budget guardrails

Connecticut does not need to choose between respecting its Constitution and enacting fiscally responsible budgets. It can and should do both.

The bond lock is invalid because there is no provision in the state constitution authorizing the legislature to delegate budgeting power to other entities.

The 2017 legislative history of CT’s statutory budget guardrails proves indisputably that they were enacted with the intent to bind future legislatures.

The CT Constitution does not authorize the General Assembly to deny a majority of the House and Senate the right to amend budget laws– except for the limited circumstance of the constitutional state spending cap.

Is there any provision in the state constitution that either explicitly or by implication authorizes the General Assembly to enact the guardrails? No,

Our constitution empowers our elected representatives to assume an active lawmaking role rather than to acquiesce to the passive role imposed by the Guardrails.