With activists showing up at town halls and meetings across the state, Republicans can no longer just float rhetoric that doesn’t match their actions. House GOP Leader Themis Klarides likes to blame Connecticut’s fiscal woes on everyone but herself. At a town hall meeting last week, she blamed Republican governors and Democratic legislatures, but refused to acknowledge her share of the blame…

KLARIDES: We have big problems in the state of Connecticut. Big, big problems. We have debt this big, and the governor of this state has made it worse. But Governor Rell made it worse, Governor Rowland made it worse, down the line. I am an equal opportunity criticizer when it comes to this. I get it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: You’ve been there the whole time. You’ve been there since I was in high school.

KLARIDES: Let me explain something to you very clearly. Do you… you understand the separate but equal branches of government thing, right? We have the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. A governor can’t do anything without the legislative branch agreeing with them. Is that correct? Yes? 38 of the last 40 years, the Democrats have been in control of the House and the Senate. So yes, there were two Republican governors, and I was there for most of that time, but most of that time, there were such large majorities of Democrats in the legislature, what do you think? No matter how, whoever the governor is – Republican, Democrat – no matter how much they would like to operate as a dictatorship this is a democracy, and without the legislature agreeing with the governor, nothing gets done. So let’s just remember that. 

…Klarides, of course, neglected to mention that she routinely voted for the Republican governors’ budgets that she admits – although only when pushed by angry constituents – deserve blame for worsening the state’s finances. In fact, she voted to support Governor Rowland’s state budgets in 1999, 2000 and 2001, and Governor Rell’s budgets in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

“By her own standard, Representative Klarides deserves blame for Connecticut’s fiscal issues. But, as Republicans in the age of Trump do, she is twisting the truth — and her own record — for political gain. This is more of the same hypocrisy from the GOP caucus.” – Connecticut Democratic Party Executive Director Michael Mandell