Sen. Harding: CT Dems have “started down a path to dismantling our fiscal guardrails”
September 26, 2024CT News Junkie
Attorney General William Tong said in a formal opinion Tuesday that the 2024 budgeting process adhered to the state’s bond covenants and did not violate Connecticut’s constitution.
House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora and Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding urged the attorney general in a May letter to examine the legislative process used by the Democrat majority to pass House Bill 5523 and its implementer near the end of the short legislative session, calling it a “budget in disguise.”
“[Candelora and Harding’s] letters express concern that the General Assembly altered the ‘normal process’ of estimating revenue and adjusting the budget in even-numbered years. But the budget process – ‘normal’ or not – can be changed by the General Assembly. The General Assembly defines that process through its lawmaking. So even assuming that House Bill 5523 deviated from pre-2024 statutory law, the General Assembly would be entirely within its lawful authority to change it. It may have made new law. But making and changing laws is the General Assembly’s prerogative under our constitutional system, and a prior legislature’s budgeting process cannot bind this legislature. House Bill 5523 superseded and supplanted any conflicting prior legislation,” he wrote.
Tong referenced numerous Connecticut Supreme Court cases to support his opinion, including the decision passed down in Patterson v. Dempsey (1965), Caldwell v. Meskill (1973), and Preveslin v. Derby & Ansonia Dev. Co. (1930).
Candelora and Harding both issued statements Tuesday expressing their disappointment at Tong’s decision and said they believe it sets a bad precedent for the financial future of the state.
“It should come as no surprise that the Attorney General has blessed the Democrats’ obfuscation of Connecticut’s statutory budget framework. However, this episode does not bode well for Connecticut’s fiscal future as Democrats have been setting the stage for their intended override of the fiscal guardrails put in place in 2017,” Candelora said.
Harding reiterated his belief that the adjuster was merely a budget that was not passed through Appropriations.
“I continue to view this as a budget in disguise. It starts Connecticut down a path to dismantling our fiscal guardrails – the responsible spending guardrails that Republicans fought for and got passed when we had a tied State Senate. It starts us down the road of not abiding by our constitutional duty as lawmakers, and I am very concerned that we won’t be able to put those pieces together again,” Harding said.
