Several southeastern Connecticut Republican state legislators have shown an independent streak when voting on bills.

State Reps. Holly Cheeseman of East Lyme, Kathleen McCarty of Waterford, and Devin Carney of Old Lyme, coalesced into an informal voting bloc this past legislative session, occasionally breaking ranks with their party to vote with Democrats on controversial legislation.

They accounted for three of 15 Republican votes on the "bottle bill," which doubles bottle deposits from 5 cents to 10 cents. Cheeseman and McCarty were the only two Republicans who voted in favor of the "red flag law," which allows police to hold onto weapons seized from individuals who are deemed a threat. On a measure that would launch a referendum for voters to decide whether they want no-excuse absentee voting, the three legislators were part of a group of nine Republicans to vote with Democrats.

In one of the most controversial votes of the session, McCarty, Carney and Cheeseman joined Democrats and three additional Republicans in voting for a bill to end the religious exemption to vaccinations for children in school.

While Rep. Greg Howard, R-Stonington, and Sens. Paul Formica, R-East Lyme, and Heather Somers, R-Groton, also voted with Democrats on some bills, they broke rank less than the McCarty-Cheeseman-Carney voting group.

The three Republican representatives voted with their party against such bills as raising the minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, the  Police Accountability Act, and legalizing recreational marijuana — and they do usually vote with their party. But Carney acknowledged a level of independence among southeastern Connecticut Republicans.

"I think everybody up in Hartford should vote what they think is right for their constituents, what their conscience tells them. As long as they can defend that vote. The Republicans are sometimes all over the place, both in the Senate and in the House. I think that's a good thing, having legislators in Hartford who think for themselves," Carney said. "It's not just me and the two of them. Mike France, Doug Dubitsky, Greg Howard are all certainly independent-minded. I know (Howard) has voted with regrets on some things. Paul and Heather, too. We're talking to our constituents instead of blindly supporting one policy or another, which I think happens too much."

Cheeseman agreed with Carney in saying that their constituencies drive their votes and that the formation of an ultra-local caucus was not intentional, though Carney notes that the three legislators sit next to each other and talk about bills in the chamber.

"I will give full credit to my leadership," Cheeseman said. "They recognize that we need to take votes guided by the desires of our district."

Carney and Cheeseman both said that neither their party leadership nor their fellow party members push back when they inform them that they will be voting with Democrats on a bill.

"People used to talk about the Republican Party as the 'big tent party.' I think it still is the big tent," Cheeseman said. "In our caucus we have differing views. When you look at the House as a whole, there are far more times where everybody on both sides votes in favor of things. The bills that create partisanship are not the majority of bills. My bill that requires businesses to accept cash as payment, which was basically to allow people who are unbanked to always have access to commerce, passed unanimously and on consent in the Senate. Those bills outweigh the ones where there's a real partisan divide."

McCarty explained her votes on the religious exemption, bottle bill and no-excuse absentee ballot measures.

"I voted yes on these bills as I believe the vote was the preference of the majority of my constituents. The immunization bill was a difficult vote but I believe that there were too many school districts that fell below the 95 percent acceptable herd immunity rate," she said. "Voting is a right that everyone should have. I am an advocate of protecting the right to vote and guarding the integrity of the vote at the same time. No-excuse absentee voting will accomplish these goals. The bottle bill took years of bipartisan compromise. My district will benefit from additional revenue from the surcharge on the nips, and the environment will be further ameliorated through more recycling at redemption centers."

Cheeseman and Carney said they are attuned to concerns about election security among fellow party members. Carney said his vote in favor of a no-excuse absentee voting resolution stems from his thinking that ballot initiatives are the most straightforward version of direct democracy.

The religious exemption vote was particularly difficult for Cheeseman.

"We had the scientific community, doctors and pediatricians, telling us this was very important," she said. "We were told there are every sound medical reasons to get rid of the religious exemption."

She felt Democrats were hypocritical in championing public health with the religious exemption bill and then legalizing recreational marijuana.

"We were told by the Connecticut Medical Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, every expert group, that we should not be doing this. And yet the majority party chose to completely disregard that evidence," she said.

Though there's been some reluctance on the part of the three legislators to vote with Democrats, they all subscribed to McCarty's thinking on the subject: "It's always been my practice to vote to the best of my ability for my district in a bipartisan manner."

Elsewhere in the state, Republican representatives and senators railed against voting rights legislation, claiming significant voter fraud and a lack of election security without evidence. Are southeastern Connecticut Republicans different, then, than the majority of their party?

"There's certainly pockets of more moderate Republicans in places like Fairfield County. I suppose in the last election we lost several Fairfield County Republican seats that traditionally had more moderate representatives," Carney said. "I've always felt the district I represent has become more purple over the last 10 years. I believe my district is now majority-Democrat, it was majority-Republican before, but that really doesn't have any bearing on the way that I vote. I've always been a more center-right Republican." Carney added that he felt McCarty and Cheeseman were cut from the same political cloth.

The three legislators were not overly critical of the Democrats' control of the legislative process in this past session, though Carney said he felt some bills were "forced down our throat" and Cheeseman said Republicans could have been consulted more on the cannabis bill.

"The marijuana bill was done exclusively behind closed doors," she said. "Democrats did make some accommodations in the religious exemption bill, and at the committee level, I know our ranking members for the most part have good relationships with the chairs. I think the people most short-changed was the public. Although we had virtual meetings, the idea that the Capitol is the one building in the state of Connecticut that a voter, a resident, cannot enter, is abhorrent. They were the people who had the least say in how legislation was crafted."

s.spinella@theday.com