A day after Democrats used emergency certification to pass a 98-section omnibus bill through the Senate, House Speaker Matthew Ritter (D-Hartford) told reporters that while Democrats do not intend to normalize the use of emergency certifications to pass legislation, he hopes some of his Senate Republican colleagues understand that their persistent filibustering has consequences.

“It’s not a new way of doing business, but it is a reminder that it could be one day the way of business, and I hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Ritter in a press conference this morning. “But this is a byproduct of some people, not many, but some perhaps abusing the system a little bit. And it’s a reminder, don’t abuse it. Use it when it needs to be used.”

Speakers and Majority Leaders of either chamber of the General Assembly, all of whom are currently Democrats, have the ability to emergency certify a bill. Doing so removes the traditional vetting and deliberation processes required of traditional bills, meaning the bills do not need to be reviewed and voted out of whichever committees of cognizance are deemed pertinent to the bill’s subject matter, nor do they need to come before public hearings. Essentially, it is a way of fast-tracking legislation, typically only used for the sake of legislation deemed especially urgent or timely.

The two emergency certified bills which were passed yesterday were SB 298, the omnibus bill which contained primarily legislation that had passed one chamber or the other last year but died in session, and SB 299, which heightened penalties for bottle-fraud and reduced the daily number of bottles that could be returned without presentation of state ID. Ritter said that the omnibus bill, which made a number of changes to state labor and education law and provided millions in earmarks to various entities, was composed mostly of measures that had been through the public hearings and committee process in previous sessions.

“I think almost all of them had public hearings,” said Ritter. “You can point to one that didn’t, maybe one snuck in, but I think they all did, or they’re budget clarification or corrections, but I believe the vast majority of public hearings.”

House Majority Leader Jason Rojas (D-East Hartford) said that many of them went through “not just one, but multiple years of public hearings.”

“It raises another question,” said Rojas. “I’m all for public hearings and having the public come in, there’s always going to be a role for that. [But] How many times are we going to listen to the same feedback on the same bill year after year before we take action?”

Ritter said that while there have certainly been instances where bills failed to pass due to schedule mismanagement by Democrats, and that he has no issues with Senate Republicans filibustering bills in the final days of session which were split down party lines in the House, but said the action was in response to filibustering on bills that had previously passed the House unanimously.

“The bills that upset me were on those calendars weeks in advance, and I was told that they [Republicans] said, ‘This will be 19 hours,'” said Ritter. “19 hours for a bill that passed 151 to nothing? That’s an abuse, so that’s where this comes from.”

He also said it has come as a result of complaints from fellow Democratic lawmakers, who “did everything right” by drafting bills on time, getting them out of committee and through public hearings, collaborating with legislators across the aisle to add concessions, and getting them voted through one chamber or another with ample time left in session just for them to never see a vote.

“We don’t want to do it this way, but you can’t put Democratic leaders in a position where we’re looking our colleagues in the eye and going, ‘I know you did everything right, I know it was bipartisan, I know we did it with three weeks to go, but I have no answer for you,'” said Ritter. “That’s not a good answer for your own caucus.”

The General Assembly currently operates under rules allowing legislators to have unlimited time to debate on the floor, and both Ritter and Rojas said that they value the way the legislature operates currently and don’t wish to change it. They said they have had informal agreements with Republicans in the past regarding how long they intend to speak on certain bills, and that they support the principles of unlimited debate, but they believe it has been abused. Rojas criticized what he perceived as “talking for the sake of talking, as opposed to commenting on a bill,” and Ritter said his issue laid primarily with Senators filibustering bills that passed with broad bipartisan support in the House while there’s still significant time left in session, saying in these instances, Senators should “just vote no.”

Ritter, who refrained from naming names and said he was “trying to be diplomatic,” said he found the filibustering of one Republican Senator in particular to be detrimental to the legislative process.

“There’s one Senator in particular, who really likes to push the envelope, and that’s fine,” said Ritter. “The only reason he speaks and gets to be what he wants to be those last three days [each session] is because we don’t change the rule. So my advice to him is, tread carefully. Pick your moments, vote ‘no,’ don’t say 18 hours with three weeks to go [in session]. Be smarter, or you’re going to lose what you love so much, which is that microphone. I’m not trying to be rude to him, but he’s putting us in a very difficult position, and I hope his colleagues remind him of that.”

Ritter said that if what he perceived to be abuse of filibustering continues, there may be a broader discussion around chaining the rules to implement time limits on debate. Ritter said “if you go too far, there will be a more swift reaction” in the future.

In another press conference held before today’s session, House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora (R-North Branford) criticized the use of emergency certification for the bills, saying he always opposes the passage of omnibus bills without public hearings, and said he and other Republicans are “still searching for an emergency.” He agreed that the bottle-redemption bill, which passed the Senate 35-1, was a valid use of the emergency certification, but said the omnibus bill “really stretches the limits.” Candelora said that with the increased scrutiny requested by both Republicans and the Governor surrounding earmarks, he also found it problematic that a number of earmarks were baked into the omnibus bill, and requested that Gov. Ned Lamont veto it.

“I’m wondering if the governor is going to support this process, or if he is concerned with it,” said Candelora. “Given what we have seen with earmarks, with the potential criminal activity in the building with these earmarks, this bill doubles down on providing more earmarks to organizations. I am going to request that the governor exercise his veto power and, at the very least, line item veto all of the earmarks that are contained in this emergency certified bill, so we can actually properly vet these earmarks to see where this money is actually going.”

Candelora said that he understood Ritter’s frustration regarding particular bills that enjoyed bipartisan House support but died in the Senate, but said that “this process is frustrating all of the time, it doesn’t mean that we should then be creating an E-cert and passing those bills.”

“I get it, we’re in the minority, and I get it, I’m not going to win all my arguments, and I’m okay if I don’t win an argument, so long as the process is respected,” said Candelora. “Because it is important to have sunlight, nothing good happens in darkness. And what the Democrats have decided to say is, ‘We don’t care, we’re going to operate in darkness, we want our way.'”

Despite the break from tradition, Ritter insisted that he and other Democrats do not intend to make a habit of using the emergency certification to cram through legislation, and requested that cooler heads prevail so business could return to usual in the legislature.

“We can all move beyond this, go back to our normal routine, but this is a reminder that we run the risk of losing that system if Democrats get too upset or Republicans get too upset,” said Ritter. “So everybody; Let’s cool the temperature, get through today, and we’ll go back to our committee meetings tomorrow.”

Republish This Story

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.