Lawmakers broke Connecticut’s state constitution when they rush gun legislation into law without giving lawmakers the required time to read it. Sound familiar? In this case the National Shooting Sports Foundation is taking on Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy’s rushed signing.
The bill was the product of a state task force that originated in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December. It was passed in the middle of the night on April 3 and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy the following day. The bill’s expedited status was due to its “emergency certified” designation, whose validity NSSF is challenging. The state constitution says that printed copies of proposed legislation must be provided to lawmakers two days prior to a vote taking place.
“A 139-page bill was assembled behind closed doors, bypassing both the public hearing and committee processes, and quickly sent to floor votes on the same day in both the House and Senate where legislators did not have adequate time to even read the bill,” said Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of NSSF, in a press release. “There was no emergency and so there’s no statement of facts as to why this is an emergency,” he later told the Associated Press.
