CT state legislature to vote Tuesday on election safety, more in special session

The state legislature is prepared to vote Tuesday on a series of measures ranging from election monitoring in Bridgeport to approving a new Connecticut Supreme Court justice.

In a special session called by Gov. Ned Lamont, lawmakers will debate whether to install an election monitor for the November contest in Bridgeport, where controversy rages over the recent Democratic primary in which incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim defeated challenger John Gomes.

Voters across the state were alarmed by a widely seen video that shows a woman repeatedly dropping ballots into a drop box outside the city’s government center one week before the Sept. 12 primary for mayor. The video was released by Gomes, who received more votes on the election machines than Ganim, but then lost the primary when Ganim pulled ahead with far more absentee votes.

The General Assembly had already wanted to appoint a monitor, but an error in the language in the state budget had mistakenly sent about $150,000 to another department. Now, lawmakers are pledging to fix the error Tuesday and allow the Secretary of the State to appoint the monitor for both this year and the 2024 presidential election.

Since they are both on the ballot, Ganim and Gomes will be facing off again in a rematch in November.

Republicans, though, say the election monitor is not enough. House GOP leader Vincent Candelora and other Republicans want to eliminate the ballot collection boxes permanently, saying that the COVID-19 pandemic is over. But he added that he would agree to suspend the boxes for the upcoming November elections as a first step if the legislature needs more time to make a final decision.

Democrats, though, say there is no reason to eliminate the boxes in all 169 towns if complaints are centered only on one city — Bridgeport.

New Supreme Court justice

Lawmakers will also vote on Lamont’s nomination of former federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy for a seat on the Connecticut Supreme Court.

The measure was approved by 30-4 in the legislature’s judiciary committee on a bipartisan basis with two Republicans and two Democrats against.

CT Committee approves Nora Dannehy for state Supreme Court after questions about Russia-collusion investigation

During a public hearing on her nomination, Dannehy said that she resigned from a high-profile federal investigation because of improper political pressure from former U.S. Attorney General William Barr. She had not previously spoken publicly about her decision to leave the prosecutorial team led by a longtime colleague, former U.S. Attorney John Durham. Among other revelations, Dannehy said Barr had pressed investigators to write an interim report, while the investigation was still proceeding, that she feared might affect the outcome of the 2020 presidential election between then-President Donald J. Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.

House Speaker Matt Ritter of Hartford said he expects Dannehy to win approval Tuesday in both the House and the Senate because of the wide margin in the judiciary committee.

Presidential primary date

In a bipartisan move, lawmakers are also looking to push up the presidential primary date by four weeks to make Connecticut more relevant in national politics.

“The suggestion to move the date to the first week of April came to my attention at the request of leaders from both major political parties – Democrats and Republicans – who, in a bipartisan show of unity, feel that this shift will benefit all the voters in our state,” Lamont said. “I agree with them, and I urge the legislature to approve a bill changing the date so that I can sign it into law and we can make this change in time for the 2024 primaries.”

With much of the current national focus on Iowa and New Hampshire, Connecticut is fighting for relevancy by trying to move up the date for the Republican and Democratic primaries. The contests are currently set for April 30, but both parties want to move the date to Tuesday, April 2.

The measure already passed in the House of Representatives by 148-0 in early June, but the bill needs to be debated again because no vote was taken in the state Senate as time expired for the regular legislative session.

“We’ll do it again,” Ritter said.

If approved, the Connecticut primary would be held on the same day as New York.

In other matters, Lamont and top legislators Monday hailed the state’s plan to transfer $1.3 billion in surplus funds to pay down pension debts. All sides hailed the historic 2017 bipartisan budget deal that was crafted by the legislature without the help of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. That deal was hatched when Republicans had more power because the 36-member state Senate was tied at 18-18.

During the past four years, the state has set aside more than $7 billion to pay pension debts that are related to the 2017 deal that established “fiscal guardrails” that prevent the state from spending too much.

“Connecticut is making significant progress in addressing a decades-long underfunding of its pension system, saving taxpayers more than $600 million per year over the next 25 years,” Lamont said. “The bipartisan extension of the fiscal guardrails is why we are able to put another $1.3 billion this year toward the state’s unfunded pension liabilities, on top of the $5.8 billion previously transferred.”

Senate Republican leader Kevin Kelly of Stratford said, “Senate Republicans were instrumental in the creation of the smart fiscal guardrails and spending caps back in 2017, and it was Republicans who pushed to renew and extend these budgetary guardrails this year. This spending discipline has created our surpluses, improved our financial position, and led us to the first state income tax cut in three decades. We must preserve and maintain these wise financial practices for years to come.”

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com