This is Part One of a six-part series on the constitutionality of the state’s “budget guardrails.“ The debate over whether Connecticut’s unique set of fiscal controls should be considered “guardrails” or “roadblocks” rages almost daily, but for the past seven years, ever since the constraints were first adopted, the most consequential issue has been ignored: Are Connecticut’s budget guardrails, taken as a whole, constitutional? Despite the advances that have been made in bolstering Connecticut’s Rainy Day Fund and in reducing the state’s huge pension debt, the statutory budget guardrails that were adopted in 2017 and re-adopted in 2023 violate the democratic ideals of the Connecticut Constitution and are inconsistent with the bedrock principles of Connecticut’s legislative process. Over the next six days, the reasons for my “big picture” conclusion that the budget guardrails taken as a whole fail to comply with the requirements of the Connecticut Constitution will be explained in this series. Alex Knopp In brief, they fail to meet state constitutional standards for four primary reasons: The Connecticut Constitution does not authorize the adoption by statute of such extreme changes in the legislative process for approving a budget The guardrails violate the majority-vote rule for lawmaking They impermissibly purport to bind future legislatures They unlawfully delegate legislative budgeting powers to private bond purchasers via an unenforceable bond covenant. The final essay will describe the likely consequences for the state budget process if the guardrails were determined to be unconstitutional. As most readers know, the term “budget guardrails” (or “fiscal guardrails”) is the label applied to the combination of the State Spending Cap ratified as a constitutional amendment in 1992 and the set of seven statutory interlocking “caps” enacted in 2017 and readopted in 2023. The guardrails imposed severe restrictions on the powers of the General Assembly to adopt a state budget. It has concerned me ever since 2017 that this new set of fiscal controls that has so eviscerated the state budgeting process has evaded constitutional scrutiny. The Spending Cap approved in 1992 is a valid constitutional provision. But astonishingly, the question of the constitutionality of the statutory guardrails has never been posed directly and therefore has never been sufficiently settled. Connecticut’s Attorney Generals have been asked twice for legal opinions on the guardrails, but the opinions by Attorneys General George Jepsen in 2018 and by William Tong in 2024 related only to disputes over statutory interpretation rather than constitutional jurisprudence. Why does it matter? The urgency in resolving the constitutional uncertainty arises at this time from widespread anticipation that the 2025 legislative session will focus on whether to revise the budget guardrails in light of the dramatic improvements in the state’s fiscal health since 2017. Also looming on the economic horizon is the serious reduction in federal aid expected to result from the Trump administration’s plan to slash the federal budget. The determination of constitutionality will have a major impact on the outcome of legislative efforts to address the terms of the guardrails. If the guardrails are regarded as lawful, it will be more difficult to reach compromise adjustments due to the many restrictive budget provisions and because the three-fifths supermajority vote requirements empower the legislative minority beyond their actual numbers. But if the terms of the statutory guardrails were determined to exceed the powers of the General Assembly, then legislators could address the guardrails by restoring the regular constitutional legislative process based on drafting bills, holding public hearings and voting by majority rule. Thus, the determination of the constitutionality of the guardrails and the outcome of legislative efforts to extend or revise the guardrails are closely connected. Recently, a number of significant studies have been published analyzing the impact of the guardrails and making recommendations for future fiscal policy. Two of these major studies—“Connecticut’s Fiscal Guardrails: A Data Driven Analysis,” a joint research effort between The Connecticut Project and Yale University’s Tobin Center for Economic Policy; and “Connecticut’s Fiscal Controls: Options for Responsible Adjustments,” published by CT Voices for Children– advocate reforming the guardrails to provide more flexibility and balance. Alternatively, two other presentations– “The Case for CT’s Fiscal Guardrails,” published by the Yankee Institute and the Reason Foundation; and the Office of Policy and Management Secretary Jeffrey Beckham’s “Fiscal Accountability Report” —advocate keeping the 2017 guardrail system intact and warn against legislative changes to “loosen” them. While all four of these major reports will be quoted on the floors of the State House and Senate, regrettably none of them addresses the constitutionality of the 2017 or 2023 guardrails. It now seems almost self-evident that unless the contorted process embedded in the guardrails is changed, it remains problematic whether any of the reasonable “reforms” advocated in these studies could actually be implemented given the chokehold on the legislative process held both by bondholders and by the legislative minority. Contrary to these fiscal analyses, I do not advocate in this limited series for any particular appropriation or revenue change because I do not want to divert attention from the legislative process questions. My issue of concern is not whether to pay down pension debt or to adopt a child tax credit, but whether our elected representatives should be able to return to the regular legislative process as an alternative to the guardrails to make any fiscal changes to the state budget. Reframing the debate My hope is to encourage both legislative and executive branches to reframe the debate about the guardrails beyond the old terms of “spending vs. savings” by expanding it to include for the first time the more important choice between restoring constitutional democratic budget-making based on current financial conditions vs. leaving our state at the mercy of out-of-date and out-of-order automatic budget restrictions. I offer this analysis because as a former legislator I revere the legislative process, and I am frankly offended by procedures that handcuff legislators by enforcing robotic budget restrictions. In a democracy we elect representatives to make discretionary decisions. My goal is to put back on the table the restoration of the powers of the General Assembly to adopt budgets by recognizing that our constitution empowers our elected representatives to assume an active lawmaking role rather than to acquiesce to the passive role imposed by the guardrails. Fiscal process vs. legislative process To analyze the guardrails, it is necessary to differentiate between fiscal process and legislative process. The fiscal policies enacted in the guardrails generally are conventional budget tools that in one form or another have been enacted in other states. Collectively known as “Tax and Expenditure Limitations” or TELs. These policies, for example, allocate surplus revenues to fund budget reserves or impose special requirements on the use of so-called “volatile” revenue. The above-cited publications analyze these fiscal process complexities. If the TELS in the guardrails had been designed to function within the regular legislative process, there would be less controversy over their constitutionality. But as this series will highlight, Connecticut’s statutory guardrails are different from any other TELs in the country because they were designed to operate outside of and in opposition to the normal legislative process, by relying instead on such devices as the Bond Lock and supermajority voting rules. As a result, the guardrails have created an unprecedented extra-legal lawmaking process outside of our state’s constitutional boundaries that by deliberate intention has denied each new class of elected lawmakers the opportunity to participate meaningfully in the budget process. The guardrails are not a permissible exercise of legislative authority despite the well-meaning intentions of their proponents and the fiscal benefits of the controls. Alex Knopp served in the General Assembly from 1987 to 2001 and was Mayor of Norwalk from 2001 until 2005. He co-taught the Legislative Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School and is a member of the CT Law Tribune Editorial Board. He can be reached at [email protected].