The Connecticut Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit from a Republican state senator that would have stopped state government from using fees from electricity bills to pay its debts.
Customers of Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating – the state’s two largest electricity suppliers — pay fees on their light bills to reimburse the utilities for their expenses stemming from deregulation in 1998.
But once those expenses are recovered, the state will keep collecting that fee to cover the $1.3 billion in bonds issued to balance the state budget.
Sen. Joe Markley, R-Southington, filed his lawsuit to stop the collection of the fee.
A state court dismissed the lawsuit, saying the state government has a right to sovereign immunity and therefore cannot be sued without permission.
The state high court on Thursday upheld the lower-court decision. Neither court ruled on the merits of Markley’s lawsuit, only dismissing it on the sovereign immunity technicality.
“This tax is as unsavory today as it was when enacted,” Markley said in a statement. “The taxpayers were entitled to their day in court, and we have had it.”
