The Roger Sherman Liberty Center, a new conservative think tank and training center, is putting out a call for lawyers for a possible legal challenge of the state budget — if it is adopted and implemented with an assumption of eventually obtaining $1 billion in labor savings.
“The Governor is not a king, and the Senate is not the House of Lords. They cannot thwart the state constitution by royal decree.” said Tom Scott, a former state senator and a founder of the Roger Sherman Liberty Center. “If Connecticut’s lawmakers become lawbreakers, we will see them in court. Somebody has to uphold the pre-eminent document of the Constitution State.”
The possibility of a constitutional challenge is a gift to the new center, an issue to bring some attention as it tries to build itself as a force in conservative politics.
But the call is for lawyers to work on a contingency plan in case an unbalanced budget is implemented. The legislature may vote on the budget before the concession talks with labor are concluded, but the governor and legislature already would be under pressure to find sufficient cuts if the labor talks fail.
The next budget takes effect on the first day of the fiscal year, July 1.