The General Assembly reconvened Monday to reconsider several of Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s 19 vetoes.
Democratic lawmakers are in the majority, but they will need 101 votes in the House and all 24 votes in the Senate to successfully overturn Rell’s vetoes.
The state Senate opened the veto session Monday morning by successfully reconsidering three of Rell’s vetoes.
The first bill requires the governor’s budget office and the legislature’s budget office to agree on state budget estimates. The bill passed by a vote of 24-12, just minutes after Sen. Joan Hartley, D-Waterbury, walked into the chamber.
Democratic lawmakers, who were stalling until Hartley arrived at 12:30 p.m., argued the budget forecasting bill would have come in handy this year when the governor’s budget office and legislature’s Office of Fiscal Analysis were about $2.4 billion apart in their deficit estimates. Republican lawmakers defended Rell’s veto saying that reasonable people can differ even when there is a formal process in place. Rell vetoed the bill defending the current process.
“I see no reason why this process, which has served us so well in good times and bad, cannot serve us equally well in 2009 and beyond,” Rell said in her veto message.
The Senate also reconsidered a bill that creates a Bi-State Long Island Sound Commission. The 31 to 5 vote to override that bill was bipartisan.
The third bill the Senate reconsidered by a vote of 24 to 12 was a bill that requires the Metropolitan District Commission to follow the state’s affirmative action policies.
All three bills still have to go to the House for approval.
