The 2021 State Legislative session may have been in the rear-view mirror, but lawmakers returned to the Capitol for a Special Session this week. The State Senate completed its Special Session one day earlier with Senator Tony Hwang (R-28) standing against the eventually approved budget implementer bill alongside six other senate colleagues.

Hwang — the ranking leader on Public Health, Insurance & Real Estate, and the Planning & Development Committees, whose district includes all of Newtown — voted “no” on the budget implementer bill (SB 1202) which contained 837 pages and nearly 25,000 lines of information due to what he described as “a broken and arrogant legislative process,” and “rats” that were inserted into the implementer.

He issued a statement early Wednesday morning alerting constituents that Senate Democrat and Republican rank and file members were afforded less than a few hours to review extensive documentation ahead of the 11 am special session the day before.

“I was asked, when told with less than 48 hours’ notice to convene a rare special session, if I was fearful of possible foul play in the legislative process. When only given access to a voluminous document [that] morning, unfortunately, my worst fears were realized,” he said.

“These 800-plus pages contain measures that never saw a proper public hearing, that were never considered by a legislative committee, or were purposely not addressed by one chamber of the legislature or the other,” he continued. “Despite the lack of a transparent legislative process, the implementer was passed strictly along partisan Democratic votes.”

The Senate eventually voted 23-7 to pass and send to the House the omnibus bill that, among other things, cuts funding for a state contract oversight board, increases funding for behavioral health providers, and gives labor victories unattainable in the regular session. Elements of the implementer are similar to congressional earmarks — funding directed by individual lawmakers for specific projects, though the sponsor is not always evident.

One provision would deny state aid to any company that moves a call center offshore. A second would provide protections and aid for domestic workers. A third creates a $34 million assistance program for essential employees who lost work due to COVID-19 symptoms. And a fourth creates an Office of Unemployed Workers Advocate.

There is nothing new about using the implementer, a technical measure necessary to flesh out and implement the budget, as a vehicle to revive and pass elements of bills that failed during the year — or might never have been proposed. And holding only 12 of the 36 seats, Senate Republicans could only express their frustration about the heft of the bill, the lack of consultation for items affecting their districts, and their inability to shape the legislation.

“It’s obnoxious,” said GOP Senator Rob Sampson of Wolcott. “If you drop it on your foot, you’re gonna break your toe.”

Hwang was somewhat more reserved.

“I find the entire process brought us a broken and disrespectful execution of a supposed ‘representative government.’ I am beyond frustrated and fighting mad,” Hwang stated. “There has been zero effort to have conversations across the aisle, to build consensus and consider all possible ramifications of these policy changes. The lack of communication, collaboration and the rushed process are a collective failure to accomplish what is possibly our most important charge as a legislature: to provide a clear roadmap of how the state will navigate the next fiscal year.”

Look for related coverage in today’s print edition and at newtownbee.com — and find more regular and special legislative session follow-up including more input from Newtown’s entire state delegation next week.

Associate Editor John Voket can be reached at john@thebee.com.