s hope this happens soon. Autumn leaves already are falling. If bickering and delays persist, lawmakers will have to start worrying if “The Neverending Story” filled with special legislative sessions will ruin their Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday periods.