When the Legislature convenes Jan. 7, all eyes will be on Chris Donovan, the new Speaker of the House, who will preside over the largest majority of Democrats in a generation during what may be the state’s worst fiscal crisis ever.
Many in the business community worry that the former labor representative will use his veto-proof majority to resist the tough fiscal discipline they see as necessary to address a state budget deficit projected at $6 billion over the next two years.
But the Meriden Democrat said he has always had open dialogues with the business community.
“I think people try to make this scary guy called Chris Donovan, and I’m just a guy trying to help out the community,” he said.
“I’ve been here many years, and I’ve always talked to business groups, worked with businesses,” Donovan said. “There are certain interests we’re going to have disagreements with. I’m not a labor rep, though. I’m a state rep.”
Still, Donovan’s labor ties are unsettling to groups like the Connecticut Business & Industry Association in light of the fact that Connecticut already has the least business-friendly legislature in the county, according to Expansion Magazine, a site selection business trade publication.
The Meriden Democrat, who served as House majority leader the past two terms, left his job as a labor representative to step up as speaker after James Amman’s retirement. He heads a new-look Legislature with 26 freshmen and with John C. Geragosian, D-New Britain, as the new chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee.
Bonnie Stewart, CBIA’s vice president of government affairs, said she’s afraid the Legislature, which has few veterans of the state’s last serious fiscal crisis in the early 1990s, will be hesitant to do heavy cutting.
“Saying no when it comes to requests for money and having to trim or cut programs is not easy,” Stewart said. “It will be a challenge for all legislators, but especially so for those who haven’t been forced to make these tough fiscal decisions in the past.”
When the session opens, “everything is under the microscope,” Donovan said.
But before legislators get too trigger happy, Donovan said, they need to factor in the likelihood that president-elect Barack Obama will deliver major funding to the state through the ambitious public works project he announced earlier this month. Those dollars, coupled with proposed Medicaid reimbursement reforms, would provide outside revenues to help deal with the deficit, he said.
That wait-and-see approach on Obama’s initiative could hurt Connecticut, House minority leader Larry Cafero warned. With only a few months to balance this year’s budget and approve the next biennium budget, a prolonged delay could worsen the state’s condition, he said.
“I know [the federal government] is going to help us, but let’s be realistic in how much they can help us,” Cafero said. “If we wait and see, you’re looking at the middle of March.”
Donovan did not name specific programs or agencies that should be braced for cuts, but said the budget crisis gives the Legislature the opportunity to weed out ineffective spending.
Options to add revenue need to be considered as well, he said, and raising the state income tax will “get another look.” That’s an especially touchy issue for business groups.
“This is a chance for us to look at everything and say what’s fair and what’s not fair,” he said.
But what’s fair is in the eye of the beholder. For example, Donovan backed a bill this year to create a state-run health insurance purchasing pool for cities and towns that was opposed as too costly by the CBIA and vetoed by Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell. Donovan described that proposed Connecticut Healthcare Partnership as a “missed opportunity.”
Meanwhile, Rell’s staff recently started talks with state employee unions with an eye toward possible contract concessions or layoffs.
Connecticut cannot rule out either option, said Nick Perna, economic adviser for Webster Financial Corp. “Everything has to be on the table,” Perna said. “The budget problem for the next two fiscal years is so large that you can’t rule anything out.”
Donovan, who was first elected to the House in 1992, started his career as a community organizer in New Britain and Meriden before taking a job representing the Service Employees International Union. From there, he took on a labor representative job for the Congress of Community Colleges, a union of employees at the state’s 12 community colleges.
Given Donovan’s background, Cafero said he hopes the incoming speaker will have the credibility to approach the unions. “The unions will have a working, trusting relationship with Speaker Donovan, and I hope he can use that for the good of everybody,” he said.
Cafero and Donovan both agreed new blood in the Legislature can be surprisingly effective. “Sometimes out of the mouths of babes come some incredible ideas because they’re not constricted by the way we’ve always done it here,” Cafero said.
Donovan On The Issues
Connecticut Healthcare Partnership (vetoed): ‘It was a good opportunity, a missed opportunity.’
Education: ‘If we make big cuts in education, that’s just going to come back and bite us.’
State’s $1.4 billion rainy day fund: ‘What’s the point of having it if we don’t use it? I think we need to say here are available funds right now.’
State employee union concessions: ‘We encourage discussions to see where people can have some agreements and move forward.’
