Democrats' Budget Plan Collapses in Connecticut House

In the waning hours of Thursday, into early Friday, the negotiated Democrat budget fell apart inside the State Capitol.

The collapse of the budget crafted by House and Senate leaders along with Gov. Dannel Malloy’s administration, came roughly five hours after pledges from both chambers to debate and pass a budget over the next day.

Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz said the issues were related to the drafting of the budget, and not support.

“The paperwork itself, the document is going to be 1200 pages is not going to be ready until five in the morning,” he told reporters shortly before 1AM.

That explanation may be true, but support was just as much of an issue.

It became clear in the late evening that support for the Democratic budget was dropping. Whispers made their way through the halls of the Capitol that Democrats were not falling in line with the hastily assembled and negotiated two-year spending plan.

Some of more notable aspects of the budget were met with hesitation from some members, and legal hurdles with at least one proposal.

Democrats had planned on charging all cell phone users in the state a monthly charge on their bills, and they wanted to start taxing the second or “seasonal” homes of in-state residents.

Multiple sources in the House and Senate confirmed to NBC Connecticut that Democrats learned of major legal challenges to the proposal and wondered if it would pass muster. Removing such a proposal led to a more than $60 million hole in the biennium budget.

Rep. Aresimowicz insisted that time was the issue, and not support in the budget for any particular item. He said members of his caucus wanted more time to review the bill known as the “implementer,” which contains the policy that enacts the budget.

“It was becoming abundantly obvious that the implementer, the budget bill wasn’t going to arrive on our desk until some of them as late as five or six o’clock in the morning,” Aresimowicz said. “I don’t want to beat my members up the whole night. Some of my members they want to read the implementer, they want to read the whole implementer.”

Republicans were frustrated the entire day because they didn’t like the process of a late night budget session, and a speedy vote.

Sen. Len Fasano, the Republican leader in the Senate, called the day’s events earlier Thursday, “outrageous, dishonest, and disrespectful.”

Rep. Themis Klarides, the GOP leader in the House, said taxpayers and lawmakers had a right to have more time to review any budget documents, long before the delay that eventually led to no vote late in the evening.

“What happens today or tomorrow is going to change Connecticut for the good or the bad,” Klarides proclaimed. “We should at least be able to know what it is.

Late Thursday, Senate Democrats announced they planned to vote Friday on a two-year spending plan, which is anticipated to be very similar to the one the House never took up for debate.

Two sources told NBC Connecticut after midnight that House leadership was planning on a 5PM convening time to be ready to approve a Senate-passed budget on Friday.

Aresimowicz told reporters, “If it leaves the Senate and it comes down here we will vote on it tomorrow.”

Rep. Themis Klarides, when reached early Friday, said she was told by the Speaker that there would not be a vote Thursday, adding that she had already told her entire caucus, 72 members total, that they would not need to be in Hartford Friday or Monday. Aresimowicz said if that was Klarides’ interpretation then that was a communication error on his part.

On whether she could get Republicans to Hartford for a possible 5pm session, Klarides said, “That would take a Herculean effort.”

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