Gov. Ned Lamont and the legislature’s Democratic majority are closing out the first week of the General Assembly’s election-year session with two literal votes of confidence in the governor and the absence, at least for now, of the tensions typically inherent to the release of his budget proposal.

Quick votes on Wednesday and Thursday, the first two days of the three-month session, extended the unilateral authority granted to the governor last fall over a contingency fund for responses to suspended federal grants, budget cuts and government shutdowns under the Trump administration.

The largely party line votes of 28-8 in the Senate on Wednesday and 97-48 in the House on Thursday tell two stories: The Democratic governor and lawmakers are trying to present a unified front, while minority Republicans are distancing themselves from a law empowering Lamont as he seeks a third term.

There is another story line: The fiscally cautious governor is signaling a willingness to come to the table on spending and taxes, and Democrats are happy to see an opening.

“It’s a big change for him to do this,” said House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford.

One of the governor’s key proposals, a one-time tax rebate that would cost the state about $500 million, is at odds with legislative thoughts on how to best provide tax relief. But there is no sniping, as the governor’s plan landed in Democratic caucus rooms Wednesday as a proposal, not a take-or-leave-it dictate. 

“He rolled it out and started talking to people about it, and that’s the part you don’t see going on in past experiences,” Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, co-chair of the Appropriations Committee, said Thursday. “The thing, that we are all talking, is wonderful. And I mean, we came in here smiling today.”

The rebate would provide $200 to singles and $400 to couples within income limits. When he mentioned it Wednesday during his State of the State address, the applause was polite.

By then, Senate Democrats already had filed their session priorities, including Senate Bill 1, An Act Concerning Affordability. Among other things, it would exempt school supplies, clothing under $100 and prepared meals sold by grocery stores from the sales tax. They plan to propose making Social Security income-tax free and increase property-tax credits.

Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said he was unconcerned by the differences.

“None of those differences are irreconcilable,” Looney said. 

The bottom line, Looney said, is the governor opened the door to $500 million in relief in the first hours of the session. Now, lawmakers said, the conversation will be about exactly how that $500 million might be distributed — and whether the state can afford tax relief beyond a one-time rebate.

“So, the governor says, ‘If you make it permanent, can you afford it,’ right? So we share that concern,” Ritter said. “That’s the worst thing we can do, is promise a benefit and roll it back. We did that many times. The governor is very right about that.”

On Thursday, Ritter, House Majority Leader Jason Rojas of East Hartford and the two money committee co-chairs, Walker of Appropriations and Rep. Maria Horn, D-Salisbury, of Finance, Revenue and Bonding, briefed reporters before the vote on the governor’s emergency spending powers. 

But they also spoke generally about the governor’s proposed budget. All of them indicated there probably would be a push from a broad-based rebate to more targeted relief.

“I do think that there is a pretty broad support for relief generally, but that can mean a lot of things. That’s tax relief. It’s also relief in the form of resources arriving to, you know, people who most need it,” Horn said.

On Thursday, every House Democrat but one, Rep. Jonathan Steinberg of Westport, voted for Senate Bill 83, the measure that gives Lamont control over what’s left of a $500 million contingency fund created in special session last fall. Every House Republican was opposed.

There is about $330 million left in the fund, and Republicans generally have been supportive of Lamont using much of the first $170 million to stabilize the SNAP nutrition program and partially replace expiring federal tax credits that have kept health coverage through Obamacare affordable.

House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, said he could support the authority granted to Lamont while the legislature was out of session and another federal government shutdown was looming, but not now.

Before the House debate, Candelora said, “We’re here to create an off-budget slush fund for the governor to parade around the state of Connecticut and dole out up to $330 million of initiatives of his choosing, so long as he’s able to somehow categorize them as federal cuts.”

House Democrats insist that the authority granted to Lamont is a necessary prophylactic against the erratic nature of the Trump administration and inability of a closely divided Congress to agree on more than short-term spending plans.

“The chaos and constant change is part of the problem. That’s why we’ve set up this fund,” said Horn, the Finance co-chair.  

Horn said Democrats are not any more eager to delegate legislative power to the executive than are Republicans.

“We’re legislators. We don’t give away our power,” Horn said. “We do it reluctantly, because there’s a real need in terms of timeliness to respond to changes.”