The often volatile, final act of the Connecticut General Assembly’s annual session begins Monday with an adopted budget, but scores of bills and more than a dozen judicial and executive nominations are awaiting final action before the constitutional adjournment deadline of midnight Wednesday.

Passing the election-year budget Saturday night with a minimum of partisan rancor and a significant measure of Republican support four days ahead of the final frantic crush was described by House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, as “a big stress release.”

“We come back Monday in a good mood,” said Ritter, who is about to complete his sixth session as speaker. “But this place for the last three days, it is so unpredictable. It will have its peaks and valleys.”

Among the 105 House bills awaiting final action in the Senate are measures that would reform legislative earmarks, prohibit sales of handguns that readily can be converted illegally into machine guns, extend solar incentives and make voting by mail a universal option in Connecticut.

“Now that the budget is behind us, it just takes a lot of pressure out of the room,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, “I expect we’ll get to many of the priorities over the next three days.”

Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, pledged Saturday that the earmarks reforms providing greater transparency over spending directed by individual lawmakers will get final passage. The reforms were proposed by Gov. Ned Lamont and revised in negotiations with lawmakers.

The 83 Senate bills on the House calendar include a Senate priority, S.B. 4, which regulates data brokers and the selling and licensing of certain personal data. Ritter and House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, say the bill will pass and end up on the governor’s desk.

Others would expand eligibility for a psychedelic-assisted therapy program, ban the release of helium balloons, increase penalties for fire code violations and roaming dogs, permit long-term rentals of bedrooms in single-family homes, and allow the comptroller to withhold payments to companies that fail to pay the prevailing wage on public works projects.

Democrats have super majorities of 102-41 in the House and 25-11 in the Senate, but the General Assembly’s tradition of “unlimited debate” complicates the passage of legislation without the consent of the Republican minorities in the final days and hours of the session.

There is a subtlety to how that tradition plays out. The legislature’s rules allow a motion to call the question, end debate and move to a vote on passage. It is considered “a nuclear option,” one that both parties strive to avoid, but is available if a debate is deemed obstructive.

Where that line is drawn never has been clearly articulated. 

Duff said there is a responsibility on both parties to maintain a culture in which the minority party has influence and the partisanship is not poisonous. Connecticut’s rules and traditions are intended to give the minority a voice and an opportunity to shape legislation, not stop business.

“Right now, we are seeing institutions that are broken nationally. I keep talking about that all the time,” Duff said. “Protecting our institutions, especially in our state, is very important. That responsibility is carried by both sides, the minority as well as the majority.”

Twice this session, Ritter halted debates that he saw as turning angry, possibly leading to an overnight filibuster. Rather than call the question, he essentially called a time out, allowing time for negotiations and minor revisions. In both cases the bills passed without delay after debate resumed.

“I think Connecticut has one of the best systems in the country,” said House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford. “Coming from the minority, the rules allow us to have a say in the process. And there are states where amendments can’t be filed, debate is not had, and you gavel in and out.”

Those are the states where the political culture allows the winner-take-all redistricting fights over maximizing a party’s ability to win seats.

“When we look at what’s happening in redistricting across the country, it’s horrifying to watch that process, because it is a form of tyranny of democracy that I would never want to see,” Candelora said. “It doesn’t happen here in Connecticut.”

Rojas, the House majority leader, said the majority party of any legislature should take the long view: Today’s majority could one day be in the minority. As recently as the 2018 session, the state Senate was evenly divided and Republicans were just five seats shy of a majority in the 151-seat House. 

“I always think about Harry Reid changing the rules around the filibuster at the federal level when it was convenient at that time. And then a couple years later, it probably worked against our interests,” Rojas said.

Reid, the U.S. Senate majority leader, forced a change in 2013 to lower the threshold to end debate on executive and many judicial nominations from 60 votes to a simple majority of 51. At the time, Democrats were frustrated by Republicans blocking the confirmation of Barack Obama’s nominees.

“We know that we have the votes and we’re in the majority, but we still do have, I certainly have, a level of respect for my Republican colleagues,” Rojas said. “And they represent as many people as I do, and their voices should be reflected in the process.”

Ritter, whose father also served as a three-term speaker, is extraordinarily protective of the culture and traditions in the House, especially the tradition of unlimited debate. Without it, he said, there would be no need to negotiate and compromise.

“We could walk in today and run 90 bills in 90 minutes if we wanted to. That might be how some want to govern,” Ritter said. “As long as I am the speaker, I will never change it. People will have to vote me out.”

Candelora, like Duff, said there is a responsibility on both parties to maintain a culture of respect. His caucus, he said, is appreciative of Ritter’s approach.

“I’m appreciative and respectful of that balance that we have to strike, because there are speakers in the past that would just call a bill at one o’clock in the morning to make sure that it passes and wear people down,” Candelora said. “That doesn’t happen here.”