The House of Representatives (the Lower House) first served the General Assembly, known then as the General Court, in 1636. Its membership was divided between six elected magistrates and three-member committees representing each of the three towns of the Connecticut Colony (Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor). The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, adopted in 1639, replaced the committees with deputies. Each town would elect three or four deputies for six-month terms. Although the magistrates and deputies sat together, they voted separately and in 1645 it was decreed that a measure had to have the approval of both groups in order to pass legislation. The Charter of 1662 reduced the number of deputies per town to no more than two, and also changed the title of the legislature to the General Assembly, although it was referred to as either General Court or General Assembly for some years henceforth. It was in 1698 that the General Assembly divided itself into its current bicameral form, with the twelve assistants (that replaced the 6 magistrates) as the Council (which became the Senate in the 1818 constitution) and the deputies as the House of Representatives, which began electing the Speaker to preside over it. The terms of representatives were raised to two years in 1884.
The Charter of 1662 also joined the New Haven Colony with the Connecticut Colony. In 1701 the General Assembly proposed a plan of having two co-capitals with separate state houses, one in New Haven and one in Hartford. The General Assembly met in Hartford for the May sessions and in New Haven for the October sessions until 1818. Annual and biennial rotation continued between both state houses until 1875. Read more here.
The modern-day Connecticut House of Representatives is the lower house in the Connecticut General Assembly. The House is composed of 151 members representing an equal number of districts, with each constituency containing nearly 22,600 residents in 2015. Representatives are elected to two-year terms with no term limits. The House convenes within the Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford.
September 14, 1995 95-R-1134
TO:
FROM: Mary M. Janicki, Senior Research Analyst
RE: Two-Term Precedent for Speakers of the House of Representatives of Connecticut
You asked for information on the history of the Connecticut House of Representatives where the speakers have traditionally served a limited number of terms. You are interested in the rationale for this precedent and in what has been reported about it.
No member of the House of Representatives of Connecticut has been elected three or more times to preside over that chamber during all regular legislative sessions held during any six consecutive years. In its history, the General Assembly has met semi-annually (1699—1818), annually (1819—1886 and 1971 to the present), and biennially (1887—1970); and the length of its regular sessions has varied considerably. Several speakers have been elected to serve three times or more, particularly in the period when Connecticut was a colony and a new state. But none of these served an uninterrupted tenure over a six-year period, even as the elected speaker when the legislature was not in session.
In the 85 years before the legislature's current session schedule, the House chamber's two-term precedent for speakers seems not to have been an issue since only two speakers were elected to serve more than one term (which consisted of one regular session held in the odd-numbered year of each biennium). But in the modern era (since the 1970 passage of the constitutional amendment establishing the current annual sessions with leaders chosen for the biennium), two speakers have sought to break with the tradition, but neither was successful. two-term precedent was cited as a tangential reason. Two others did not run for reelection to the House after serving their two terms as speaker. The current speaker is serving the second of his two terms in that position.
The speaker's election officially takes place at the opening of the session. But because the actual selection is usually made in the majority party caucus, there is no record of the debate or members' discussion. In 1979, when Representative Ernest N. Abate was chosen speaker, published reports of the battle for incumbent Speaker James J. Kennelly's position made little mention of the two-term precedent. When Speaker Irving J. Stolberg was replaced by Speaker Richard J. Balducci in 1989, reports that two two-year terms was "enough" surfaced along with calls to honor that tradition. Speaker Stolberg addressed it as well, citing the need for two consecutive terms to accomplish his goals (his two terms as speaker included a hiatus when he served as minority leader). Magazine and newspaper accounts of the ouster in each case focused more on the upheaval caused by a major power shift than on the two-term tradition, leaving the impression that the incumbent's defeat was the more striking event, not the potential break with the two-term tradition.
In 1698, Connecticut's General Court was divided into two branches; one was the Governor and Council and the other was the House of Representatives. The representatives were to elect one of their own members as speaker. From 1699 until the adoption of the Constitution of 1818, the legislators, who were elected annually in May, met twice every year, in May and October. They elected a speaker each time they met. The business of the early sessions was conducted and completed in a matter of days. While these sessions got progressively longer, during this period the House usually adjourned after no more than several weeks.
The list of speakers of the House from 1699 to 1818 appears in Appendix A. Two of them were each elected to preside over 10 sessions, Roger Newton of Milford and Shubau Conant of Mansfield. Another two were elected nine times: Thomas Welles of what was then Glassenbury and William Williams of Lebanon. Several of the speakers were elected six, seven, or eight times, but none consecutively for as long as six years. You should note that we do not include special sessions called by the governor during this time. At special sessions, members elected a speaker who often was the one who had presided over the prior regular session, but not necessarily.
With the adoption of the Constitution of 1818, the General Assembly met annually; between 1818 and 1875 sessions began in May (Article III, § 2, Constitution of 1818) and from 1876 until 1886, sessions began in January (Article XVI, § 3 of the Amendments). There was no constitutionally mandated adjournment date during the entire period. During this time, a speaker of the House was elected to preside over each session. Lafayette S. Foster of Norwich was elected to preside over four different sessions (1847, 1848, 1854, and 1870)—more than any other speaker during this period. Two others were elected three times to serve during three of the annual sessions: Samuel Ingham of Saybrook (1833, 1835, and 1851) and William W. Boardman of New Haven (1838, 1839, and 1845). No legislator served as speaker for six sessions. (Appendix B, from the 1995 State Register and Manual, lists the names of speakers since 1819 and the years of their terms.)
Amendment XXVII to the Constitution of 1818 changed the schedule for convening the legislature. Rather than conducting annual sessions, the Assembly met biennially and continued to do so for a while under the Constitution of 1965. Those biennial sessions began in the January after members were elected. There was no mandatory adjournment date until Article XXXV of the Amendments to the Constitution of 1818, adopted in 1912, required adjournment by the beginning of June. Of the 13 regular sessions held between 1887 and 1911, one adjourned in May, six in June, two in July, two in August, and one in September. One session ended in a deadlock.
During this period, no speaker was elected more than twice. Those who served for two terms (presiding over a House that met in regular session only once in two years) were Frank E. Healy of Windsor Locks (1915 and 1917) and J. Tyler Patterson, Principal Analyst. of Old Lyme (1963 and 1965). William R. Ratchford of Danbury presided over sessions spanning the transition (1969 and 1971-2) and was the first to serve as speaker under the system we have today.
Article III of the amendments to the state constitution established the current arrangement under which the General Assembly meets from January until June in odd-numbered years and from February until May in the next year. Since 1971, the effective date of the amendment, the House membership has elected eight different speakers, five of whom were chosen to preside over four regular sessions each: James J. Kennelly of Hartford (1975, 1976, 1977, and 1978), Ernest N. Abate of Stamford (1979, 1980, 1981, and 1982); Irving J. Stolberg of New Haven (1983, 1984, 1987, and 1988); and Richard J. Balducci (1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992). All of them served for consecutive years, except for Stolberg who served two separate two-year terms. In 1996, the current House Speaker Thomas D. Ritter will complete the second year of his second term.
Of the cases mentioned above, Speakers Abate and Balducci did not run for reelection to their House district seats and therefore were not in a position to seek a third term as speaker. However, both Speakers Kennelly in 1979 and Stolberg in 1989 expected to be reelected as speaker.
After the 1978 election, incumbent Speaker Kennelly was challenged in his bid for a third term as speaker by Representatives Joseph S. Coatsworth and Ernest N. Abate. The prior legislative session had been a tumultuous one, ending abruptly in the House with a number of major bills left to consider. Kennelly's ouster the following year was described as "a political coup that caused a major shift of power in the Democratically-controlled House ("Coatsworth Expected to Resign From Assembly," Hartford Courant, November 9, 1979). In the State Library's clipping file on the subject, we find only one reference to the fact that, had Speaker Kennelly been reelected to the speakership, he would have been "the first man in the history of the state to have been elected three times," ("The Leaders of Tomorrow," Hartford Advocate, November 22, 1978).
The election of speaker in 1989 was also considered a "coup," but there was more discussion of the two-term House tradition. Speaker Stolberg was the first sitting speaker since 1943 to be removed by a vote of the full House (Kennelly's defeat had come by way of a caucus vote). On January 4, 1989, the first day of the session and the day on which the vote was taken, the Hartford Courant quoted Stolberg as acknowledging that "some were opposed to his receiving a third term as speaker . . . but reiterated his contention that his first and second terms were separated by two years in the minority and that he wanted two consecutive terms to achieve some legislative goals. "
In the reports of Speaker Balducci's selection, the Courant noted, "In a departure from past practice, Stolberg was aiming for a third term, a move which rankled traditionalists and provided grist to those seeking justification for his removal, ("Stolberg Reign Ends After Two Terms," January 5, 1989). Stolberg was reported as concluding that "perhaps he had run headfirst into a law of the political jungle: that two terms as speaker may be all one can survive without making too many enemies. 'It may be that four years is a self-enforcing limitation,' he said," ("Stolberg Calm, Philosophical on Post-Speaker Outlook," January 5, 1989).
In an article in Governing magazine ("A Coup in Connecticut: The Unmaking of a Leader—And Its Consequences," August 1990), Alan Ehrenhalt generally described the conditions and atmosphere surrounding the unseating of Speaker Stolberg. As he recounted the 1988 post-election Democratic caucus, "there was a little bit of controversy: Nobody had ever served more than two terms as speaker before. But the two-term limit was informal, and besides, it was commonly understood to mean two consecutive terms. Stolberg's tenure had been interrupted by the period of Republican control in 1985 and 1986" (p. 77). The removal, or more particularly how it had come about, was described as "shocking. " Ehrenhalt, the author of The Pursuit of Office, has studied the changing nature of legislatures generally, and theorizes here that if Stolberg had changed the way he dealt with members, "he might have remained as speaker as long as he wished," (p. 78).
The new Speaker Balducci is reported to have "fervently believed that no one should serve more than two terms as speaker, a post which, he said, carries substantial power, 'offering the opportunity for good and presenting the risk for abuse'," (Michele Jacklin, "Conservative Democrats Are Victorious in Connecticut House," State Legislatures, April 1989, p. 14).
Term of Speaker
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