House Republican Press Release

March 20, 2006

Press Office: 860-240-8700

REP. RYAN APPLAUDS GOVERNOR RELL’S VETO OF FLAWED CONTRACTING BILL

Hartford—State Rep. John J. Ryan, R-Darien, expressed strong support for Governor M. Jodi Rell’s veto of legislation on Thursday, March 16, that would have impacted the state’s ability to contract with private vendors. It marks the third time in the past 12 months that the Governor has vetoed legislation passed largely along partisan lines that contained anti-privitization measures.

By tying up the contracting reform proposals with anti-privatization language, private non-profit providers and their clients would be negatively impacted, said Rep Ryan.  As well, services the state provides by means of private contractors for virtually all state agencies would be negatively impacted.  The state would not be able to provide services at greatly reduced costs, thus costing taxpayers more money, he said.

During a June 2005 special session, the Democratic majority amended a 2005-2007 budget ‘implementer’ bill with anti-privatization language that affected an already adopted contracting reform bill (Public Act 05-286). Governor Rell vetoed the contracting bill (Senate Bill 94) and enacted her own contracting reform language through an executive order. In November 2005, the Democrat majority again offered a contracting reform proposal (Senate Bill 2101) that included anti-privatization language for both non-profit and for-profit private providers, which was also vetoed.

“This situation clearly indicates how partisan our State Government has become and how the Democrat legislative majority is totally beholden to the influence of  the labor unions, who keep insisting on provisions that would severely handicap non-profit providers," said Representative Ryan. “I did not vote for this bill, which was presented to us as an ‘emergency certified bill,” even though there was more than enough time for regular legislation to proceed though the committee process. It is a shame that we again wasted valuable legislative time, when there is no dispute on the substantive issue, which is supposed to be state contracting reform.”