During this past General Assembly session, Democrats maintained the tradition of not “calling the question.”

The phrase refers to calling for a vote on specific legislation, essentially killing debate. Some freshman and sophomore Democrats are now questioning this longstanding practice.

In the final days of this year’s regular session, Democrats knew Republicans could run out the clock with extended debate and theoretically kill bills not raised by the session’s final day. Republicans knew Democrats had the numbers to pass essentially whatever the party wanted to pass.

During the regular session, Democrats achieved a number of policy goals related to criminal justice, voting rights, income inequality and transportation. Still, House Democrats had expected to get to passing a recreational marijuana bill that had been passed by the state Senate, but ran out of time. Republican filibustering and extended debate caused Democratic leadership to throw the legislature into special session to legalize marijuana. 

House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said at the time that Republicans “should’ve let us vote.” He chose not to call for a vote on controversial bills, instead allowing extended commentary from Republicans. He's said that he views calling for a vote as a last resort and doesn't want to set a precedent.

While a few newer Democrats, such as Christine Palm, D-Chester, a sophomore legislator, were careful not to criticize Ritter or House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, they did question the choice not to call the question.

“The minority party, which at the moment happens to be Republicans, uses its filibuster power as a way of gumming up the works so that bills they don’t like don’t ever see the light of day,” Palm said. “It’s a desperation move because I believe all legislation should pass on its merits. If a bill is a good bill, I don’t care if it emanates from a Republican or a Democrat. I’d like us to focus on the merits of public policy. When you have to resort to brinksmanship to get your way, that is not good for the public.”

Palm advocated for calling the question more often to “put an end to these endless debates.”

Aimee Berger-Girvalo, D-Ridgefield, a freshman legislator, is of the same mind as Palm, though she, Palm and other proponents of calling the question all say they defer to the speaker’s decision.

“It does become remarkably frustrating when we know that the other side of the aisle is speaking for hours at a time simply to stop bills from being introduced,” Berger-Girvalo said. “Let’s be clear, we all understand that’s the reason. Regardless of party we do a huge disservice to our constituents by attempting to just run out the clock rather than do what we’re elected to do.”

Eleni Kavros DeGraw, D-Avon, another freshman representative, said that she is aware part of the tradition of not calling the question comes from the fact that the party in control of the legislature knows they won’t always be in control. Still, she wondered whether the action would be an effective way of limiting debate.

“While I don’t feel it happened on every single bill, there were some issues that you would hear multiple legislators stand up and ask nearly identical questions, and they were not questions for the purpose of clarification, they were questions that would receive the exact or nearly exact answer from the proponent of the bill,” she said. “When you consider that we’re a part-time legislature — and I’m one of the few, or maybe many, as a freshman, who would like to have a full-time legislature — that time is precious, and we need to be getting as much done as we can.”

Rep. Anthony Nolan, D-New London, a sophomore legislator, expressed a more widely held view of calling the question.

“I heard that there were a few people who wanted to do that. My opinion toward that is, it causes division,” Nolan said. “I think it would cause more division because then anytime anyone else tried to talk someone could call the question. I think it would end up being more of a tit-for-tat situation if that happened.”

Nolan said the legislature’s goal should be to work in a bipartisan manner.

State Sen. Paul Formica, R-East Lyme, said calling the question would kill the exchange of ideas "in an attempt to find a middle ground" that is a hallmark of the legislature. He recalled a moment several years ago, which was the closest he'd seen the Senate come to calling the question.

"It was nearing midnight at the end of session and conversation was around the budget. Senator [Art] Linares was speaking, and it looked like Senator [Martin] Looney was going to call the question," Formica said. "Senator [Len] Fasano and Senator Looney conferred, then Senator Fasano asked Senator Linares to wrap it up because no one wanted that precedent being set. It was so impressive to see Senator Looney and Senator Fasano work it out because the institution that we have the privilege to serve in is greater than us."

Formica acknowledged that the threat of extended debate is way for the minority party to assert influence.

"Are there times when people talk on? Sure. As a minority party that's really one of the stronger tools that we have, is to continue to have debate and share our ideas in an effort to try to make what we think is bad legislation better or to stop bad legislation," he said.

State Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, rejected the idea that it was possible for Republicans to successfully filibuster given their limited numbers.

"The point to me about running out the clock is an illegitimate argument," she said. "With a supermajority you can't run the clock out, they can always call a special session. The clock really never ends if you're in the supermajority."

Somers also said calling the question would wrongly stifle debate. She brought up the vaccine exemption bill, saying that amendments borne from debate made the legislation stronger.

House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said accusations that Republicans abused debate this past session are unfounded. He noted that none of the debates from this session bled into a second day, and said the marijuana bill was going to be a lengthy debate no matter what given its size and impact. He said he didn't think Ritter would call the question because "he respects the process too much."

"What he has said to me is, 'Somebody in my caucus wants to call the question,'" Candelora said of Ritter. "We've been very aware that that's occurred this session. It's one thing for there to be a filibuster, it's another thing for there to be healthy debate."

Candelora said he thought newly elected legislators should "learn the legislative process better before asserting themselves."

"As a freshman you lack the wisdom and perspective of how the system operates," he said. "So before you say I want things to change, it might behoove you to sit back and understand how that process works."

State Rep. Bob Godfrey, D-Danbury, a 33-year veteran of the House, said Republicans and Democrats made a “gentleperson’s agreement” long ago — the majority wouldn’t call the question as long as the minority didn’t filibuster for an unreasonably long time. Godfrey said he’d never seen the question called during his tenure, though leadership has come close to doing so before.

Ritter discussed his thinking on calling the question in relation to the marijuana bill.

“That situation played out well, the bill passed and it’s now law. I judge things on passage ultimately. I think Jason [Rojas] and I made the correct decision,” Ritter said referring to the House majority leader. “To push that special session by a week made sense. There were modifications to the bill. If you’re going to call the question it should be because you are abusing the debate process. A 24-hour debate on a bill that large that got sent down very late in the process I don’t think is an abuse of the system.”

Ritter said there are two contexts in which leadership would conceivably call the question. One is if debate were gratuitous, spanning two to three days, which, he notes, didn’t happen this past session. The other is if there’s a deadline lawmakers have to meet.

“Let’s say the governor needed an emergency authority to pass a law by a date certain to get federal aid. And let’s say an individual Republican or Democrat did not want us to access that federal aid for whatever reason, and they said 'I’m going to filibuster for 24 hours so you miss the deadline.' I would call the question in that case,” Ritter said. “If there’s a true hard and fast deadline or if the filibuster is just so unreasonable in its length, which I think would be going on day two, day three, then I would consider it as the speaker, yes. But those situations or anything close to them did not arise this session.”

Ritter said Democratic leadership “had an honest conversation internally” about calling the question when it came to the marijuana bill because at the time they thought they were looking at a filibuster that could last 48 hours.

Ritter added that he is an “old soul” when it comes to the legislative process and made clear his reverence for open debate.

“In my time I would be very surprised if we ever called the question and quite frankly my job is to make sure it never comes to that,” he said. “My job is to have enough respect from the Republican caucus and leadership to make sure we never cross that bridge, and I would almost feel like if we did, I failed. At the same time I am saying that if a handful of Republicans went into day three on a debate or prevented us from doing something where we had a date certain by which we had to accomplish it, then those circumstances are different.”

Legislators including Palm, DeGraw and Berger-Girvalo pointed out that long-winded debate from Republicans kept Democrats from speaking on the House floor. In order to move legislation along, Democrats spoke sparingly, and usually only when answering questions about a specific bill.

“When we know we have the numbers to pass the bill, sometimes we make the private decision to not do a lot of speaking because we’re eager to get onto the next bill,” Palm said. “I try to pick my spots. If it’s a bill that’s very important to me like the pregnancy center transparency bill or the religious exemption, I’ll talk. We don’t want to add to the dead air unless it’s to correct the record about something said that was erroneous.”

Godfrey thinks renewed discussion around calling the question is due in part to the newest classes of legislators.

“The newer members are more practical. They’re more results-oriented, more outcome-oriented, than other less recent classes,” he said. “We got a lot done this year because I think those two classes were enthused and ready to rock and roll, both the freshman and the sophomores who of course lost an entire session in 2020.”

s.spinella@theday.com