Constitutionality of CONNECTICUT’s Fiscal Guardrails
An in-depth analysis of the constitutionality of Connecticut’s fiscal guardrails, in six installments, written by Alex Knopp and published in CT Mirror in January 2025.
Part 1: Are CT’s budget guardrails constitutional?
The debate over whether Connecticut’s unique set of fiscal controls should be considered “guardrails” or “roadblocks” rages almost daily, but ever since the constraints were first adopted, the most consequential issue has been ignored: Are Connecticut’s budget guardrails, taken as a whole, constitutional?
Part 2: The CT Constitution’s text does not authorize the guardrails
The statutory budget guardrails adopted in 2017 and re-adopted in 2023 eviscerated the budget-making process used for decades by the General Assembly by altering the balance between the executive and legislative branches.
Part 3: The guardrails violate the majority vote rule
The first bedrock rule of legislative procedure violated by the budget guardrails is the majority vote rule - the statutory guardrails are designed to require a three-fifths vote of the state House and Senate.
Part 4: The guardrails impermissibly bind future legislatures
Making and changing laws is the General Assembly’s prerogative under our constitutional system, and a prior legislature’s budgeting process cannot bind this legislature.
Part 5: The bond lock impermissibly delegates legislative authority to bondholders
The bond lock requires the state treasurer to include a pledge to bond purchasers that for ten years the state will not enact any laws that change the state’s obligation to comply with the state spending cap or statutory guardrails.
Part 6: If the guardrails are unconstitutional, then what?
The General Assembly should now approve what it neglected to do in 2017 or in 2023: adopt a “best practices” approach by establishing a permanent Fiscal Commission, and taking a series of additional steps.
