Maria Horn

Last week I used my vegetable garden as a metaphor for the budget process. Although I haven’t had a chance to inspect yet (I’ve been in Hartford all week) my husband tells me that the frost Wednesday night this week was not kind to my seedlings. I guess that’s a reminder about resilience: sometimes the best laid plans get whacked, and you have to dig back in with new ideas or better arguments for the old ones. Happily, the budget negotiations have not hit a hard frost (yet – fingers crossed) and I remain hopeful that we’ll have a set of numbers we all agree on soon.

The House of Representatives passed HJ 1 on Wednesday, which means you will get to decide if we amend the state constitution to allow no-excuse absentee voting.

I spent most of the day on Sunday getting my vegetable garden up and running. I went to a couple of local garden centers and bought some new seeds, seedlings, compost, and tomato cages. As I started work in the garden itself, it struck me that it was a little like the budget and legislative process (bear with me – I dream about budget spreadsheets these days).

Now that May is officially here, House legislative sessions are starting to fill up the calendar. This also means that organized advocacy campaigns are becoming more frequent. In our session day last week, for example, teachers from across the state were at the capitol to make the case for several bills that affect teaching, and I got to meet with several teachers from the Northwest Corner. It will not surprise you to learn that teachers make great advocates! Special thanks to Jeanine Coleman, a retired teacher from the NW Corner who made sure we were supporting teachers in the General Assembly.

Last week the Finance Committee, which I co-chair, took “final action” on two big bills, one on taxes and the other on bonding, that set the parameters for how the state will raise revenue for the next two years. The Appropriations Committee produced a spending package that lays out where those funds will be spent.

As my kids say, it’s been a minute. This newsletter is packed with two weeks worth of news, announcements, and local events, so my apologies that it is longer than usual.

After a quiet week that included Passover and Easter, there's been a lot of news nationally. One piece that had particular resonance for state legislatures was the expulsion of two state representatives in Tennessee, who were removed from their seats for participating in a peaceful protest that disrupted the chamber's business and broke the rules of decorum.

It was an early Monday morning start for me, as the day began with a Finance Committee public hearing on the Governor's revenue and bonding proposals, and I needed to be in Hartford before 8am to prepare.

This final week of the month is showcasing several kinds of March Madness. The weather this weekend came in like a lion and went out like a lamb, with snow, sleet, hail, and rain on Saturday, followed by abundant sunshine on Sunday. And there was plenty of basketball, with the UConn women sadly falling to Ohio State, while the men made it to the Final Four with a win over Gonzaga. (Several people have asked, given my Ohio upbringing, whether I was cheering for UConn or Ohio State. For the record, the answer is definitely UConn.)