It was interesting that the announcement of state Sens. Paul Formica and Cathy Osten being appointed co-chairs of the legislature's influential Appropriations Committee came just barely a week after an obituary reported the death of Janet Polinsky, the former state representative for Waterford who once also served as an appropriations chair.

Indeed, this region, in its day, packed a lot of firepower in Hartford, then wielded generally by Democrats.

Richard Schneller, the former lawmaker from Essex who served as Senate majority leader, as well as a chair of the Appropriations Committee, died in 2013 at the age of 90, five years older than Polinsky when she died in September.

Of course the late Gov. John Dempsey, a former mayor of Putnam, also called Groton home and retired here, taking credit for substantial state improvements to the region, like the Avery Point campus of the University of Connecticut and Bluff Point State Park.

So I had it a bit wrong when I suggested earlier this week, with a draft proposal of drastic cuts to Shore Line East trains looming, that the region had hit a new low of clout in Hartford, with Republicans holding Senate districts from the Connecticut River to the Rhode Island border and the Democrats still controlling most of the votes in the House and Senate.

It turns out, with the Senate tied in number, the compromise that gives both parties committee chair seats enabled Formica to win his party's nod for appropriations co-chair.

The extra vote to be cast in the Senate by Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman still gives the voting edge to the Democrats. But the chairmanships are certainly a seat at the table, and with Osten and Formica sharing the Senate leadership of appropriations, this region will have more budget clout than it has in a long time.

In Polinsky's day, her chairmanship of appropriations put her squarely in the hot seat, when the state first imposed an income tax. She long defended her position on the new tax as a necessary solution to the fiscal crisis of the time.

Osten and Formica also presumably will have explaining to do when the state comes out of the other end of budget negotiations this session.

They both deserve credit for taking on this heavy responsibility, as the winds of the budget crisis already approach gale force.

I might worry that Osten the Democrat, with strong union ties, a history in union membership and leadership, the recipient of a state pension, might not be the best choice to tackle a budget debacle that will need some concessions from unions, especially on pensions.

But let me again deploy post-2016 election optimism.

Maybe Osten is the best choice because her union ties and leadership role in the budget debate will make her a good choice to insist the unions bear some responsibility.

This is sort of the way I like to think of Donald Trump eschewing daily U.S. intelligence briefings. At least he's probably not taking briefings from the KGB.

Kudos to both Formica and Osten for impressing party leaders with their hard work and dedication to legislative business.

It should help all their constituents to have their voices better heard as this crisis unfolds and a solution is sketched.

Let's hope that they can, at the very least, keep the Shore Line East trains running.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com