Good Government Still Elusive in Hartford

By State Senator Joe Markley

I often lament our poor procedure as legislators. I don’t believe we can run the state right unless we’re orderly in our business. That is a problem within our power to solve: not a matter of party or ideology but self-discipline, which we must all admit we need.

Legislators at the capitol like foolish schoolboys who leave their homework till the night before it’s due. Negotiation continues until the last possible moment, or in fact beyond—we recently went into special session to pass the budget implementer, as clear and critical a responsibility as the budget itself.

The extra time isn’t used for study or reflection (a laughable notion) but in the balancing of political interests and satisfaction of constituencies. Of that backroom political dealing, the implementer is the masterpiece, a final political payoff to balance accounts for the session, including resurrected legislation to give Democratic power-brokers a miraculous happy ending.

The implementer passed a few weeks ago (without one Republican vote, I’m proud to say) consisted of over four hundred sections, including many proposals never considered during session or killed at some point in the process.

This year’s implementer included tax increases (on car washes, for instance) the industries themselves knew nothing about; higher fees at state parks the department wasn’t told of; extraordinary and unwarranted payments to the towns of powerful committee chairs; and pay hikes directed to unionized employees at the expense of other workers. The union favoritism, an obvious reward to the foot soldiers who mongered Dan Malloy back into office, is probably illegal, but my attempt to stop it by amendment failed on a party-line vote.

Such shenanigans aren’t unique to this budget implementer; in just such an implementer a few years back, the disastrous early release program was snuck into law.

It wasn’t always so. In my long-ago and lonely first term, I chaired the Human Services committee, and was responsible for introducing the implementer for that budget area. It was a purely technical document, as it is meant to be, and both parties took pains to make sure it remained so—and with good reason, for purity is either absolute or absent. Once corruption starts, by nature it grows, and only strong conscious action can reverse it.

The legislature must see the need for change, and the people of Connecticut can help make that happen. If they pay attention, they will be outraged, not simply by the bad policies pushed through by the majority party, but by their indifference to open government and decent conduct.

Sometimes it seems that the more important the legislation, the less time we’re given to examine it. In 2012, a sweeping education bill 600 pages long—by general consensus, the most important initiative of the session—was presented to senators after midnight, with just forty-five minutes given us to examine it before debate began.

I termed that vampire legislation, for the proposal was both made and approved in darkness. The term has stuck, for the circumstance is not unique but all too common. I will not support major changes in policy I am not given time to understand.

Please remember that when legislators are criticized for voting no: sometimes I believe the process gives us no choice.

I try to keep my friends and constituents updated on legislative going-on through periodic videos from the capitol; my struggle to shed light on our bad habits is an ongoing topic. If you’d like to receive these updates, I’d invite you to sign up on my website, senatormarkley.com.