Rep-Am Blog: Do the Right Thing

October 13, 2015

Waterbury Republican American Blog

For several weeks, Connecticut legislative Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Leonard A. Fasano of North Haven, have called for a special legislative session to revise the 2015-17 state budget Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the Democratic legislative majorities approved in late June. The calls for a special session intensified after Gov. Malloy made nearly $103 million in emergency spending cuts to close a hole in the fiscal year 2015-16 side of the budget.

In my Oct. 2 post, I cited comments by Rep. Catherine Abercrombie, D-Meriden, and Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, that suggest these legislators are open to a special session. Sen. Fasano and House Minority LeaderThemis Klarides, R-Derby, have decided to use those remarks to put pressure on House Speaker J. Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden, and Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, to call for a special session. Speaker Sharkey in particular has been resistant to the idea of bringing legislators back to Hartford.

Read the Republican leaders’ letter to their Democratic counterparts right here, courtesy of CT News Junkie.

It will be interesting to see if this move by Sen. Fasano and Rep. Klarides proves effective. A full-fledged revision of the budget seems to be the only way out of Connecticut’s latest heap of trouble. If Speaker Sharkey, Sen. Looney and Gov. Malloy fail to act, it will be fair to say – as I argued in several recent posts – that they place politics over getting their jobs done.