The Connecticut House was expected to consider a bipartisan juvenile justice bill Wednesday, but ultimately did not as debate continued on other bills late into the night.

Following Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont’s public show of support for the bill on Tuesday, House leaders said it would take up House Bill 5417, An Act Concerning Juvenile Justice and Services, Firearms Background Checks, and Larceny of a Motor Vehicle, on Wednesday. The bill would make changes to the juvenile justice system in the state and includes a gun control measure.

But the bill was not brought to the floor on Wednesday after more than 11 hours of debate on other bills.

"It was our caucuses that put this at the forefront, and I feel dragged the Democrats and the governor to the table," House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said Wednesday morning. "The reality is that most of what's in this legislation are Republican initiatives for criminal justice reform. The governor was late to the table and signed off on it, which we do appreciate."

During a news conference Wednesday morning, Republican leaders from both chambers said they would be voting for the bill, but expressed some reservations, arguing that the bill does not go far enough on intervention and services, jobs, housing and supporting law enforcement.

"It certainly addresses many of the symptoms, but it does not go to the root cause," Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford, said.

State Republicans made juvenile crime their party’s marquee issue in the months leading up to the current legislative session.

According to the Office of Legislative Research’s bill analysis, HB 5417 would allow for "more immediate arraignment and services for juvenile offenders, electronic monitoring in certain circumstances, expansion of provisions imposing upon a child special juvenile probation in the case of murder or first degree manslaughter, and expansion of programs serving juveniles and reducing crime, and require the Commissioner of Emergency Services and Public Protection to inform the Chief of Police or other appropriate official of the town in which a firearms permit applicant resides if such applicant fails a background check."

The bill would increase the maximum time, from six hours to eight hours, that a juvenile can be held in lockup without a detention order from a judge. The legislation also addresses an issue Republicans have been raising for months, as it extends access to juvenile delinquency case records and proceedings to municipal agency employees and state and municipal law enforcement officials conducting investigations, respectively.

During an afternoon news conference announcing Democrats had come to an agreement on the state budget, Appropriations Committee Co-Chair Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, said there is $25 million worth of funding in the budget that goes toward where Republicans say the bill falls short.

Walker said the $25 million is going toward juvenile review boards, youth service bureaus, mental health counseling in schools and communities and summer and year-round youth employment.

“We also invested in evidence-based programing ... these are programs that have an actual outcome that helps out those children who have experienced significant trauma,” state Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, said Wednesday.

“The people that are criticizing our budget didn’t come up with anything but incarceration and GPS (monitoring),” Walker added.

Democratic leaders also addressed accusations from the left that this bill goes too far in “criminalizing youth,” during a news conference Wednesday morning.

For the police holding period for juveniles going from six to eight hours, Judiciary Committee Co-Chair Steven Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, said, “What we are saying is if law enforcement is in the process of seeking a detention order, should they get an extra hour or two to fill out the paperwork? As opposed to having them release somebody?”

“This bill doesn’t eviscerate the idea that a juvenile should not be held in incarceration any longer than is absolutely necessary, but it provides flexibility to law enforcement based on the federal funding going away,” Stafstrom said, before turning to GPS monitoring. “GPS monitoring is not mandatory, and it’s not authorized for first-time offenders, it is only for those repeat offenders where in the judge’s discretion, they think GPS monitoring is better than the alternative of incarceration.”

Stafstrom said 5417 is a compromise, with both parties missing out on parts that appealed to them. Lamont mentioned Tuesday that he was disappointed the bill no longer included new restrictions on “ghost guns,” which are untraceable firearms. But Stafstrom said Republicans posed “staunch pushback” on that issue.

“I would actually like to see us do a lot more on gun safety legislation. There’s a lot of pieces of gun safety legislation that got left on the cutting room floor in the judiciary committee that would make us a safer state as well,” Stafstrom said Wednesday.

House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, and Stafstrom said there are no plans for “ghost gun” restrictions to find their way into other legislation this session.

“We have four days to get stuff done, we have a budget adjustment we have to get done, it does make it really hard, so even something that might be very popular in our caucus, can we allocate 12 hours to it?” Ritter said.

s.spinella@theday.com