Opinion: CT should eliminate the ‘short’ legislative session

The short session needs to go.For decades in the General Assembly, even-numbered years have always been what are know as short sessions. Rather than running from January to June, they run from February to May as tight, 90-day sessions. Normally they focus on editing the biennial budgets, and operate within more disciplined rules, such as limiting legislators to bring up only budgetary bills by themselves, while the rest is proposed by joint committees.What is the point of this outdated system? It inhibits the ability of lawmakers, takes away their legislative authority, and can lower the quality of legislation. Meanwhile, it has negligible benefits that provide no modern rationale for the brevity.The people of Connecticut elect, and pay, legislators to legislate. Many lawmakers are paid $40,000 a year to do their job as lawmakers, while being able to support themselves and their families and hold other jobs. We have deemed it apt that a lawmaker can spend about half the year, from January to June, legislating, while still having enough time in the rest of the year to live their own lives and work other jobs. Yet, we still disrupt this balance by then reducing the legislator’s timespan by two months every other year.Why? Legislators don’t need more time to themselves in 2024 than in 2023. What they do need is more time to legislate, a fact made obvious by the summer special-sessions called to tie up loose strings from the session. Lawmakers this year literally worked to the end, passing a final bill eight minutes before the session ended at midnight, but they still didn’t have enough time, and required a special session afterwards.Special sessions are not a good solution. Some legislators have plans already made for when special sessions are called, and thus can’t be present. The real solution would be one of two things; either giving them less work, or giving them more time. Short sessions in theory try to give legislators less work by restricting them to “budgetary, revenue and fiscal matters”, but this evidently hasn’t worked if legislators are still pulled into special sessions.Legislators are supposed to represent their constituents and bring up what their constituents need. The ability of legislators to raise their own proposed bills, without needing the appropriate committee, is an important part of this role. A part that can be stripped during short sessions, meaning that for half of their term, representatives can be limited in their ability to represent the people.There is also the worry that rushed short sessions are more likely to result in poor legislation. This is simply common sense. If you have over 1,00 bills to get through, coming from 26 committees over the course of 90 days, something is likely to slip through the cracks. This is precisely why short sessions are then called; to fix up bills with holes and bills that fell through the cracks. But it’s a band aid solution, not a long-term one.What, then, are the benefits? Theoretically, we should get a session solely dedicated to fiscal matters that keep our state financially stable by amending the budget. Yet the sessions still have matters unrelated to funding such as authorizing studies, handling nominations or passing bills concerning the climate or unions. Independent of the values of these bills, one would have to severely squint to see them as being budget-related.Short sessions are an outdated idea. Lawmakers should have just as much time, and just as many rights, in an even-numbered year as they do an odd one. Make both sessions the same length, from January until June. It’s as simple as that. Mathew Biadun is a sophomore from Bristol studying history and political science at Eastern Connecticut State University. He has an interest in elections and political affairs.
Originally Published: July 22, 2024 at 5:16 a.m.

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